Take Your Kids...and...er...?

Lots of people have squawked about "Take Your Child (nee daughter) to Work Day" since it started a little over a decade ago.

Today? Of all people, it's the schools that are raising a fuss:

Now another problem threatens the annual event, happening today: Schools are beginning to protest, too. Some, such as Minneapolis Public Schools, have gone so far as to refuse to excuse children who skip school to go to work.

Right.

When I was a kid - at least through high school - our schools took exactly one day off (Easter) between New Years and Memorial Day. The only exceptions were blizzards and if our basketball team made it to the semifinals.

Nowadays, for the six weeks before Easter, my kids have had at least one day out of school every single week for the previous four to six weeks. Teachers conferences, "in-service", training, in-service training, training conferences, conference service, in-conference service training, you name it.

But for goodness sake, don't let the kids out of school to actually learn something about their parents' worlds!

Don't get me wrong - I think "take your kid to work day" is a misguided piece of feminist victimology at its very core:

"The real idea of 'Take Our Daughters' was originally not about work," she said. "It was about how to do what the resilience research said the girls needed: Help them have strong relationships with adults in their world."

After complaints, the founders decided to include boys. They tried to apply the same principle they had with the girls -- encouraging boys to explore traditionally female undertakings such as child care or community volunteering -- but "the men said no, that would punish their sons," [Ms. Foundation president Marie] Wilson said.

But these days, I'm starting to think that time out of school doing something productive causes less damage than being in school.

More on this later.

Posted by Mitch at April 22, 2004 07:00 AM