Take Your Daughter (or Son) to Work Day

by Susan Farrell

"Bye, Mom, Have a good day!"

And off they go to school, off to their own world of friends, textbooks, lunch boxes and recess.

I know where they're going and what they'll be doing, but do they know what I'll be doing all day? Do your kids have any idea what it is you do all day or where it is you work?

It isn't something we generally stop to explain or even think about normally. Do your kids know what you really do all day? I know mine didn't until they had a chance to participate in Take Your Kid To Work Day.

This program started as Take Your Daughter to Work Day by the Ms. Foundation. It was designed to encourage career exploration by young women, and educate our children about what it is we really do all day.

Many companies participate in and encourage this program, allowing employees to bring their daughter to work on the fourth Thursday of April each year. Some companies have adapted the program to also include sons, or provide for a Take Your Son to Work Day during the year, and many companies allow employees to sponsor a child whether or not it is their own child. Some have structured events and programs, others allow the child to shadow their parent or sponsor for the day. Additionally, some organizations such as Girl Scouts have programs set up which match a young woman up with a female executive mentor in the career field they have chosen to learn more about. What started as a small program to with a few companies letting daughters come to work with their parents for a day has grown to become a nationwide event encouraging youth to learn more about careers and their parents.

I have served as a committee member or chair of the Take Your Daughter (or Child) to Work Day program at three different major corporations over the past seven years. My children, now 16 (daughter) and 14 (son), have learned a great deal from participating in these programs. The most valuable lesson I think they learned about their mom, a single mom, is what it is my day is really like, and what it is that I do all day.

Most children see their parent go off to work in the morning and return at night, having no idea what it is that parent does all day in between. Have you ever asked a child what it is they think a parent does all day? Many of them think we just go off to work just as they go off to school: to spend time with friends, learn a few things or fix a few things perhaps, maybe even make something, though they have no idea how or why usually.

They don't realize how stressful and busy and pressured a work environment can be, or how tedious or focused and busy. By shadowing a parent for a day, a child learns about the realities of the work place. It gives them a new perspective. They suddenly see their mom (or dad) in a very different role, and they earn a new respect for their parent as a role model in a new role. My children gained a new respect for what my days were like and why I was sometimes exhausted at the end of the day. It has helped us to learn to work together even better as they now are more open to helping me in the evening with dinner, chores, etc. They also realize now that money is much harder to earn that they previously thought, and they think twice about spending it so easily and carefree, knowing now what went into earning it. In addition, they have a new respect for the adult working world, and a new curiosity of what type of career they want for themselves.