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#Post#: 18176--------------------------------------------------
Babies at conferences?
By: Raintree Date: November 4, 2018, 7:15 pm
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I just came back from a professional conference where several
infants were in attendance. There were maybe 400 people in
attendance, and two or three brought babies. The conference was
not about babies, either.
I am not a parent but it would not have occurred to me that this
might be ok. It struck me as unprofessional, and while the
babies were generally quiet, there were a fair number of coos
and other baby noises which I thought were distracting as I was
trying to listen to the presenters. I was glad to be on the
other side of the room. If they'd have been next to me I'd have
found it REALLY annoying. (No, I don't hate babies - I also find
it annoying and distracting when adults whisper and murmur
amongst themselves when a speaker is presenting). My hearing is
ok but not great, and extraneous noise makes it difficult to
hear the speaker or is simply distracting when you are trying to
absorb difficult concepts.
I'm trying to tell myself it's great that mothers of young
babies can still attend these kinds of events, and especially if
they are breastfeeding, barring them from conferences creates a
barrier for women in the workforce. On the other hand, it's an
adult event and not all events are supposed to be
child-friendly, and it seems unfair to the presenters and to
other attendees who paid a lot of money to come and hear them.
Kind of smacks of entitlement to think you can bring your baby
wherever you want.
Curious to know others' thoughts.
#Post#: 18179--------------------------------------------------
Re: Babies at conferences?
By: bigbadbetty Date: November 4, 2018, 8:21 pm
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I went to a one-day local conference where someone brought an
infant. The baby made cooing sounds and a few cries when she
needed to be fed. It was really distracting. It isn’t fair to
the other attendees. I would have been angrier had it been
multiple days or essential training.
#Post#: 18181--------------------------------------------------
Re: Babies at conferences?
By: MOM21SON Date: November 4, 2018, 8:55 pm
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My goodness that is annoying. Unfortunately it's part of the
entitlement world today. The organizers were probably afraid to
say something.
#Post#: 18183--------------------------------------------------
Re: Babies at conferences?
By: Winterlight Date: November 4, 2018, 9:43 pm
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I think conferences should look into offering onsite child care,
since many parents cannot leave their child/children home for
varying reasons. However, children should not be attending
panels/sessions/meetings. People need to be able to hear, and a
cranky child- or a happy one- can get very noisy very fast.
#Post#: 18190--------------------------------------------------
Re: Babies at conferences?
By: collakat Date: November 5, 2018, 5:58 am
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[quote author=Winterlight link=topic=788.msg18183#msg18183
date=1541389413]
I think conferences should look into offering onsite child care,
since many parents cannot leave their child/children home for
varying reasons. However, children should not be attending
panels/sessions/meetings. People need to be able to hear, and a
cranky child- or a happy one- can get very noisy very fast.
[/quote]
I disagree, it brings a lot of extra legal and cost issues. If I
want to attend a conference, I have to make alternative
arrangements for my little one. When she was a baby, I did not
attend overnights or full days events, I made my required hours
in other ways to maintain my certifications.
#Post#: 18191--------------------------------------------------
Re: Babies at conferences?
By: Aleko Date: November 5, 2018, 6:25 am
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[quote][quote]I think conferences should look into offering
onsite child care, since many parents cannot leave their
child/children home for varying reasons. However, children
should not be attending panels/sessions/meetings. People need to
be able to hear, and a cranky child- or a happy one- can get
very noisy very fast.[/quote]
I disagree, it brings a lot of extra legal and cost issues.
[/quote]
I'll say! Providing childcare may sound like a no-brainer if
you've never had to provide it, but it's a nightmare for
organisers. For many years I helped administer a scheme
supporting NHS doctors who were obliged to work part-time and
thereby missed out on a lot of the educational opportunities and
networks available to full-timers; in the nature of things the
majority of these doctors were women with young children. We
held several free-of-charge study-and-network days a year for
them, and for the first few such days we would organise a creche
on site. Sounds great but it not only obviously swallowed a big
chunk of our budget: every time we had problems. We asked
attenders to book a place for their child, but quite often
someone who hadn't booked (but who knew there would be a creche)
would turn up on the day with their child and just park him or
her there - which could make the entire creche illegal, as here
in the UK there are very strict rules on the child-to-qualified
carer ratio. Conversely, sometimes people would book a place but
not bring their child ('oh, my mother was free today') and we'd
be paying the full day's fee for an unneeded carer. So in the
end we simply couldn't justify the trouble and expense, and
stopped doing it.
Then we tried letting people bring very young babies (who are
the hardest to find childcare for) to the study day, on
condition they were to whisk them out of the room straight away
if they started to make a noise, but that just didn't work
either. There are always people who kid themselves that their
baby isn't really making a noise, and they can get quite shirty
if asked to take it out of the room. And, of course, since so
many of the other doctors there were mothers their ears were
highly attuned to baby noises, and from the front you could see
everyone instantly losing focus as soon as a baby gurgled. In
the end there was nothing for it but to say 'No babies, sorry'.
#Post#: 18197--------------------------------------------------
Re: Babies at conferences?
By: DaDancingPsych Date: November 5, 2018, 7:57 am
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[quote author=collakat link=topic=788.msg18190#msg18190
date=1541419113]
[quote author=Winterlight link=topic=788.msg18183#msg18183
date=1541389413]
I think conferences should look into offering onsite child care,
since many parents cannot leave their child/children home for
varying reasons. However, children should not be attending
panels/sessions/meetings. People need to be able to hear, and a
cranky child- or a happy one- can get very noisy very fast.
[/quote]
I disagree, it brings a lot of extra legal and cost issues. If I
want to attend a conference, I have to make alternative
arrangements for my little one. When she was a baby, I did not
attend overnights or full days events, I made my required hours
in other ways to maintain my certifications.
[/quote]
Aleko has already outlined many issues that might make this
difficult. I, as a childfree participant, would be less happy to
know that my conference dollars were going to childcare. I am a
no frou frou kind of attendee. If I can avoid paying for
unnecessary, pricey extras (ie. lunch or unnecessary paper),
then I would prefer to do just that.
This is a tricky one, because I know how difficult childcare can
be, especially for babies who may still be nursing. I hate to
see anyone not be included in something that could booster their
career, but I also hate being disrupted during a presentation
(especially when the money came out of my own pocket!) I would
say that deciding to have a family means that you may have to
make a few sacrifices along the way. (My childfree choices have
brought sacrifices, too.) It might mean that you cannot attend a
conference or need to make other arrangements for childcare, but
I think that that is most fair option for everyone.
#Post#: 18199--------------------------------------------------
Re: Babies at conferences?
By: Hmmm Date: November 5, 2018, 8:13 am
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I agree that it is inappropriate to bring a baby to a
professional conference. If the conference is truly a priority
for the woman, then the Dad can take care of the baby while she
is gone or they hire a babysitter or a friend.
I know some mom's choose to exclusively breastfeed and not pump
and that limits their time away from their child. That to me
means she has set that as a priority over being able to attend
events that are not baby friendly.
#Post#: 18200--------------------------------------------------
Re: Babies at conferences?
By: AtHomeRose Date: November 5, 2018, 8:16 am
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I think this is completely up to the conference organizers. I
have helped organize conferences for the professional societies
I belong to and have been please that welcoming infants under a
certain age is a growing trend in my professional sphere. I
think one of the reasons for this is we have a growing
leadership of mid-career women who remember the fear of missing
those one or two professional development conferences a year
because of having infants too young to be left.
As an organizer I understand that this might annoy some
participants, but we have always come down on the side that the
benefit of keeping these women fully involved in the society and
career far out way the slight annoyance of a coo or cry during a
presentation. At a conference of 500 or so we have never had
more than one to three parents need to bring an infant. And our
participants have always been good about removing little ones
who did not quite quickly. We also set up a separate room with
video and audio feed for those who had special needs, visual
impairment, hearing needs, mobility issues and moms with nursing
infants.
I don’t think there is any unprofessional, entitled or rude
about bringing an infant to a conference if the organizers have
ok it. One time we had a key note speaker bring her nursing
infant daughter, I think it was wonderful, showing you could be
a fully involved Mom and still make great contributions to our
field.
I keep using Moms/Women because they are still the ones who make
most of the career sacrifices for kids but we did have a Dad
bring an infant one time, so it is equal opportunity assistance.
#Post#: 18203--------------------------------------------------
Re: Babies at conferences?
By: lmyrs Date: November 5, 2018, 8:56 am
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I think it's important to allow mothers to fully participate in
the workforce. And, yes, I said mothers, not parents, because it
is traditionally mothers that have taken on the lion's share of
child care and are expected to sacrifice their careers to
benefit their families. If a conference welcomes babies and the
parent is good about removing a loud child, then it's not rude
or entitled to take your baby. I'm reminded of recent stories
about a Canadian government minister breast feeding in the House
of Commons and the Prime Minister of New Zealand having her
child in the parliament and the UN. Minister Gould (Canada) was
not the first MP to breastfeed in the House, but she was the
first Minister of the Crown. These are big barriers being broken
down that are for the benefit of everyone. Gould's Twitter
response was quite good, [quote]No shame in breastfeeding!
Baby's gotta eat & I had votes. Clearly still work to do... Glad
@HOCSpeaker & parl colleagues supportive! :)[/quote]
I don't have kids. I don't even particularly like most kids but
I think that this is important.
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