THEIR FATHER!
Stop asking questions to women that you would NEVER ask a man!
I’m a strategic enterprise seller. I close seven-figure deals. I travel to meet C-suite executives.
And the question I get asked most often?
“Who’s at home watching your kids?”
Their father. A concept so baffling, apparently, that grown men ask me about it in professional settings.
On average, in my career, the sales teams that I have been a part of were 10-15% female. Meaning, in almost every room over the course of my career, the majority of the time I am the only female or joined by 1-2 others. My day to day has been rampant with overt sexism mixed with unconscious bias and micro-aggressions.
My patience for sexist micro-aggressions (even if they are unconscious) gets less and less as I grow older.
This one sends me into a rage each and every time because here's what that question actually says:
The assumption that I am the ONLY person who can care for my children and it is offensively to their existence that I follow my own dreams or pursue my own career if it means leaving them with someone else.
The complete confusion that I am able to do something other than be at home to keep them alive and how that just shocks people enough for them to inquire about it… in a professional setting no less.
The instant and confident thought that I aligned myself willingly and then procreated with another human who was incapable of managing himself and his offspring.
The instinctual bias that a male cannot manage children on their own for an extended period of time without a female present and assisting.
AYFKM?!?! 🤬
If this happens to you… and you are tired of the polite awkward half fake laugh response of “their father” each and every time… I have a few suggested responses that you can steal from me anytime you want!
“I don’t know but when I left they seemed fine.” (if you want to go FULL chaos)
::blank stare:: → “Oh, Are we still asking that question nowadays?”
“The man who made them with Me”
“What do the men say when you ask them that?”
“A fully capable adult who happens to share their DNA. Wild concept, I know.”
“I hired a professional. His name is Dad.”
“I left a very detailed instruction manual. Page one: ‘You are their parent.’”
“Honestly, I haven’t thought about it since I married a grown man.”
I am not actually watching him. I co-parent with the environment. Let the internet raise him and occasionally course-correct.
...
Also, pillow forts.