Editorial: Next year: Daughters and sons to work day
Sewing badges to tiny green vests and roasting marshmallows over campfires in the open wilderness are among some of the "essential" tools national organizations bestow upon girls and boys as they stumble into adulthood.
But seldom can we find national events that ask parents to join with their children and share a part of their career.
Rare are programs like the nationwide "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" that directly involve youngsters in their parents' professional lives.
The University of Arizona has observed its own version of "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" for the past six years, and this year, officials expected more than 400 participants.
The UA's "Daughters on Campus Day" focuses on making girls feel that their ideas will be accepted in the workplace and on university campuses. The event is also designed to get girls to "start dreaming," according to Kari McBride, commissioner for the UA's Commission on the Status of Women.
"It's important they (the girls) feel heard so they know what they say is valuable," said Lauren McElroy, coordinator of "Daughters on Campus Day."
But experts have said that young boys, too, require the same type of closeness and involvement with their parents, and must be exposed to the workplace. Boys also need first-hand knowledge of where their parents go every morning.
The fact that little girls have valuable things to say should not depreciate the desires and necessities of all children - including boys - to be assured that what they have to say is important.
Entrance into the workplace is something that children should be eased into by people they respect. If those adults are not parents, programs like "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" allow for other role models in a girl's life to substitute.
Why should boys be denied that same luxury?
Americans have adopted a manner of thinking that may as well pin little boys as emotional blocks of wood, expected to make it on their own, without that extra little push that girls supposedly need in order to make something of themselves.
Since females are truly not a weaker sex, it is only logical that boys require the same advantages that girls are afforded.
The UA and other organizations should work toward exposing all children to the workplace in hopes of preparing them for difficult choices that they will later confront.
If American girls set their goals high, yet experience a drought of self worth or willingness to dream, it is reasonable to assume that their male counterparts feel similarly and need the same nurturing.
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