How (and Why) Catholic Business Leaders Should Support Working Parents
“In the face of the so-called culture of death, the family is the heart of the culture of life” (Pope St. John Paul II).
When our oldest child was a baby, my husband and I took her to work with us from the time she was two months old. Depending on the day, my husband wore her in a baby carrier while he taught middle school, or I took her to my office, where she napped and played while I conducted meetings and planned events.
This was what we wanted: to have our daughter with us for most of the week. Not all parents would choose this arrangement even if it were possible with the tasks required by their jobs. However, we wanted to try bringing our daughter with us, and our employers generously gave us the flexibility to realize this desire.
I won’t sugarcoat our experience by saying that it was easy or simple; we had to be creative, roll with unpredictability, and make sacrifices. Additionally, I will not make the claim that every working parent should plan child care in such a way. However, our family benefited from this arrangement; my husband and I had the joy of taking care of our daughter ourselves most days of the week. We got to know her during her most alert hours, we saved money on child care, and—in case you were wondering—we got all our work done, too. Life and parenthood are never easy, but we got to be the primary caretakers of our daughter during those early, precious months.
Our companies could have said no, but they didn’t, and we are so grateful. They allowed a tailor-made child care arrangement that gave us the space to be a family first and to be parents before we were employees. Our employers gave us the freedom to put our primary vocation and most important work as parents tangibly alongside our day jobs.
It Worked, but Only Because We Asked
In many ways, my husband and I were the ones blazing the trail. At my husband’s school, it was understood that mothers could bring their infants to work, but he was the first dad to bring his baby. At my job, having a baby in the office was not a precedent at all. Our bosses were open to it, but we asked for the exception to the rule.
Also, the clock was ticking on our child care experiment. While having her with us for the first several months worked, our particular jobs and workspaces were not compatible with the needs of a toddler. We would eventually have to decide: Either the baby would have to go to daycare, or one of us would have to leave work while the other got a job that could support our family on one income. There was no middle option.
Looking back, I think our experience begs the question: Why wasn’t there a middle option? Why aren’t working parents offered more flexibility and accommodations? Why does the current workplace model necessitate that parents and children must, without qualification, be separated for eight hours a day? Workplace culture in America idolizes productivity to the point of jeopardizing the most important things, such as the proximity of children, especially young children, to their parents.
We need more businesses to think proactively about how to support their employees’ family lives. Specifically, we need Catholic businesses and business leaders to show the world what a real pro-family workplace culture looks like.
Catholic Teaching Champions the Family
A major tenet of Catholic Social Teaching is that society is built upon the family. The Church’s stance is that the family—a man and a woman open to the gift of children within marriage—is the basic building block that contributes to the common good of society. Are Catholic businesses acting on this teaching?
FemCatholic, an online publication for women, published a report on maternity leave policies in Catholic dioceses in the United States. The report found that of all 176 dioceses in the 50 states and Washington, D.C., fewer than 25% offer fully paid maternity leave, and 44 dioceses do not offer paid leave at all.
The intention of the report, and the accompanying petition to the U.S. bishops, is not to unduly criticize the Church but to start an important conversation. Samantha Povlock, the founder of FemCatholic, states the purpose of the report when she says, “We believe the Church cares about women; we believe the Church cares about families. … FemCatholic is building the platform for women and for the Church to enter into dialogue that will lead to meaningful change.”
But maternity leave is just one aspect (albeit a very important aspect) of family policies. What about paternity leave or family leave for adoption? Catholic employers and business leaders should consider such questions. Corporate America is still experiencing repercussions of the Industrial Revolution, which disrupted the rhythm between work and family life. Catholic leaders today need to be willing to challenge the status quo of the last 150 years and advocate for the centrality of families in society.
Secular Companies Are Doing It, and It’s Working
An employee benefit gaining traction in U.S. companies is on-site child care. More businesses are adopting this benefit, which is helpful both to working parents and to the companies themselves.
Patagonia, an outdoor clothing brand, may be the most famous company to provide on-site child care, which they have done since 1983. Rose Marcario, Patagonia’s CEO from 2008 to 2020, believed in the ethics behind such a policy, and she proved that it financially balanced out for the company. Marcario’s position is that the benefits—including employee retention and engagement, tax benefits, employee loyalty, and a workplace culture of trust—far outweigh the costs.
Patagonia isn’t the only company to see the benefits of child care assistance; now, companies exist specifically to help manage employee-provided child care. Catholic Social Teaching is behind it in theory—and, if that’s not convincing enough, you can take it from companies who actually do it: Pro-family policy pays off.
What Do Pro-Family Policies Look Like?
Good maternity leave and on-site child care could be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to corporate family policies. Other family policies might include:
Financial assistance for child care, childbirth, and adoption costs.
Diaper changing tables in every restroom (male or female).
Private rooms for nursing mothers.
Remote work flexibility.
After-school spaces for children.
Health coverage for prenatal and postpartum care, as well as pro-life infertility treatment.
Sick day policies that allow employees to care for family members as well as themselves.
This list is by no means exhaustive. For companies considering policy improvements, the most essential thing is that employers have a disposition that family comes first and work comes second.
The Catholic Church is the most publicly outspoken pro-life institution in the world; it would be powerful if more Catholic businesses and dioceses followed this pro-life stance with corporate support of family life. Once the realities of family life are acknowledged in the workplace, beginning but not ending with the primary place of parents in children’s lives, we will see real progress toward a culture of life.
Alexandra Cook is a freelance writer living in northern Virginia with her husband and two children.