above you said…

"One point here is that women don’t know. No one knows for sure how they’ll react to having a baby before the baby comes. And men don’t confess all the possibilities of their future in an interview, so women don’t have to either."

the problem is, while a women may not be able to predict how her body will handle a pregnancy, she DOES know that she will need a great deal of time off for appointments (my wife already has 14 scheduled over the next 7 months)and she's more than likely made up her mind regarding taking 2-4 months off for maternity leave.

the truth is, male or female, if you know of a condition or a situation that WILL cause you to miss a significant amount of work in the not so distant future, it SHOULD be disclosed to your employer before being hired.

i find your article to be rather disturbing, in that you are effectively telling women how to lie to / get around disclosing important information to potential employers.

it just seems like the right thing to do… assuming the women knows she's pregnant.

it just doesn't seem fair to walk in to a job interview knowing you're going to need dozens of days or half days off for doctor's appointments, may need time off due to complications and will, less than a year after being hired, require a minimum of 2 to 3 months off to take care of your child.

to know all that… and withhold it from a possible employer seems really underhanded.

i don't care if you're pregnant. having surgery. getting divorced or planning to move. withholding info like this can really turn around to bite you in the butt as it really does make a person seem untrustworthy and sneeky.

my wife and i talked about this and she actually agrees and WILL be disclosing her pregnancy when she starts looking for a new job.

i understand if you've got a 'stick it to the man' attitude and are doing this stuff to some fortune 500 company with hundreds of employees, but withholding this kind of information does a ton of damage to mom & pop businesses that in many cases are barely getting by. it may be 'your right', but it's also costing small business thousands of dollars. thousands of dollars that could drive them out of business.

if it's a job you actually care about and plan on sticking with after the baby is born, be up front with your employer. the good ones will work with you.

if your plan is to get a job, work until the baby is born and then stay at home, find temp work or do something with no strings attatched.

my company, for instance, hires people we hope will be with us for an extended period of time. we don't hire people that seem flighty or who appear to just be looking to make a quick buck. we spend thousands of dollars and man hours training these people in and it's something we couldn't do… couldn't afford to do if we knew they were going to leave us after a few months.

while people certainly have the 'right' to withhold information about themselves, i really don't see how it's fair to withhold information that will affect their ability to perform their job in less than a year's time…

and that's what you're suggesting.

i too, am very conflicted as to what the 'right' thing to do is.

on one hand, i agree that a women has the right to privacy in regards to disclosing such a thing.

on the other hand, i hold a middle management position with the company my wife and i currently work for and am in charge of hiring.

we are a relatively small company and don't have the luxury of being over staffed. when people are sick or go on vacation, we run short staffed. the added work load falls on the shoulders of the rest of our staff and even for a small period of time, this creates a lot of stress in an already stressful environment.

we do not do work that allows us to hire 'temp staff' because of the amount of training required for our position (2-3 weeks on the job). as mentioned, we don't have the staff to pick up the slack left by any person leaving for 8-12 weeks. our only option would be to hire a new employee… the problem we run in to as a small business is that when the new mother returns to work, we're left with an extra employee and have no hours to give them.

to me, it just seems dishonest to NOT disclose that kind of information.

when i was interviewing for my current job, i was aware of an impending surgery that would leave me out of commission for 4-8 weeks. i disclosed the information to my employer and was still given the job. not only do think being upfront helped land me the job, i think it played a part in the three subsequent promotions i received.

in my 20s, i was a touring musician. i know for a fact i lost a bunch of job opportunities because i would be up front about needed 2,3,4,5,6 weeks off once a year, but i felt it was the right thing to do.

* * * * * * *

It's great that you told your employer about your surgery and your eight week recovery. But that is peanuts compared to a pregnancy.

Maternity leave is longer than eight weeks, many women don't want to go back to work, women often lose lots of work time becusae of pregnancy related issues before the baby. And, of course some women miss zero seconds of work becuase of a pregnancy. All this goes through an employer's mind.

My point is that your surgery is no comparison. The range of discrimination that happens related to a pregnancy is enormous, which is why women should not reveal their pregnancy until they have to.

Penelope

It would be tough to hide my current employer because if you google my name, the info pops up on several pages. The new job is much more suited to my career goals and interests.

What a shocker this was to find out! Is there any way around this???

Honesty and integrity are values I hold in high regard and others see these values in me. Knowing I wasn't going to reveal my pregnancy until receiving my offer letter was something I thought long and hard about and seeked professional career advice from a licensed psychologist and career advisor. I don't regret the decision I made considering I had a job to return to after the baby was born which literally helped put food on the table and a roof over my child's head. Obviously, this decision was elevated from the basic question of "should I reveal something personal to a potential employer before receipt of an offer" to "what's the most stable paying job my family can survive on."

I must say being in this situation put my hair on edge from a women's rights perspective and wanting to live out my values of honesty and integrity. It's one of the most blatant double-standard gender situations a woman could experience. An interview doesn't require one to have full-disclosure on medical history so therefore I was protected by law.

I'm very career-focused and want to be a good role model for other women which is another reason I chose the path I did. Hypothetically, if I shared my pregnancy with my employer prior to receiving an offer letter, I may have not received the job and I would've been out of work shortly after I delivered my baby. This would've been a tragic financial and emotional outcome for me. Having the safety net of returning to a job after the baby was born was incredibly reassuring.

As Penelope points out, the american government does not support women financially after delivery especially compared to european countries such as the UK and France. To add to the complexity, every state in the US has their own unique law about paying out for a duration of time while on maternity leave. Many women take leave not knowing if their job will be held or if their medical benefits will continue. Why should the US have lower standards for pregnant women than our friends in the UK?

Another blogger mentioned the unfairness of having a small business pay for disability while a women is on leave. I can concur since my parents owned a small business while growing up. I understand the financial hardships a small business endures with the slightest change. I believe I was senitive to this factor because I took a job at a publicly-traded, highly profitable company.

Lastly, please realize reader that this wasn't a simple and quick decision I made. It was a decision that I researched with great depth financially and introspectively. Was it the right decision for me? Yes.

* * * * * * * *
Carina. Thank you so much for taking the time to describe so well how complicated the issue is.

–Penelope

That possibility that other people might lie never makes it OK for you to lie.

Whatever the topic, this article is wrong to advocate deliberately misleading a potential employer about availability. The line between forthrightness and dishonesty might be a fuzzy one, but the intent of your advice is to leave the interviewer in the dark and your only justification is that other people might be dishonest, too. For shame. Morality is not defined as what you can get away with.

Employers, of course, should retain all rights to remain as fickle as ever.

Penelope, I *do* see what you mean about the negative comments. Good for you in daring to publish them, anyway. In this case they are quite useful, in fact, as they demonstrate quite clearly exactly why we *need* anti-discriminatory laws in the first place.

Totally ridiculous.