When Every Day is Bring Your Kid to Work Day

Forget maternity leave. Don't bother with daycare. Just bring your children to the office with you every day.

That's a reality for several parents described in this New York Times story, including the head of a Manhattan investment boutique who has equipped her daughter with a playroom just outside her office where the girl can spend the day (with a babysitter) while Mummy slaves away in the financial sector. And she's not the only one. Borshoff, a communications firm in Indianapolis, has a Bring Your Baby to Work program that allows their working parents to do the same thing. The catch: They only get paid 80 percent of their salaries if they enroll because company management has found that employees aren't 100 percent productive when their kids are present. (Well, duh.)

The story raises some obvious issues, such as the distractions such arrangements raise for mums, dads and their colleagues, as well as the potential toll they can take on one's work. But it doesn't ask a very important question: Is it good for kids to essentially be raised every day in an office environment? If the children are all in a separate playroom, the situation probably doesn't differ much from attending a daycare centre. But if the kids are literally in their mum's or dad's office all day, I have to wonder whether that's a positive thing for them. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just saying I'd like to know the answer to that question.

Jacqueline Grace, a publishing company executive, believes the answer is: yes, it's absolutely a positive thing. She tells the Times that having her daughter come to work every day since she was two-months-old (she's now five) has "taught her so much about who she is, who she can be, as well as some amazing office skills in the process."

I am all in favour of companies that take a flexible and creative approach to parenting, and applaud every single one mentioned in this story for doing just that. But even if we can manage to juggle the phone calls, meetings and deadlines with children in the office, we surely owe it to our sons and daughters to find out if that environment is truly what's best for their development.

Image: Fifth Avenue Digital Via The New York Times