Likes to mention her mom role/her kids at every staff mtg.

[shootingstar]

One of the divisional heads does this...all the time.  At every single staff meeting.  Only 1 of us..and it's 10 of us, will add their parent experience.  Keep in mind 6 other staff (women) have several adult children. They smile politely and say...nothing.

Meanwhile besides me, there are 2 others, who don't have any children. Most of us have a partner, except for 1.

It's starting to irritate. What's the point?  Is there nothing else to talk about in life with a bunch of people who have different lifestyles and family situations?  That's cool you're balancing career and family. But you're not the only one. 

Do you talk about your children....at staff meetings often? Maybe this is a generational thing. I prefer to hear about kids, etc. off side, 1 to 1 or at lunch/break.

By the way, dearie:  many of the cycling advocates in Vancouver for last 20 years,  had no idea he has 2 grown children ...both accomplished, smart folks.

[ChrisL]

Only in small talk when appropriate, not as a part of a meeting or in general business discussion..

 

[Airehead]

I start meetings by asking people where they “are” at the time. It is important to k ow what else people have on their minds might be work or home. After that all business. 

[Kzoo]

29 minutes ago, Airehead said:

I start meetings by asking people where they “are” at the time. It is important to k ow what else people have on their minds might be work or home. After that all business. 

We call that a segue. Every has to voice something unrelated to work.  There is a neurological reason for it .  Then we follow the agenda.

[shootingstar]

1 hour ago, Airehead said:

I start meetings by asking people where they “are” at the time. It is important to k ow what else people have on their minds might be work or home. After that all business. 

In our group, to be fair, to go around the table, that might consume lst 20 min....that's not efficient for a 1.5 hr. long meeting every wk....if that were to happen.  Most people won't speak up. So maybe, air, that's the point of setting the tone at the beginning.

I work in govn't and it's way too easy, when we go off kilter too long.  Yes, there can be a lot of meetings in govn't organizations. In present dept., I average approx. 4-6 meetings / wk...which is probably pale for some others. Each meeting at minimum, is 1 hr. long.  I only run 20% of those meetings. 

Usually for small segment of those 80% meetings, each time I have to report on something I did/will do (because it's assigned to me at group meeting) or try to work out a solution with attendees. Rest of stuff is informational, which some of it adds value to what I do/gives broader contextual understanding, I learn something or gives me more ideas.

Former role/dept., I didn't have as many meetings / wk. But then former boss had a different style of managing and I had a different role.  Oh yea, he was also a father with 3 young boys. My current boss is single with 2 adult daughters.  She only mentions them if informal chat outside of meeting.  It's not often and certainly not every meeting she chairs for 10 reports.

[Redfacedwalrus]

1 hour ago, shootingstar said:

One of the divisional heads does this...all the time.  At every single staff meeting.  Only 1 of us..and it's 10 of us, will add their parent experience.  Keep in mind 6 other staff (women) have several adult children. They smile politely and say...nothing.

Meanwhile besides me, there are 2 others, who don't have any children. Most of us have a partner, except for 1.

It's starting to irritate. What's the point?  Is there nothing else to talk about in life with a bunch of people who have different lifestyles and family situations?  That's cool you're balancing career and family. But you're not the only one. 

Do you talk about your children....at staff meetings often? Maybe this is a generational thing. I prefer to hear about kids, etc. off side, 1 to 1 or at lunch/break.

By the way, dearie:  many of the cycling advocates in Vancouver for last 20 years,  had no idea he has 2 grown children ...both accomplished, smart folks.

I think it's a little ridiculous that they bring up their kids in a professional environment, especially every meeting. It's one thing to share about them when asked, or when in a one-on-one conversation where the topic is personal life, but in a meeting it's honestly almost rude in my mind to think anyone will care about your children, let alone relate to these little people they don't know or relate to how to parent them.

I'm noticing a large portion of my generation (I'm 27, so 90's generation) are actually strongly against having any kids at all and are annoyed when it's brought up. Many of my friends are constantly pestered by their older siblings or parents to have kids and they won't hear it. I myself am pretty neutral, I don't think I'll ever have them but I don't mind being around them if they're well-behaved and I like their parents. I worked at a church nursery for five or so years with kids from two months to eight years old, which gave me a lot of... informative experience.

I think people tend to exclude the following because kids are people and maybe get a different category, but I find it's like any other thing or hobby-- the more someone talks about it and doesn't talk about anything else, the clearer it is that they don't have much else outside of that one thing in their lives. 

Diving further into that-- there's a correlation in my mind between coddled/less independant kids, and parents who only talk about their kids. That's juxtaposed against smart and independent kids with parents that have other hobbies and interests outside of their offspring. It makes sense if you think about it -- if you as a parent have a few hobbies and are a more well-rounded person, your kid is probably going to pick up on that and maybe gain some of those interests themselves. That will, in turn, expand their mind and help them become more well-rounded people too. But if a parent's life revolves around a child, that child doesn't have much else to pick up on from their parents and is forced to rely on outside influence for growth which is a mixed bag at best. Of course life isn't that black and white, but hey. I had time to ramble. 

[shootingstar]

29 minutes ago, Redfacedwalrus said:

 Of course life isn't that black and white, but hey. I had time to ramble.

  I try not to be a heartless idiot. So in 1 to 1 meetings, if I find out the other person has a young child(ren), sometimes I will ask where the kid is at (age or what they are doing). But then we move quickly to agenda. It's easier for 1 to 1 meetings.  It's just me being polite.

Working at home now,  when other employees have kids stuck at home with school closures, one does have to be just dimly aware but still deadlines  are deadlines. We have a good workplace culture where we don't expect our colleagues to be working at ie. 9:00 pm.  Only time that happened was last year's major $1 million software upgrade project.  That was such major corporate-wide change management and execution/impact.

Redfaced….we each have personal /life challenging situations at certain times,  even for those who don't have children.

Would anyone here want to have a partner living in another province like me?   Or that single/child free person is looking after a needy frail parent (which is 1 of my sisters in Toronto).  Or the single parent on low-income with several kids vs.  2 parents with several kids.  the list goes on.  I get the work-life balance but to bring in personal stuff to bunch of colleagues who are strangers....doesn't serve much purpose because in the end, peers can't solve home related challenges/busy schedule of soccer/hockey/gymnastics with kids after work.

[shootingstar]

I minimize my talk about cycling with colleagues...otherwise it sounds kind of narrow ...me with no children and the luxury of cycling. One woman who also is child-free said loudly to another peer:  " I wouldn't spend so much time cycling".  She knew I spent solo cycling to northern edges of the city.

In my head I was thinking:  I wouldn't want to spend hrs. cleaning home and renovating.  That's not how I want remember at end of life, how I spent my free time.

So we have different life priorities. It really is interesting how different we each are.

[sheep_herder ★]

2 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

So we have different life priorities. It really is interesting how different we each are.

That is what makes the world interesting. If we were all the same with similar likes and dislikes, this old world could get pretty damn boring!

[Redfacedwalrus]

11 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

Redfaced….we each have personal /life challenging situations at certain times,  even for those who don't have children.

Would anyone here want to have a partner living in another province like me?   Or that single/child free person is looking after a needy frail parent (which is 1 of my sisters in Toronto).  Or the single parent on low-income with several kids vs.  2 parents with several kids.  the list goes on.  I get the work-life balance but to bring in personal stuff to bunch of colleagues who are strangers....doesn't serve much purpose because in the end, peers can't solve home related challenges/busy schedule of soccer/hockey/gymnastics with kids after work.

I'm confused! That was my view too, I hope I conveyed that properly. Also it's a non-question that someone with kids experiences the hardships of life just as equal to hardships experienced by someone without kids. The issues are both just as valid and can be just as hard. Someone should never minimize a person's problems and think that just because they don't have kids-- or, replace 'kids' with any OPTIONAL large life responsibility here-- that because they don't do X or have Y their life is the easy road. That's not how it works. x) Unfortunately that downplaying happens more often than not by people who have chosen to weigh their life down with many responsibilities.

[MoseySusan]

In video conference department meetings, two of my colleagues have children climbing onto them during the meeting. They believe they have no other options than to allow their children into the camera view, climbing onto their laps, faces up against the camera, one of them screams for mommy to pay attention to him. The rest of us say "Awww... hello, child's name." Don't want to be the curmudgeon who says, "Control your child, or excuse yourself from the meeting."

[shootingstar]

54 minutes ago, roadsue said:

In video conference department meetings, two of my colleagues have children climbing onto them during the meeting. They believe they have no other options than to allow their children into the camera view, climbing onto their laps, faces up against the camera, one of them screams for mommy to pay attention to him. The rest of us say "Awww... hello, child's name." Don't want to be the curmudgeon who says, "Control your child, or excuse yourself from the meeting."

Well, for another employer I was interviewing applicants after screening resumes.

A person brought along her 4-5 yrs. old daughter to the job interview. This is at a construction site for a almost 1 billion $ construction project. HR had 2 adult children, just to give context.  

During the interview, the child kept going to/be near her mother.  The interview didn't go well.  HR and I didn't ask the obvious question that woman couldn't find child care.

She didn't get the job. It was a clerical role. We wondered how committed the woman would be within work hrs. to the job /would be able to resolve her child care issue. Our location was way out in the burbs.  She came by bus...which I was same type of commuter too.

[Zephyr]

My answer is twofold.

As for my team..., we are a small group and know and have met all of each others families outside of work.  I want them to be open about their personal stuff because more often than not the operations are as much mental as physical and I need to know where they are and they need to know my mental state as well.

On operational calls I will speak to each diver as they are suiting up and ask something about their personal life.  It is not so much what they say but how they say it that tells me if they are mentally prepared for the upcoming dive.

But when it comes to groups here to recieve training, it is all work all the time.

I may as training progresses if I find myself with someone one on one, I will ask them where they are from, where they are posted, married, kids etc. Again, just to get a read on their level of support on the homefront.

When I worked on larger, less team oriented postings, personal life never came up or was brought up

[Razors Edge ★]

When folks mention their kids, that means I get to mention my pup!  That's a great segue to a new topic!

[sheep_herder ★]

2 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

When folks mention their kids, that means I get to mention my pup!  That's a great segue to a new topic!

Or if they were going 'on and on' about hunting, I'd bring our sheep into the conversation.  Pissed off some enough they talked to the boss about it. I think he laughed after he realized what was happening.

[MoseySusan]

NYT reminds us all that raising children is for the public good. Unlike personal pursuits, like raising dogs or sheep. 

 

[Razors Edge ★]

8 minutes ago, roadsue said:

NYT reminds us all that raising children is for the public good. Unlike personal pursuits, like raising dogs or sheep. 

That's certainly an opinion.  "We need taxpayers"

At 7 billion plus humans on Earth, I'd say there are some pros and cons to raising more of them.  Especially with limited or no strategy. 

It would be interesting to see, on a "resources in vs resources out" comparison, how new taxpayers compare to sheep (food or wool) or dog (working or napping).

[MickinMD ★]

I've had a leadership and multi-committee role in the two jobs I've had since college, industrial chief research chemist and lead science teacher for the gifted and talented, and sat through meeting after meeting after meeting for decades.

I can't recall anyone talking about their kids unless it was anecdotal to make a point about something or if someone's kid was ill, got a college scholarship, etc.

Could you have agendas printed for your meeting with words at the top something like, "Stick to the agenda so the meeting can stay efficient"?