"And I am not talking about the bags under your eyes or the six cups of coffee needed to get through the day. It usually happens at 4:59 p.m. when they start to pack up so they can make it to daycare or a school recital or any number of obligations parents have. As they slip out of the open-plan cubicle maze, a child-free colleague glances over and thinks (or sometimes says out loud), "Must be nice.""
"In my book How to Have a Kid and a Life, I wrote about the motherhood penalty, the well-documented hit mothers take in pay, promotions, and perceived competence. Decades of research show that when you add kids to a woman's résumé, hiring managers see her as less committed and less competent than an identical candidate without children. The same studies show fathers are often perceived as more committed."
Workplaces divide into parents versus nonparents, producing perceptions of committed versus distracted workers. Mothers experience a motherhood penalty in pay, promotions, and perceived competence when hiring managers learn of children. Fathers are frequently perceived as more committed after becoming parents. The shift to hybrid or flexible schedules raises questions about whether flexibility reduces or exacerbates empathy gaps. Many workplaces still idealize always-available workers who never step out for childcare. Bias appears in routine moments: high-visibility projects favor single colleagues, managers excuse assigning work to avoid burdening new mothers, and reviews praise flexibility while questioning availability.
Read at Fast Company
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