I found this interview with Claire Groggin Sivits to be interesting; not just because of her perspective as a woman but specifically about the conflicts that come up because she is a mom.
On the one hand: I’m not a parent so this isn’t something that concerns me right away. But I’m happy to take her perspective into consideration and I believe that every industry could do a better job of accommodating parents, especially women.
I think the conclusion of the interview is very interesting, too: that there are places that have space for children and spaces that don’t. I’m fine with either, so long as it’s well managed and clear to customers what they’re getting because I get it: it’s not fun to go somewhere and discover, oh, no, I can’t come into that spot.
That sucks.
Conversely, she talks about letting her kid run around in a restaurant space and I’m thinking: Wait. No. There are other people there and your kid is intruding on their meal. That’s not OK, even if the space allows for children. I understand that one cannot corral toddlers every moment but I hope that parents are at least being self aware enough to try to keep their children from disrupting someone else.
We can all be polite and kind about the space we share.
