I don’t attend the American Political Science Conference these days (I explained why in this post last year). But many of my colleagues do, so every year at this time I participate vicariously by watching what is going on in my Facebook feed.
Yesterday, I was surprised by Page Fortna’s status update which read as follows:
A new mom attending APSA was denied entry to the book room today because she had her 9 week old with her. They claimed insurance doesn’t cover babies. WTF APSA? Family-unfriendly much
That’s right: as if it’s not enough already to face childhood as a “polisci brat,” now nine-week-old babies are being banned from the book room by conference staff.
Why am I surprised? Aside from the date of the conference, I have always thought of APSA as one of the more family friendly professional venues I’ve had the pleasure to spend time in. I raised my kids on the conference circuit and have been grateful to APSA and other political science conferences for providing some of the best childcare facilities and benefits imaginable. When my children were small, I never had any problem accessing the entire conference with them in tow if I liked. At APSA and at other conference in the profession, my toddlers followed me to exhibit halls, rode the hotel escalators, and played at my feet at panels. Conference-goers and staff were unfailingly pleasant and accommodating, even welcoming of my children. I have long thought of APSA’s childcare policy as enlightened and supportive of parents.
Well, my surprise turned to SHOCK this morning after APSA issued this statement justifying its behavior:
APSA makes great efforts to be as welcoming and open to all attendees as possible. Conventions of our size require event insurance to secure contracts and use space at any hotels or convention centers. Event insurance does not cover children in an Exhibit Hall due to liability. We are committed to making the Annual Meeting as convenient as we can, but, unfortunately, this is not an area where we have flexibility.
We are pleased to continue offering onsite Child Care and a Mother’s Room for nursing and pumping.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause members or attendees, but, unfortunately, we are not able to allow children into the Exhibit Hall. We invite you to leave your comments here for discussion.
OK, first of all, if the insurance company is the problem APSA needs a new insurance carrier. Any insurance policy that covers drunken political scientists but not their sober children is not worth its salt.
Secondly, a “Mother’s Room”? Let’s not pretend this is a women’s issue only or that setting aside space for breastfeeding moms will do the trick. Fathers also attend APSA with their children: single fathers, spouses supporting their career wives, dual-career spouses tag-teaming between panels and events, and two-father households. A pumping room is certainly important, but the idea that this is constitutes sufficient child-friendly space, rather than allowing parents of both sexes and their children access to the entire event, is retrograde and non-family-friendly. It rolls back the sense of progress that families were feeling they were making in the profession – progress that was especially helpful to women and whose rollback will especially hurt women, but which affects all professional parents. And based on APSA’s and ISA’s of yore, it is wholly unnecessary.
If you agree, please click this link and leave comments to the APSA leadership in support of children and families in our profession. Seriously, these kids are being raised by political scientists! They need all the support they can get.
Exclnt policy! Reduces unnecessary distraction in panel rooms, and protects the kiddies from adult germs! Would career moms bring their kiddies to Board meetings? How about lawyer moms stopping their arguments to change junior’s smelly diapers? This issue shows that some political scientists really do have a problem identifying meaningful issues to take a stand on.
Wait? Huh? I’ve been to the exhibit room many times. It isn’t a board meeting; it isn’t a court room. The exhibit hall is not where panels are going on, either. It’s a place where book publishers host keg parties in the afternoons and I can pick up something free from the Statescraft table. And, why the heck is this just about “career moms”? I think a lot of career dads bring children to conferences, too. No, this may not have been that big an issue to take a stand on. However, I definitely will take a stand on the ridiculousness of your comment.
Political science is a soft major so don’t try to say that disrupting a polo-sci conference is like disrupting consequential work.
Ah. We know now this guy is a troll to be ignored.
Was it the Confederate Flag that gave him away?
What part of “exhibit hall” are you not understanding? If you don’t know what a noisy and informal social space that is, you obviously haven’t spent much time there.
Ah liberals. You got to love them. I wonder how many books in the book room discussed the impact of sexism on employment opportunities. Several of them I would guess.
The insurance issue is ridiculous. I worked in insurance claims for 30 years and don’t remember ever this being an exclusion. They may suggest you don’t have customers in a work area or have proper security, but it does not void the policy. They just didn’t want a baby crying.
A childfree person or couple is also a family, entitled to some rights. Indeed, the childfree are regularly exploited to subsidize the lifestyle of the breeders. The fact that you have bred does not make you a member of a family, entitled to exploit the wealth of the non-breeders.
Breeders? Really? AYSM? You and I do not belong to the same culture.
Well, that attitude won’t be around after those having it die off.
I trust you checked the box on your health insurance form about not wanting anyone under the age of 65 attending to your health needs when your diaper needs changing as you’re a bed ridden invalid. Or will the Death Panels have alleviated that need by then Logan 5?
I can see your Obama bumper sticker from here (Germany).
How about you get out of the way while we raise the people who will pay for your pension and keep society running when you are too old to work?
“A childfree person or couple is also a family”, only due to the imprecision of English is this true. To be more precise, a married childless person has a “mate”, not a “family”. They may accurately say (“English” again), “My wife/husband/whatever IS my family!” but if we’re going to split hairs, then no – a family requires children. When you say “they’re trying to start a family”, you’re using a euphemism for “trying to have a child”, not “trying to get married”.
What about THEIR own blood relatives? The married couple’s parents and siblings?
Well, that’s their “extended family”, and yes many people without their OWN family do indeed have an extended family, and thus it all gets confused and murky.
But your whole “the lifestyle of the breeders” statement is both contemptuous and worthy of contempt itself. The “breeders”, i.e. parents with families, beget the future of mankind. To end on an obvious “duh” statement, without parents, humanity ends.
If APSA wants to be family-unfriendly, their end is in sight, because the force of families is timeless.
Who says there is value in begetting “the future of mankind.” The Breeders, that’s who.
The world will only rejoice when “humanity ends.” Breeders are the direct beneficiaries of the punitive taxes and other burdens being placed on singles and the childfree, as well as of the myriad gummint handouts.
It’s a strange idea of justice to punish the innocents while rewarding the progeny of those directly responsible for whatever problem. The childfree are being raped daily by the breeders and it is the victims who are punished and the perpetrators who are rewarded.
Except for cattle burps and farts, it is the breeders who are the foremost contributor to global warming, loss of forests, fish, and coral. And the progeny of the breeders will be the main beneficiaries of any expensive socialist program to reduce global warming, etc, whereas the childfree are already contributing to a reduced personal carbon footprint. The breeding woman significantly increases her footprint with every kid she pops out.
Yawn.
You’re either a troll, or just about as wrong as a person can be about everything and still be alive.
I’m not sure I should bother refuting each of your points, which would be easy, because if you’re not a troll then you wouldn’t listen so why waste the effort? I can’t resist mentioning just two things though, since they stand out:
1: The world won’t rejoice because it can’t. Quit anthropomorphizing the planet – how human-centric of you!
2: There is no human-caused global warming, and it looks like no global warming at all, so how amazingly and arrogantly human-centric of you again. How vain of you to think we’re powerful enough to do what you want to blame us (sans evidence) of accomplishing.
But… if you’re a troll… well played!
What makes Charli Carpenter think she’s the First Person Ever to think of that? Somehow, I doubt that APSA didn’t try.
“Somehow, I doubt that APSA didn’t try.”
Note that they don’t say that they did try.
It would be funny to show up, kids in tow, with documented proof of your own insurance “child rider”.
“I’m sorry sir, but children aren’t allowed inside due to insurance reasons.”
“Yeah, that’s why I bought my own insurance (waves paperwork). Now get out of my way. (brushes past the walking talking obstacle)”
That is better than my suggestion of bringing a stunt baby: https://saideman.blogspot.ca/2015/09/apsa-needs-stunt-baby.html
Breeders not welcome? That is the message I hear.
Of course, breeders are always welcome, as long as they pay their fair share and their own expenses, which is far from the case in our pro-natal socialist society.
You must be a real joy to your folks on Mother’s and Father’s Day. Oh, I mean world-hating Breeder’s Day. On your birthday you must blow out your candles and wish for the plague. Have a happy life, you misguided troll. :)
“Event insurance does not cover children in an Exhibit Hall due to liability.” Of course, it doesn’t cover children; it covers the APSA. Perhaps the APSA thinks it means that the policy doesn’t cover claims by children against the APSA arising out of the negligence of the APSA. Presumably, claims by attending members of the public are covered. It would be a peculiar policy that would would parse an exception to for members of the public below the age of 21, 18, whatever? I suspect that the APSA lacks the capacity to read and understand an insurance policy.
The APSA announcement contains the statement:
Event insurance does not cover children in an Exhibit Hall due to liability.
I have to wonder what this means. What is meant by the word “children” here?.
Each one of us is the child of someone. When does this status end for us?
At the age of 18? or 13? or 21?
Is the policy explicit about this? Is this enforced on all children? Do entrants get carded? you should look into this.
It could be that, if alcohol is served, that the policy is actually meant to exclude underage drinking. Babies are unlikely to be allowed by the parent bringing them to drink even beer, so it appears that enforcing the policy on infants is bureaucratic foolishness.
The policy is probably meant to apply to unaccompanied children who would want to sample the refreshments, or those old enough for their parents to allow them to do so, despite their minority.
Those obnoxious, entitled parents could have resolved this easily through the simple means of purchasing an APSA membership for the child. If the baby had only had a proper badge pinned to the stroller, none of this would have happened!
Seriously, though I don’t doubt the exhibitor hall has become subject to much stricter policing, I find this a ridiculously wooden application of this boilerplate rule, which is primarily designed to prevent free riding at all conference exhibits and is justified through insurance concerns. An infant or toddler in a stroller may be getting a ride, but that’s, um, not free riding, and a sensible policy would be able to tell the difference. I remember cruising those exhibit halls and occasionally even doing a book pitch with a drowsy infant in a stroller back in the day.
There have been other instances of absurd exclusions as well, including a denial of entry TO AN APSA STAFFER who wanted to bring through a group of regional associational leaders, one of whom did not have a badge, simply to use some meeting space APSA had reserved in the exhibit hall. No badge, no entry.
This story is confirming a lot of stereotypes.
Have you personally checked out the insurance situation? No, I thought not. The insurance companies aren’t monsters, either. They respond rationally to juries. Elementary price theory–a close enough cousin to polisci that you might want to have a nodding acquaintance.
The children weren’t excluded because they were children. They were excluded because they did not have badges. I challenge you to locate one reported judicial opinion illustrating a damage award to the parent of a child injured at an exhibit hall set up for an academic conference.
The rule is a boilerplate element in insurance contracts primarily to control access and ban free riding, not to protect against liability.
O, please. Judges don’t have to be exactly on point, and juries hardly even have to be sane. Liability-averse people can anticipate that, and do. I don’t want children anywhere near property where I can be charged (rightly or wrongly) with liability for their mishaps, and I doubt I am alone.
Likely the excuse given didn’t match the real reason, and maybe the real reason is bad PR or even illegal. Is this a new experience for you? Are you new to America?
Thanks for affirming that you cannot find a single shred of empirical evidence to support your point. And good job proving your ignorance about both American law and policy in one short comment!
I’m affirming that I haven’t bothered to chase an irrelevancy. I am appealing in this instance to perfectly common knowledge.
I notice that you never answered the question in chief: “Have you personally checked out the insurance situation?”
Years ago (either 10 or 7, depending on which child it was), I was turned away from the exhibit hall with my kid sound asleep in a stroller because s/he didn’t have a badge.
Rules were not so strictly enforced then. Probably depended more on who was at the door. Mine are a little older than yours, but I definitely got in.
Industry conventions usually have an 18 and over rule. This is commonplace.
Thanks for the piece Charli, I wholeheartedly agree. Infants, especially those under 12 weeks who would not fare well in childcare should be able to go anywhere their parents go. As for pumping stations – that’s fantastic that APSA have them. I don’t recall seeing them at ISA? i’ve done my fair share of pumping in the toilets…