Werd I/O

One. Is it even ethical to bring a child into the world right now? During their lifetime we’ll see water scarcity and an increase in global conflict as a result of climate change. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. How, in good conscience, can I bring a new human into that?

It’s an imperfect answer, but I’ve arrived at this: what would the world look like if only the people who didn’t believe in climate change had children? Yes, they’re going to need to be part of the solution, because everyone will need to be. It’s a tough ask for a human who didn’t ask to be born. But I’m confident they’ll be an asset to the future.

Two. What does nationality look like? It’s important to me, but why, exactly?

I’m a third culture kid: living in the US is the first time I’ve spent an extended time in a place where I was a citizen. I’ve written before about how I consider myself to have no nationality and no religion.

The thing is, that’s not quite right: I am a product of all the nationalities and cultures that led up to me. That I don’t exactly identify with any of them doesn’t mean that they don’t belong to me.

But that’s just me: Erin, as the mother, carries a full half of their context, and has a different background to me. How do you honor both backgrounds and contexts, while also downplaying the importance of nationality and patriotism overall?

What’s important to me is that they know they’re from multiple places, and they know that the world is their oyster. Rather than patriotism, I want them to feel proud to be human, and to feel connected to all humans. I want them to have broad horizons and an inclusively global mindset. They can do anywhere and do anything they want: the world is awash with possibilities. And at the same time, everyone, everywhere matters, and people who are more local to them do not matter more than people who are more remote. I want my child to have the privilege of openness and connectedness.

Three. I want to keep them healthy and happy. That, in itself, is incredibly daunting. What if I hurt them somehow?

Four. I’ve spent my life in front of screens. I literally learned to write on a Sinclair ZX81, writing stories that incorporated the BASIC shortcuts on its keyboard. Characters would GOTO places a lot; they would RUN; THEN they would do something else. One of my first memories is watching the animated interstitial network announcements on our little TV in Amsterdam.

What should their relationship with devices be? The going advice is that introducing screens too early can interfere with their development. And at the same time, my dad in particular deliberately allowed me to play with everything. I took apart radios; I mucked around with computers with impunity; I developed, early on, a complete lack of fear of technology. And that’s served me very well.

I’ll admit to feeling a bit judgmental of parents of those toddlers out in the world who have iPads in carry-cases. But what right do I have to feel that way? I’ve never had a child, until now. Maybe I’ll feel completely different.

And actually, I feel very strongly about tablets and phones themselves. I didn’t have a device that couldn’t be hacked until I was in my twenties. Everything could be taken apart, programmed for, adjusted. There were no games consoles in our household, and cellphones weren’t really available until I was older. I like that philosophy: open technology only. Teach them early to be a maker, not a consumer.

Five. Should I buy a domain name for them? Reserve a Twitter username? Is that self-indulgent?

Six. It’s important to make sure babies interact with a wide range of people while they’re very little, to allow them to develop an understanding that every type of face is part of their circle. Infants learn about race in their first year; by 9 months old, they recognize faces from their own race better than others. By 6 months old, they may exhibit racial bias. So it’s incredibly important that their circles are diverse.

While this cognitive wiring is established early, developmental changes obviously continue throughout childhood. For these reasons - and also just because they’re better places to live for all kinds of reasons - it’s important to be in a cosmopolitan, diverse, open-minded location. Homogenous towns and cities are not what I want, both as a person, and for my child.

Seven. No, I don’t think ideological diversity is anywhere near as important as actual intersectional diversity. And I have no intention to allow bigotry or small-mindedness to enter their worldview.

Empathy, inclusion, love, understanding, and connectedness must be core values. Change is inevitable and to be embraced. Difference is beautiful. The world is to be explored and embraced.

Eight. I like the idea and philosophy of free-range parenting. Let the child explore and learn on their own terms, for crying out loud. Let them ride bikes in the neighborhood and hang out with their friends and generally live out The Goonies.

But that seems to be out of vogue? There’s a trend of helicopter parents who schedule their child’s every moment? The idea seems repellant to me - doesn’t it mean that they miss out on developing a degree of autonomy? - but am I right to feel that way?

Nine. My parents made friends through pre-natal and baby classes - and that’s where a lot of my early friends came from, too. Everything’s online now because of covid. Where are baby-friends supposed to come from?

Ten. How do we share photos and information with family and friends without compromising on privacy? Social media sites like Instagram and Facebook will be data-mined; email feels insecure because I don’t know who will end up seeing photos and messages. The really private tools and services are too hard to use for a lot of people. What’s the best practice? What does baby infosec look like?

Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash

This is one of those times I can’t believe I get to work at The 19th. We’re putting on a free event on voter equality with a roster of very smart speakers headlined by Stacey Abrams, in partnership with Live Nation Women and Teen Vogue, live in Atlanta or free to watch afterwards online.

Go register!

If you’re subscribing via email, heads up that I’m thinking about changing my newsletter engine, possibly to Buttondown. You shouldn’t see anything particularly different - and if you’re subscribing via RSS, nothing will change at all. But, to be honest, I’ll be paying a lot less money for a lot more power.

As always, I really appreciate it when people share around my posts, or let me know if they’ve disagreed with something I’ve written. Your time and attention are limited; thanks for sticking around.

I recently heard a story about a company that, when determining who would be laid off in a downsizing event, asked team leads to rank their teams based on who would be most likely to work on the weekend.

Mind-blowingly, while it’s obviously (or hopefully obviously) immoral, this practice appears to be legal in the US, which has at-will employment in every state. This is one of the many contrasts between European and US employment law, which were the biggest culture shock for me when I moved to the US eleven years ago. In Europe, employers must ensure that employees don’t work more than 48 hours during a week and the minimum vacation allocation beyond statutory holidays is four weeks. In America, it’s often seen as a badge of honor to work 70 hour weeks, and it’s one of the few countries in the world with 0 mandatory vacation days.

Perhaps my concerns around compassionate employment are irredeemably European, but as I’ve written before, long hours with little rest are counter-productive. Environments that want you to work weekends and evenings in addition to standard office hours tend to value performative productivity over actual results, or adhere to a kind of religious belief around work ethic. If these employers paid attention to the research and data, they wouldn’t do it.

This is perhaps even more of a problem in flexible and work from home settings. In my previous piece, I quoted a French member of Parliament:

“Employees physically leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain attached by a kind of electronic leash — like a dog. The texts, the messages, the emails — they colonize the life of the individual to the point where he or she eventually breaks down.”

I heard recently about another company where the CEO regularly shouts at their team, and if a team lead suggests that a goal can’t be reached, retorts that they’ll find a team who can achieve it instead. These companies share a common trait: a fundamental lack of respect for the expertise and the lives of the people they’ve hired. It’s as if there’s some inherent value to this kind of work, and that the exchange of time for money obviates the need for human care.

It’s cultural. “I don’t think you should work while you have covid,” I told someone recently, mindful of the research about recovery times and long covid. “Maybe I learned the wrong lessons from my Dad,” he replied.

As well as being health and quality issues, these kinds of attitudes compound inclusion problems: only certain kinds of people can work all hours. Carers and parents, and particularly people from lower-income backgrounds, are more likely to have other commitments.

All aspects of a company’s culture are really hard to change when it’s already been set in motion. Either you care about creating a place that cares for its employees or you don’t, and these values affect the choices that are made by founders from the very first day. It’s impossible to do it bespoke, too: every aspect of a company has to pull together with the same cultural underpinnings. The entirety of a community has to pull together or resentments and friction build.

The same cultural change problem doesn’t apply in the same way across the country. While this is a uniquely American problem, not every American company behaves this way: to be frank, most of the successful ones don’t. One of the most promising aspects of the organization I’m at, The 19th, is its excellent, intentionally inclusive culture; it’s among the best, but not the first time I’ve felt valued at work. And it doesn’t take a people ops superhero to understand that people who feel valued do better work overall.

While I think these problems are best solved through legislation and unionization, competitive forces can be a useful fallback. Not everyone has the luxury of being discerning about their employer, but each of the companies I’ve mentioned is in the tech sector: a world where knowledge workers often do have the privilege of choice. Again, it doesn’t take an empath to understand that, given the choice between two otherwise similar firms, employees are more likely to choose to work at the one with a more supportive culture. It goes without saying that yelling doesn’t make for a productive workplace, but if you want to hire the best people, you’ve got to be the best place for them to work, and understand that, past a point, people are motivated by meaning, not money.

From a prospective employee standpoint, if you’re looking for a job, it helps to understand that you have every right to ask for and expect a better, more supportive culture. Having strong standards here makes the employment experience better for everyone, and helps even the worst employers understand that they need to change if they want to be successful.

But make no mistake: the onus is not on employees here. Employers - and the legislators that govern them in the United States - need to drag themselves into the twenty-first century and learn that a strong culture of support in turn makes for strong companies, and strong countries.