P(r)imping & S(l)ideshows

I got an e-mail earlier advising me that I was being followed on Twitter by WEtv.  As I usually do when I get one of these notifications, I toddled on over to WEtv’s Twitter site to check it out.  The first (most recent) entry I read was something about a show called Little Miss Perfect that is airing on WEtv (a/k/a “Television for Women” – can I just tell you how much I like being lumped into this category?  ARGH).

It seems Little Miss Perfect is a “reality” television show.  And this one is all about the world of beauty pageants for children.  If you’re anything like me, when you hear “beauty pageants for children,” you immediately think of JonBenét Ramsey, that poor little girl who was murdered 12 years ago.

It’s no secret that I have a particularly vehement dislike of beauty pageants.  Judging people by their physical appearance is wrong.  I don’t care whether we’re talking about men or women.  But I do think it’s an even more heinous thing to do to children.

Why on earth would anyone want to dress his/her daughter up – including clothing, shoes, hairstyles, and make-up – to look like an 18-year-old hooker turned southern belle circa 1980?  Or would it be 18-year-old southern belle circa 1980 turned hooker?  I’m not quite sure.  And have you seen the way these tykes are taught to walk?  Nothing like teaching a six-year-old to shake her ass.  Ever hear the saying, “I’d like to have a swing like that on my porch?”

Condoning teaching little girls that their net worth is rapped up in their physical appearance and encouraging parents to dress their children up like adults… this is what “Television for Women” is about?  Really?

And this reminds me that I want to purchase the movie Little Miss Sunshine.  Have you seen it?  I’m guessing the powers that be at WEtv have not.  Or they saw it and just didn’t get it.  Judging from WEtv’s programming, Little Miss Sunshine was probably over their heads.  I wonder how much money WEtv is going to make by capitalizing on this crap.  Of course, this is also the channel that brings you Bridezillas,* a show about amazingly superficial women behaving so badly that I find it hard to believe anyone would want to spend ten minutes with them, much less the rest of their lives.

So, is it any wonder that while I was perusing WEtv’s Little Miss Perfect website, I misread the word slideshow as sideshow and the word primp and pimp? More sad than funny, I’m afraid.

So, I’m now officially boycotting WEtv.  I’ll not be watching anything on that channel.  They either need to change the name of their channel so as to stop insulting women by marketing this tripe specifically to them or they need to stop marketing this bullshit and air something that has some semblance of intelligence.

* I just recently discovered this Bridezillas show over the Christmas/New Year holiday.  I had enough time off work that I was actually able to sit down and flip through television channels I don’t usually watch.

Crossposted from Eriepressible

Joan’s At It Again

Joan Blades, is at it again, advocating people take their kids to work with them instead of either staying home to care for them themselves or hiring someone to care for them in their absence.

Fortunately, Joan does manage to admit that this idea will  not work in all employment situations, but I think she is over-estimating how many people could make this work.

Yes there are jobs for which this is simply not possible, but there are also millions of jobs where keeping your baby with you is the most natural thing in the world.

Millions?  Really?  I’m hard-pressed to think of anything other than some white collar executive-type positions.  And even a lot of those jobs would be tough to handle while breastfeeding, changing diapers, or while a fussy infant was wailing in the background.

Joan links to a New York Times article on the same topic, but she doesn’t mention a few things noted in that article:

Of course, disadvantages are clear, too. The needs and noises of babies have the potential to be highly disruptive and to stir resentment among co-workers.

Susan Seitel, president of WFC Resources, a workplace consulting firm in Minneapolis, put it this way: “The business of business is business. I think it’s a little distracting to have children at the office.”

Critics also say that both child and job could lose out because the parent can’t be 100 percent devoted to either one.

…

The most successful programs, Ms. Moquin said, are ones in which companies have written policies — to designate another employee as an alternate caregiver in case the parent is temporarily unavailable; to specify areas for breastfeeding or changing diapers; and to spell out the ages when children are allowed in the office. Usually, babies are allowed up until 6 to 8 months, or before they start to crawl.

Even women who advocate bringing babies to the office say it can be rough. “It’s far better for me to have my child at home. It’s hard to be your best work person and your best mom because you’re doing both things at one time,” said Denise McVey, president of S3, a 25-person advertising agency in Boonton, N.J., who brought her son to the office for his first eight months.

Borshoff, a communications firm in Indianapolis with 40 employees, has a Bring Your Baby to Work program for infants ages 6 weeks to 6 months. The firm pays 80 percent of an employee’s full salary when the child is in the office.

That way, the parent can devote energy to the child without feeling guilty. “It feels very fair,” said Susan F. Matthews, principal of the firm. “We keep time sheets so we can monitor productivity, and we see that parents really don’t maintain the same productivity levels.”

The New York Times, January 3, 2009

I don’t see a problem with having on-site daycare facilities – if a company wants to go to that expense.  It takes physical space, hiring staff, insurance, etc.  It’s not a cheap date.  However, if the employees who needed these services were willing to pay for the on-site daycare centers, it would be a much more doable prospect for many companies.  But that’s not what momsrising wants.  Momsrising wants either the companies to foot the entire bill themselves or for the government to foot the bill/subsidize the project.

Joan Blades also doesn’t mention that one of the companies that allows employees to bring kids to work with them only pays those employees 80% of their regular salary, because they take into consideration that the productivity of those employees goes down.  I’m going to have to go with a great big DUH on that revelation.  But I’m rather surprised that line didn’t send Joan into a full blown seizure, since momsrising also has a problem with mothers getting paid less and being passed over for promotions more often than their nonprogenied counterparts, even though most employers will tell you it’s because the nonchilded worker works more… ergo, that employee gets paid more/advances faster.  It’s a system that makes quite of bit of sense, if you actually stop to think about it.

Joan mentions the financial strain having a child puts on the parents several times, yet I don’t see any mention in her article or in anything on the momsrising website that advocates people actually doing any kind of financial planning before deciding to have a child.  Wouldn’t that be the wise thing to do?  Wouldn’t it make sense to save up before having a kid so that one or even both parents could take an extended leave of absence from his/her job or even quit altogether, if that’s what they want?  Yes, it might be difficult, but for millions* of people, it’s possible.

Unfortunately, momsrising would rather have people popping out kids willy-nilly without any forethought whatsoever.  Financial considerations?  Bah!, they say.  Just let the government foot the bill.  If they can afford the tax bill that’s going to require, then they can sure as hell afford daycare or some time off work.

* Hey, if Joan can claim that there are “millions” of jobs that are conducive to having a bring-your-baby-to-work program, then I can claim that there are millions of jobs that pay well enough for people to be able to save in advance for the birth of a child.

Crossposted from Eriepressible 01/07/2009