Last week, on the first day of school in Fairfax County, Virginia, I dropped off my daughter at her middle school and headed out to do some food shopping before starting my work day as a foundation officer. The blinking red lights of a school bus prompted me to stop, and, because it was the first day of school, settle in for a longer than usual wait.
A scrum of parents surrounded the bus doors as their little ones left for the day, some for the first time ever. A dad in military fatigues videotaped the kids in the bus lineup, and a mom in a suit snapped stills of a little girl. As the bus pulled away each parent waved and most wiped a tear, climbed into a car, and headed to work. In America today, more than 80 percent of our households with children are headed by either a single working parent, or two parents who both hold jobs.
This prompted me to think: If Alaska Governor Sarah Palin becomes the Vice President of the United States, the juggling act she will have to perform to take care of those five kids -- and serve as the vice commander in chief of the free world -- will be positively breathtaking.
Believe me, I am sympathetic. I served a stint in the federal government when my two daughters were small. I was a manager at the Department of the Interior, and also served in the White House during the Clinton years. It was only due to the good graces of my direct supervisors that I was able to take care of my kids and do my job at the same time. God knows I couldn't bring my infants into the office, as news reports say Palin does. I was, however, able to take a three month maternity leave, and still come back to my same job. I was able to intermittently work a three day work week depending on my work load and my family obligations. I could work at home if one of my daughters got sick. And my husband worked part-time for awhile when I needed to log 50 hour workweeks.
I hope Sarah Palin's supervisor is as understanding as mine was. Like most American workplaces, the federal government has no set path or policies for parents with family responsibilities other than the basic guarantee of 12 weeks of unpaid leave for those who can afford it. Every working parent has to blaze their own trail. There is no paid family leave-- if you want to take time off after having a baby without losing a paycheck, you have to save up your sick and vacation time and "borrow" your paid vacation days in advance. I had two babies while in government and took three months off for each -- using my borrowed vacation days for maternity leave. That meant I had no accrued vacation time for five years. If I did take a few days off, I was docked pay.
If you're the Governor, I guess you are allowed to bring your babies, little kids and pets to the office with you. My question is: what family friendly policies will Sarah Palin support for the rest of us who can't?
Sarah's supervisor would be President John McCain. Maybe she could get him to change his current views and support legislation that would give workers paid sick days to care for themselves or their families. Palin is from Alaska so maybe she could bushwack into new territory and get McCain to help working parents by supporting the current Senate bill that would provide paid family leave to federal employees when they have a new child. (President Bush says he will veto it if it ever gets to his desk.)
As Vice President, Sarah Palin might have weightier trade-offs than most of us working parents. I can just see her mental calculations now -- "should I go to back-to-school night at Trig's preschool or sit in on the meeting with the President of Iraq?" Hmmm.
Every election year politicians and pollsters try to determine what the American people care about the most. Working parents most certainly care about the high cost of gas and the war in Iraq. But I suspect the last thing every working parent thinks about before falling asleep, and the first focus upon awakening, is how they are going to get their kid to school, or a sick kid to the doctor, or a young athlete to practice, and perform their job to the best of their ability. Or, for some of us, at least not get fired.
The days when the largest number of American family households consisted of a husband going to work and a wife staying home with the kids are long gone. Then why are most American workplaces structured as if that world still exists? For the next president and vice-president, fixing that fundamental conflict will be a trail worth blazing.
A Peaceful Revolution is a blog about innovative ideas to strengthen America's families through public policies, business practices, and cultural change. Done in collaboration with MomsRising.org, read a new post here each week.