Later this month, when I head back to Cleveland State University for the third time, I’ll finally have a companion to travel with. My colleague on this particular venture is a skilled emotional regulator, an empathic voice, and a lover of sushi and pizza. She is also my daughter Olivia.
One of the reasons I find myself on the liminal edge of coaching is that so many coaching jobs are so incongruent with family life. However, in the past three years I’ve carved out an existence for myself that lets me earn a decent living, coach a bit and be present in my family life.
So I didn’t feel any burning need to bring my daughter on a trip. I could have just as well left her at home and everything would be fine. Increasingly, however, I wanted to bring her on. This blog is an attempt to explain why and how I came to make this decision.
Customer First
The biggest consideration here was the interest of my business. If in any way I felt like my “bring your child to work” day was going to impose on providing the best possible experience for Cleveland State, anything else would be a non-starter.
As I explain later, there are actually a few ways I think having her along can enhance the work that we’re going to do. Cleveland State is not the only place I travel for work, but there were a few factors that I believed set it apart and made it the best place to try this out.
The first is that Cleveland State is the shortest plane trip I take anywhere to work. While Olivia and I have crossed the Atlantic together as a pair, any parent knows that traveling with a young child presents a lot of challenges. So, having 90 minute flights on smallish planes where we can sit next to each other is pretty ideal.
Second, one thing that came across strongly in my work with Cleveland State was the need to find a pathway for their women’s team to be “too much”. Let me explain. it comes quite naturally for a lot of men’s sports teams to be loud, rowdy, and enthusiastic.
However, many women in sport face the dual challenge of not wanting to be enthusiastic in the same way that men are, and that many of the ways they may choose to be enthusiastic are shunned. I have a six year old who is already facing some of these dilemmas.
I owe it to her (and to Cleveland State) to work on that. And the work should not just be with the coaches and the women’s teams. I think many men are just plane unaware of the problem or unaware of behaviors that contribute to the problem.
When tackling gender inequity you need to both create spaces where genders can collaborate without the other and spaces where they can work together. You also need to thread the needle of getting men involved but in the work that I do, not making them feel as if “their” time is being purely spent on improving gender equity.
Some More Practical Concerns
One a more practical level, the timing feels right because she will be recently six, and thus while not a young adult, she is also not a helpless small child that would inevitably derail a productive working environment. She does not need constant supervision, she can entertain herself, she can communicate her wants and needs.
She can converse with adults just fine and can walk reasonable distances under her own power. She is relatively easy to pack snacks for. She can get herself dressed. You get the point.
If I can allow myself one final selfish indulgence, its that Olivia is thrilled to be making this trip. She has accompanied me to coach practice a couple of times, and absolutely loves it. She constantly asks about who I am working with (particularly the girls). I know that she will be watching those student athletes with rapt attention.
Perhaps that will add some extra motivation to the proceedings. Role models are often not aware of the fact that they are. it seems too arrogant to assume that anyone is watching you and forming ideas about how they should act based on their actions. But they are.