Take Our Daughter's to Work - a memory

One morning, several years ago, upon arriving at my job at a local television station I was greeted by about 25 girls ranging in age from 5 to 17 who were milling around the newsroom. It was "Take Our Daughters to Work" day...

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UGH! I had heard of it but I didn’t have kids so I never gave it a second thought. At that moment, however, it was all I could think about. I was very angry that I would be dealing with it all day. This was, after all, a serious workplace and I was young and ambitious and didn’t have time for kids who were going to be loud, annoying and in my way. I was about ten minutes into this arrogant mental tirade when I overheard one of the producers explaining her job to her daughter. Whoosh! My giant ego lay deflated on the floor and I realized I had this scenario all wrong. This wasn’t just about bringing kids to work with you. This was about something way bigger than that.

I grew up in the early 1980’s. Every morning my mother dressed in a nice suit with a pretty blouse that had a big bow at the neck (think Jane Fonda in the movie 9-5) and was off to her job just about the same time I would get on the bus to go to school. I never gave it a second thought that my mother had a job. That’s just the way it was. Now when I think of it, it is astonishing to me that at the same time I was in school anticipating the day I would start my career my mother’s choice to work was raising eyebrows all over the neighborhood. Although my mother never discussed her personal struggles in the workplace, making the choice to work rather than stay home with the kids was relatively rare for a woman of her generation and nearly unheard of for the women of my grandmother’s generation. I have been so blessed to believe that I have choices but it has been easy for me to forget all of the trials that my foremothers endured to ensure that both my mother and I were allowed the opportunities that we have had.

In my high school history class we spent maybe a minute considering the women’s rights movement - a lesson that was as abstract as it was brief and limited to voting rights. It wasn’t until several years later that I came to understand the broad spectrum of this movement and that it wasn’t just a blip on a time-line but alive in the hearts of millions of men and women who fought for voting rights, reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work, job security, job consideration, Title 9, property ownership rights and legal rights for women. On this day in my office, those 25 girls joined their foremothers and experienced the beautiful invocation of possibility. Just as I had years earlier when my mother chose to go to work. This seemingly small gesture of taking our daughters to work was about giving these impressionable girls and young women the chance see a variety of choices and opportunities, embrace the value of their personhood and consider the myriad ways they can contribute to the well being of themselves, their families and humankind.

Thank you, Diane Smith, Pauline Elliott, Belva Koenig, Sophie Collins, Stephanie Reel, Louisa May Alcott, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sandra Day O'Connor, Geraldine Ferraro, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Bessie Coleman, Amelia Earhart, Dani Davis, Hon. Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth,Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, Jane Alexander, Lt. Kara Hultgreen, and so many more.

Road Rebel Ren