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A very curious story earlier this week: Helen Ballerino was pregnant when she took a job as an accountant at Ascot with the Racecourse Association.
She had her own office, and once the baby was born, she agreed to come to work during her maternity leave for a few “keeping in touch days,” a common initiative where employees can earn extra money by working up to ten days while on leave. . .
The 38-year-old says she was told it would not be appropriate to breastfeed her baby in the office. She was later fired from her. She filed a maternity discrimination and unfair dismissal claim against her former employers, alleging that she was discriminated against as a mother by not being able to breastfeed during her work days.
I’m all for supporting women in the workplace, but cut it out, love: your employer’s objection was that it wasn’t appropriate to work in the office while also caring for a baby, and they’re right.
Helen Ballerino filed a lawsuit against her former employers alleging that she was discriminated against as a mother for not being able to breastfeed at work.
Taking care of a baby is a full-time job, just like being an accountant. Dealing with complex numbers and money analysis requires total concentration and precision. How do you deal with a long, complicated spreadsheet when your baby is whining in the corner, begging to be fed, diapered, or just longing for maternal attention?
Babies need constant love and entertainment from you or someone else. You can’t leave your baby alone while you continue navigating a set of complicated shapes. And imagine how irritating her constant yelling would be, both to you and to her colleagues.
As for the layoff, Ballerino was offered another opportunity when his part-time job, which he performed primarily from home, was changed to a full-time office job. She didn’t take it because she didn’t want it. As far as I see, there is no maternity discrimination, just an employer trying to make her workplace run well.
It’s not difficult to combine raising a baby and a full-time job, it just takes a little organization and realism. I know. I did it twice.
It would never have occurred to me to take any of my children to the office. I had no qualms about breastfeeding in front of my peers or disappearing for half an hour to change a diaper, but I would never have considered it acceptable to impose the presence of a baby on them.
Why would they put up with a baby crying while making phone calls to the collaborators of the programs I worked on? How could they or I put in the effort necessary to write a good script or prepare for an interview? Who would watch the child when he went to record in the studio?
You can’t leave your baby alone while you continue to navigate a set of complicated figures, writes Jenni Murray. Imagine how irritating her screams would be to you and your colleagues.
Work and childcare just don’t mix. Therefore, you must have someone on the home front who you can trust to care for your child with as much love and attention as you yourself would give. Parents are the best option and I was lucky to also have an excellent babysitter.
When my children were babies, my husband laughingly nicknamed me the Milk Marketing Board. He would breastfeed before work and pump enough milk until I got home. I breastfed each of them until they were just under a year old. I only gave up one of the most pleasant moments of my life when in each case the first front tooth appeared. Yes, everyone thought it was very funny when Mom squealed at the first bite. By this time they were already eating solid foods, so there was no worry that they would starve without mom’s milk.
I must say that I was a bit of a radical breastfeeder. Nothing bothers me more than people who disapprove of a woman feeding her baby in public. She is the most natural thing in the world. She fed me in restaurants at the table (for me I didn’t have to hide in the toilets) and I once sat in the shoe department of Marks & Spencer because Ed was hungry and there was nowhere else to sit.
I wish we were still as accepting of the mother and her hungry baby as we were when I was a child. I remember, when I was five, traveling on the bus to Sheffield sitting opposite a woman with her baby openly drinking and her chest was far from small. My mother often made fun of me for my reaction to seeing something like that for the first time. She told me not to look. I said, ‘But does that baby have to eat all that before he gets to Sheffield?’
Helen Ballerino’s story has nothing to do with a mother’s right to breastfeed. It’s about consideration for your colleagues and her employers. Young people like Helen seem to feel entitled to be or do whatever they want when it comes to work. The work itself always comes second. You are wrong. He gets paid to do the job, not to take care of her baby. Getting the job done (and doing it competently) is important.
That he lost his court is a victory for common sense.
Let’s see how his appeal goes.
It’s not a complicated life for Demi’s dog
Demi Moore at 61 years old is as charming as ever and has been working hard in Cannes promoting her latest film The Substance. At her screening she had a 13-minute ovation, one of the longest in the history of the festival. I interviewed her years ago and found her charming, but only now have I discovered that she is a woman after my heart. Her dog, Pilaf, accompanies her everywhere, from the front rows of fashion to the red carpet photocalls. Long live Chihuahua!
Life doesn’t have to be so hard!
I had a nightmare for three months, terrified of losing my Blue Badge, which denotes my disability. My questionable hips, scoliosis, sciatica and asthma prevent me from using public transportation. For ten years I have had a license plate that allows me to travel in my car and I can park closer to my destination.
I applied for renewal at the beginning of March. I added the broken vertebra to my list of problems. On April 25, I received an email telling me that I should speak to a healthcare professional from a company called Dependability to evaluate if I am eligible.
Finally a call came on Thursday, May 16 and a long conversation about my problems. My badge ran out on Saturday the 18th. Endless calls to Barnet Council to people obviously working from home made no progress, just, ‘Well, you’ll have to find another way if it runs out.’
On Monday, May 20, confirmation came that I do qualify but it will take between seven and ten days to arrive. Apparently there are too many people trying to game the system and one council, like so many, that is desperate to save money. I doubt I’m the only one who has faced so many anxiety-inducing barriers.
- I’ve never agreed with Gary Lineker before, but I agree with him when he asks, ‘Why don’t schools teach kids how to cook anymore?’ He is right. Home economics or food technology will teach you how to design the packaging of a pizza, but not how to actually make it. Let domestic science return, I say. Once a week, a whole afternoon in which I even learned how to gut a herring and pickle it. We must teach boys and girls to shop, cook and eat. It’s the only way to put an end to the lazy takeout culture.
Giovanni Pernice left Strictly Come Dancing after nine series, following allegations of unspecified bad behavior
Don’t judge Giovanni by insinuations
What exactly is meant by “serious workplace misconduct”? Following this allegation, the BBC is investigating strictly professional dancer Giovanni Pernice, who is said to have now left the show of his own volition. Former contestant Amanda Abbingdon is said to have claimed the show left her with post-traumatic stress disorder. She has now been joined by two other women and is taking legal action. But for what? Is it, as he says, because his training methods were harsh and demanding? If they say it was something more serious, let them say so. A man’s reputation and career should not be ruined by advances or by women who want to be Ginger Rogers but can’t handle the brutally hard work he requires.