More on the Pontifical Council for the Laity Conference on Women and Work

Two highlights for me, at the Pontifical Council for the Laity's International Study Seminar Women and Work that Erika just posted about, were talks by two prominent corporate executives who model Catholic visions of work & family.

One was Clara Gaymard, the CEO of GE France and mother of 9.   . She said that she's always asked "how do you balance it all", and she almost never responds to that question.  But for this audience, that was the topic of her talk.  The first thing she said was, she never asked herself that question.  She just always knew that she wanted a large family, and she always knew she wanted to travel, learn things, succeed.  She just did it.  With respect to "splitting" household duties, she said she hates that idea.  She says her philosophy is that everyone does everything together, then it gets done twice as fast.  Husband & wife working together get dinner done twice as fast, and every kid has to help.  In her work, she says every employee knows that family comes first -- that's just non-negotiable.  The head of one of her divisions declared NO EMAILS Friday afternoons -- she didn't want people to get sucked into things over the weekend.  (If there's one thing very clear from this conference, it's that European workplaces are, truly, much less hostile to families than US workplaces.)  Clara Gaymard has long been one of my heroines.  She wrote a marvelous book about her father, Servant of God Jerome LeJeune, who discovered the genetic cause of Down Syndrome, and was first President of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Another was Bryan Sanderson, former CEO of BP, now on the Board of the Economist, and, among many other things, Chairman of the Board the Home Renaissance Foundation a think tank dedicated to doing the work we care feminists always say someone should do:   "promote a greater recognition of the work that goes into creating healthy and congenial home environments. Individuals grow and develop at home, so it is in society's best interests to look after it."

My topic was:  "Motherhood:  A burden or Added Value for Business?"  Any guesses what I voted for?  I'll post a link to the paper when it's up on the conference website.