Is the workplace discriminating against parents?

Back in the day when my children were tiny, I worked 60-hour weeks as a senior editor at the LA Times Magazine. I depended heavily on the kindness of babysitters and preschool teachers, but the wheels pretty much stayed on the bus until Margaret was diagnosed with leukemia.

After that, it quickly became clear that my husband and I couldn’t manage two kids (one with both an intellectual disability and a chronic life-threatening illness) AND two high-powered jobs. If our family was going to survive, one of the jobs had to go. I left the Times -- a great loss for me, but one that seemed unavoidable.

Now that almost 20 years have passed, I often wonder whether the choices are less stark for parents who find themselves in similar circumstances today. Job or family? Family or job? Do people have to choose?

An in-depth story in today’s New York Times Magazine attempts to answer that question – and I guess I’m not surprised to learn things haven’t changed all that much for families despite the passage of landmark federal legislation. Or rather, things are much the same but a lot more lawyers are involved.

Writer Eyal Press introduces us to a woman who lost her job after her baby was born 16 weeks early, a man who was denied a request for time off to care for his ill wife and child, and a woman who was terminated after requesting a different work schedule so she could attend her son's therapy sessions. He traces lawsuit after lawsuit, discussing the issues in light of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.

Here’s how the headline frames the debate: “Do workers have a fundamental right to care for the families?” and “The latest front in the job-discrimination battle.”

Guaranteed to give you a headache

In this morning's New York Times: "States face touchy decisions on who is mentally fit to vote."

It's a thoughtful consideration of what happens when officials try to determine eligibility for voting, tiptoing around conflicts among the legal, medical and popular definitions of such terms as "insanity," "idiot" and "non compos mentis." This is a tough subject, and it's approached with care. Rights and risks of vulnerable people are discussed; someone asks whether people with medical diagnoses should be subjected to greater scrutiny than the average person (who may be making decisions based on jokes heard on the Daily Show.)

So then why do I have a headache? It's this quote, from the chairman of the Cranston, R.I., board of canvassers:

"I just think if you are declared insane you should not be allowed to vote, period. Some people are taking these two clowns and calling them disabled persons. Is insanity a disability? I have an answer to that: no. You're insane; you're nuts."

Nuts. Is that the legal term in Rhode Island?

Still more on the "pillow angel" saga

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer carries an insightful column by Anne McDonald about Ashley, the 6-year-old girl whose uterus and breast buds were removed at the request of her parents. The parents had argued that it would would be easier to care for their daughter, who has mental and physical disabilities, if she did not grow to an adult size, and that a childlike body would afford her "more dignity and integrity than a fully grown female body." In their blog, the parents (who have not revealed their identities publicly) refer to their daughter as "Pillow Angel."

Last month, in the face of an investigation and mounting controversy by disability rights advocates, Children's Hospital in Seattle admitted that the hysterectomy was illegal. See link.

McDonald's column explores her own experiences as a child whose growth was attenuated and whose potential was overlooked by medical professionals. She questions the assessments of Ashley's abilities, and criticizes the decision to subject the girl to surgery without an effort to obtain her participation and consent for the procedure.

Her words:

"My ongoing concern is the readiness with which Ashley's parents, doctors and most commentators assumed they could make an accurate estimation of the understanding of a child without speech who has severely restricted movement. Any assessment of intelligence that relies on speech and motor skills cannot conceivably be accurate because the child doesn't have any of the skills required to undertake testing. To equate intelligence with motor skills is as absurd as equating it with height.

"The only possible way to find out how much a child who cannot talk actually understands is to develop an alternative means of communication for that child. An entire new discipline of non-speech communication has developed since I was born in 1961, and there are now literally hundreds of non-speech communication strategies available. Once communication is established, education and assessment can follow, in the usual way.

"No child should be presumed to be profoundly retarded because she can't talk. All children who can't talk should be given access to communication therapy before any judgments are made about their intelligence.

"Ashley's condemned to be a Peter Pan and never grow, but it's not too late for her to learn to communicate. It's profoundly unethical to leave her on that pillow without making every effort to give her a voice of her own."

Secret pacts a problem for special ed

Okay, it's a small school district, but we're deluding ourselves if we think these practices aren't widespread.

I'm talking about confidentiality agreements. The Santa Monica, California, School District has been requiring that parents of children with disabilities promise to sign confidentiality agreements (translation: stay silent) in return for getting the educational services they feel their children deserve. Parents have criticized the policy as an effort to intimidate them into silence and put a lid on political organizing. District officials say they're just keeping costs down.

The controversy had been simmering for a while, then came to a head when the school board also required that its departing CFO sign a confidentiality agreement in return for a cash settlement.

Now the Santa Monica city council has weighed in, voting to withhold funding unless the school district changes its ways. Read the link here. And then tell me that this isn't happening elsewhere. I'll believe you. Really.