Take Your Daughter to Work Day (TYDTWD) has been celebrated on the fourth Thursday in April since 1993. The brainchild of Marie C. Wilson and the illustrious Gloria Steinem, the goal was to let young girls see what they could choose to be and remind women of what they want to be.
The celebration has lasted, uninterrupted for the past 27 years until, in 2020, it ran into a global pandemic. With women and men either out of work or working from home, there is no longer an opportunity to bring your daughter or son to the office. That’s why I propose something new but equally impactful – Take Your Husband to Work Day.
When TYDTWD started in 1993, my wife and I were graduating from The College of William and Mary. We worked together to get through school and then, in 2002 we worked together at the same company. Since then, I have talked to my wife randomly about work but I haven’t seen “Work Robin” up close until the same global pandemic caused both of us to work, again, inside the same office – our home.
My wife’s home office is about 15 feet from my home office (aka the kitchen). It wasn’t intentional but I have had the pleasure of observing my wife work for the past several weeks. Every Zoom meeting is an opportunity to for me to see her in action, interacting with her team, resolving problems, giving directions, hiring people (or not hiring people). It has been special.
Robin is alive when she is at work. Robin is always alive and present but, at work, I get to see her other side, the side I fell in love with. It reminded me that the last time Robin and I worked together, you could count nine months before she birthed our daughter. This is why there should be a National Take Your Husband to Work Day (TYHTWD). An annual opportunity for wives to show off and for husbands to bask in their wives’ bust-the-glass-ceiling glow.
Where daughters need to spend time in the workforce seeing who they could be, husbands need time seeing who their wives are out in the marketplace of society. We need to see the person she was before she became a wife and before she became a mother. We also need to see her navigate the world at large, outside of the home, the bedroom and the kitchen. In this, we can see the original version of her, enhanced for modern times.
I am asking for a new, annual day to celebrate wives and women’s work outside of the home but the reality is that no one has to wait a year to admire their wife’s work style. An enlightened husband should do this on a daily basis. He should take advantage of everyday opportunities to find out what’s going on through some variation of “Honey, how did you kill it at work today?” If I don’t get a TYHTWD then I’m going to use that question as my substitute and mix in the following:
- What projects are you working on right now?
- What is the next project that is due for you? What will it take to get it done?
- How are your employees doing? Are they developing well in their careers?
- Do you still feel fulfilled at work at the end of the day? What would you rather be doing?
- Is there more training that you need for the job you want to have?
These are just basic questions, a little more probing than the obligatory “How was your day?”. But the answers will unlock a new world to you and give you access to “Work Wife” in her natural habitat. It will tell you more about how she interacts at work, who she chooses to engage with as friends, if she has a work husband (very bad!) and if she is fulfilled in her current role.
After visiting my wife at work I found more reasons to love her. I heard her take care in assisting teammates and incorporating everyone into the conversation. I heard her assert her opinion, without restraint or rudeness, and hold firm to her opinion when it served the greater good. And, since her current job is a promotion from the one she held a few months ago, I appreciated that she had spoken into existence a mechanism and a venue where her gifts could best be displayed.
Of course there is a sobering side of TYHTWD for which all husbands should prepare. It is the awakening, on some level, to the inequity between what your wife faces at work and what you are accustomed to in your own place of employment. Consider the fact that since the first TYDTWD in 1993, women have gone from making 71.5% of what men make to 81.6% of what men make for comparable work. There has been progress but you may want to ask your wife how she feels about the missing 20% of her salary. Then ask your wife if her company has plans to make salaries more transparent or revamp the application process to deemphasize past salary injustices.
After the work day, after seeing your wife put in her own 8+ hour day, you may also notice the male-female difference in work inside your home. You may consider which of you cooks dinner at night and which of you cleans up after. Do you split housework 50-50 or are you closer to the national average where women do 16 hours of “home” work per week to men’s 4 hours.
Acknowledging that your wife probably spends 50% more time taking care of the family than you do can lead to a slippery slope. To correct this inequity, you may choose to take on the grocery shopping but then you’ll be introduced to the “pink tax” and see that your deodorant is cheaper than your wife’s or that the medical “necessities” like Rogaine cost 40% more for women even though the medication is the same.
Those things are a little depressing so let’s stop there for now. Let’s refocus on what took us down this line of thinking and how we can incorporate this annual day of awakening into the lexicon and American holidays. Let’s start now, during the stay-at-home orders caused by COVID-19, and schedule our own Take Your Husband to Work Day. Do it in a home office or do it at the kitchen table, wherever your wife works these days. Then help me make this an annual opportunity with the potential for long standing effects on your relationship and progress towards gender equality in the workforce.