my coworker always has his toddlers on his lap on work calls

A reader writes:

This is hard for me to write. I’m a woman in my late forties with two grown children. I remember how stressful it was a decade ago, when my kids were little, to keep them out of earshot during conference calls on the rare days I could work from home.

In my current role, I have dotted-line management responsibility for “Steve,” who has two children under four. We’re a fully remote company, and all meetings are on video with cameras on. Steve often has one of his children on his lap during both internal and external calls. His spouse works from home part-time, but he still seems to be the primary caregiver for at least part of the workday.

I’m conflicted about what, if anything, to do. Steve consistently delivers great work and meets deadlines. I have no concerns about his performance (though I only manage part of his portfolio). At the same time, it feels unprofessional to have children present on video calls — especially external ones. The kids are adorable, but they can be distracting. Then again, maybe that shouldn’t matter.

I find myself wrestling with several questions:
• Are expectations that children stay out of sight during work calls outdated?
• Should we extend more grace to working parents?
• Am I subconsciously reacting to how I was taught, as a young mother, to hide my family life to seem “serious”?
• Would this be perceived differently if Steve were a woman?

Given that I’m not his direct manager and his work is strong, I’m unsure what my responsibility is. Should I raise this at all? Or is it something his direct manager (or no one) needs to address?

For context: we’re a fully remote company where children or pets sometimes make quick cameos, but Steve is the only person who regularly has a child visible throughout meetings.

I’ll say it: Steve should not regularly have his kids on his lap during work calls.

A sleeping baby would be one thing, but older or awake kids are just inherently going to be a distraction, to Steve and to everyone on the call — and that’s particularly true of toddlers! Toddlers talk, move around, and have needs that have to be addressed; it’s highly unlikely that they’re sitting motionless and silently on Steve’s lap for all of these meetings (and frankly if they were, that would be odd enough to concern me). They’re going to distract other participants from whatever’s being discussed, and they’re going to distract Steve from fully focusing.

That’s no slam on kids. Kids are great. But they’re generally not in work meetings for a reason, and that doesn’t change just because these meetings are remote instead of in-person.

And it’s happening on external calls too? I’d bet money that you have a lot of clients who really don’t appreciate having a kid present and creating a distraction (even a mild one) on their calls.

It sounds like a huge part of the problem — likely the entire problem — is that Steve is trying to care for little kids at the same time that he’s supposed to be doing his job. Does your company not have a policy requiring remote workers to have separate childcare if they have young kids at home? That’s a very, very normal policy to have, and it might solve this whole thing.

To your specific questions:

• Are expectations that children stay out of sight during work calls outdated? No — again, because of the distractions they pose. It’s fine for a kid to make a brief appearance on an internal work call, either because they’re passing through or because someone has a rare emergency situation they’re juggling. But it shouldn’t be the normal care plan for the reasons above.

• Should we extend more grace to working parents? Yes. We should extend more grace to all humans, which includes as much flexibility as any given job allows for, generous time off, and an understanding that we are all people with commitments outside of our jobs. But that does not mean “regularly bring your kid into work calls.” It’s still reasonable to expect people to have separate child care while you need them focused on work.

• Am I subconsciously reacting to how I was taught, as a young mother, to hide my family life to seem “serious”? Maybe, but what Steve’s doing also sounds like a legitimate problem.

• Would this be perceived differently if Steve were a woman? Yes. It would be perceived worse. Men generally get praised for being involved fathers, even when it interferes with work. Women get mommy-tracked.

As for what to do … you’d be on solid ground asking Steve’s manager to address it with him. But you could also say to Steve, “Your kids are adorable but it can be distracting to have them on calls more than for a quick hello. Can we schedule our calls for times when you won’t need to be supervising them?” And if you are in charge of client calls that he’s part of, it’s beyond reasonable to have a blanket rule of no kids or other distractions when talking to clients.

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