Thanks very much for this article Julia. I’m really grateful for the specific advice on making events more inclusive. It’s useful to know which things are considered useful and helpful (pointing out space they can use) and which troublesome (giving the child something to play with) - having not come into contact with young children much, it’s hard to have good intuitions on this.
It’s great that you’re forging the way for other parents, by being the first to bring a child to events. I don’t know how welcome you felt Lily was at eg the EA conference, but my perception was that everyone was very happy to have her there. That’s made me much happier about the idea of some day having a family and integrating them into my work/EA social life—in part just by showing how it would work. This seems very useful in a movement currently dominated by people in their early 20s, which needs to diversify.
We were worried about her distracting people during talks at the EA conference, but we tried to take her out of the room when her noise got beyond a minimum. It was reassuring that somebody else brought his five-year-old for a session or two, and someone else told me she had brought her baby to conferences in the past.
Thanks very much for this article Julia. I’m really grateful for the specific advice on making events more inclusive. It’s useful to know which things are considered useful and helpful (pointing out space they can use) and which troublesome (giving the child something to play with) - having not come into contact with young children much, it’s hard to have good intuitions on this. It’s great that you’re forging the way for other parents, by being the first to bring a child to events. I don’t know how welcome you felt Lily was at eg the EA conference, but my perception was that everyone was very happy to have her there. That’s made me much happier about the idea of some day having a family and integrating them into my work/EA social life—in part just by showing how it would work. This seems very useful in a movement currently dominated by people in their early 20s, which needs to diversify.
We were worried about her distracting people during talks at the EA conference, but we tried to take her out of the room when her noise got beyond a minimum. It was reassuring that somebody else brought his five-year-old for a session or two, and someone else told me she had brought her baby to conferences in the past.