12 ms·

I was asked to leave an event for female founders because I had my baby with me

98 points by avs733 2y ago

josefritzishere 2y ago
The incident is illustrative, not ironic. So, given the example, what's the solution?
itsdrewmiller 2y ago
It's kind of hard to tell from the article, but given the timing and the linkedin response about 2024 (and the picture), it seems like this is actually about bringing a 3 year old to conference, not an infant.
erik_seaberg 2y ago
Didn't people used to get in trouble for "working from home" when they were actually parenting instead?
Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
Am I the only one who was disappointed in reading "female founders"? Dads would have the same issue. Society hasn't adjusted yet completely to the idea that dads might have the same role that mums-only had in the past.
datadrivenangel 2y ago
https://archive.is/5clK8 https://archive.is/5clK8
eigenrick 2y ago
<jest> Well the baby was neither a founder nor a female, sooo... </jest>
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Yet!
- perihelions 2y ago
  - "baby was neither a founder" "Show HN" is way more exciting when you don't yet have object permanence Where'd the startup go?! :D Now you see it–now it's been acquired by Google
  - amne 2y ago
    ROFL! (typed from my phone while still rolling)
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Surely a baby would have better ideas than some start ups...
  - FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
    And so we come full circle to "Goo-gle".
vavooom 2y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20240903143023/https://www.businessinsider.com/asked-leave-event-female-founders-y-combinator-because-baby-2024-9 https://web.archive.org/web/20240903143023/https://www.busin...
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Doesn’t work for me, the other archive link in this thread works though.
  - codetrotter 2y ago
    Works ok for me. But the other link is still better, as it has the picture while this one doesn’t.
MisterBastahrd 2y ago
[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > it was an event for females, not women Chill out. One of these words alliterates with founders, the other does not.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  When referring to people, female is an adjective, woman is a noun. It only sounds like you're a ferengi when you use female as a noun.
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    There is a very large and prominent movement that is trying to separate biological sex (male vs. female) from cultural gender ("man" vs. "woman"). Assuming someone sympathizes with that movement, what noun should they use to refer to someone of the female biological sex, and anyway what's wrong with "female"?
    - marginalia_nu 2y ago
      In that case you'd typically use "biological female" to emphasize the distinction and get around from sounding like a ferengi or andrew tate-like figure.
Workaccount2 2y ago
[flagged]
- notimetorelax 2y ago
  I think it greatly depends on the definition of “professional”.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    I would imagine there was at least a few other moms there who were perhaps foolish for arranging child care that day from the authors POV.
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      I understand feeling this way, generically. Let's imagine a public speech. In a small room. Dead quiet except for speaker. There's a suddenly loud happy baby, competing with the adult speaker for volume. They take 2 minutes to wheel the baby to the back of the room, that's only 30 feet away, so nothing really changes in terms of noise elvel. And another woman politely approaches them with their line asking if they'd like to take it outside. The thing is at that point, I have jumped to a # of conclusions: small room, disruptive over long period of time, dead quiet, and acceded to this odd cultural view I never saw anywhere other than moneyed SV and extreme money that talking obliquely means you're being polite. The article doesn't give us enough data to help, but it does give us enough data to know this was a near-platonic caricature of a situation where the unprofessional bit isn't the baby making noise. It was during a talk about the practical challenges of being a founder with an infant, at an event targeted towards being more inclusive to female founders.
  - n4r9 2y ago
    In some sense the article is an argument that "professional" can include "in the presence of babies".
sergiotapia 2y ago
[flagged]
- giantrobot 2y ago
  > Really bad look for YC, being a mother is literally the highest calling a woman can have. This is a weird take. Women can be more than just baby factories. They can have a far more reaching impact on the world beyond just adding to its population.
  - speakfreely 2y ago
    > Women can be more than just baby factories That's a weirder take. Women who do a good job caring for the next generation are more valuable than most of the other impacts you're likely to make in a business career. Most people overestimate the impact of their work and underestimate the impact of their family and personal relationships. It's one of the most common deathbed regrets.
    - cthalupa 2y ago
      "Spending more time with friends and family" is not the same thing as "having kids" I know I will regret not spending as much time with close friends as I could have - I already do. Some of them I no longer have the chance to do so. I regret not traveling more when I was younger - and I traveled A LOT! Still do. But there are some things I'll never get to experience. I'm sure I'll regret some aspects of focusing on my career. Career and work are almost certainly not the most important aspect of your life. But that doesn't mean that you have to have kids, either, or that you'd regret not having them. I find it weird to suggest that the most meaningful form of interpersonal relationship has to be that of parent and child instead of whatever an individual finds to be the most meaningful.
      - speakfreely 2y ago
        There's certainly exceptions, but I would say for the majority of people, their relationships with their parents are amongst the closest and most important in their lives. It's one of the few relationships that survives the different phases of life. I don't have children so I can't recommend that for you, but I still think having children is a beautiful thing that should be encouraged.
vavooom 2y ago
"Trust that I would step out if my child were actually disturbing anyone." Key word here is trust, which I think many have lost the ability to provide to others since the pandemic. We live in a jaded society and sometimes people will project their opinions from positions of power that aren't quite justified. Good on the author for being capable of doing so much and taking conflict in stride!
- bumby 2y ago
  The problem is it leaves the entire interpretation of what is or is not a distraction up to the mother. The founder obviously thought the baby was being distracting enough to (politely) ask her to step outside. I've been at professional events with infants; as long as the infant was quiet there's no issue. But I think the it's also reasonable to defer to the attendees who also deserve a professional environment free of distractions. It's hard to know without all the details, but the author must have felt there was some distraction, or I doubt she would have moved to the back to begin with.
- Manuel_D 2y ago
  > When he started babbling and cooing, I moved to the back of the room. That's when someone approached me and said, "Would you like to stroll your baby outside? I want people to get the full experience out of this conference." It sounds like the child was indeed disturbing people. The author may have not be in alignment with the rest of the audience as far as what behavior is disturbing.
sickofparadox 2y ago
The world is far too cruel to children, and sees them primarily as nuisance. Part of this is because of increased childlessness, leaving people without the experience of dealing with young children previous generations had. Parents deserve to be able to go to all kinds of events.
- marssaxman 2y ago
  Of course parents can go to all kinds of events - sometimes they just have to arrange for childcare.
- hungie 2y ago
  I disagree with your reason, but agree with your conclusion. We've been pretty unforgiving and cruel to both mothers and children for a long, long time.
- Aloha 2y ago
  I'm not suited for raising children as a primary parent, but I'm happy to be part of that village raising kids.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- BadHumans 2y ago
  I think the callousness towards parents is earned. I have seen children destroy gardens and when parents are told they show no remorse or attempts to reprimand the child. You are told to calm down they are just being kids. Of course this leads to people seeing children as a nuisance.
  - gspencley 2y ago
    I agree. I'm a parent with two (now adult) daughters. I'm not intolerant of other peoples' children because I am personally child-free or was an only child (though I was). I'm intolerant of other peoples' children when those children draw attention to themselves. If your kid is quiet and keeps to themselves, then I haven't even noticed them in the first place in order to take issue. The reason I take issue is because your kid is being loud or obnoxious and ruining my experience in (grocery store | restaurant | movie theatre | public transportation | anywhere that I'm politely minding my own business but your kid is forcing me to know that it exists). As people like to say when discussing rights and freedoms: your rights end where my nose begins. My wife and I recently travelled to Walt Disney World for a vacation. While in a hotel lobby we walked past a child around 8 or 9 years-old (if I had to guess) accompanied by a man that I assumed was his father. As we walked past, the kid punched my wife in the arm. It wasn't a mistake. He telegraphed the hell out of it. When I confronted the father he just smiled and shrugged it off. If people didn't constantly have to deal with situations like the above, then we could talk about being more tolerant towards other peoples' children. But if it's not a child invading physical boundaries, it's auditory. God help those of us with misophonia that have to listen to children make the most hideous noises (and not always due to a temper tantrum, sometimes it's just loud screeching or yelling as part of play or whatever). Why should anyone have to tolerate this? And no, I don't blame the children, I blame the parents. But who is at fault is irrelevant. No one should be obligated to put up with assholes whether those assholes are 40 years-old or 4 years-old.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
misnome 2y ago
... at a Y Combinator event. I've been to several (scientific) conferences including babies. They sometimes make a small disturbance, but I don't think anyone has ever taken offence at this. > I'm not naming this woman because I think the problem is bigger than me or her. Probably A Better Person than I, but I'm in the privileged position of not being a man and not trying start a career. A YCombinator representative suggesting that a mother with a baby leaves in a talk specifically in a talk on "Mothering experience while starting a business" seems to send a very strong signal about what Y Combinator thinks of this situation.
- gwervc 2y ago
  I would be kinda mad if someone came with a (noisy) baby during a presentation of a conference paper I spend months working on, plus facing the stress of selection. They are professionals to keep care of them when needed, there is no valid reason besides saving a few bucks bringing a baby there.
bl4kers 2y ago
If the baby wasn't a founder makes total sense /s
- bell-cot 2y ago
  Five minutes with a lawyer, and baby can be a co-founder.
- breck 2y ago
  I saw the baby's application and it was terrible. Hadn't even launched anything (other than vomit) yet. The good news is he can keep applying. In fact, the average person in YC applied 2.4 times before being accepted.
legitster 2y ago
> Darwin was in a stroller, and I was rocking him back and forth to sleep. When he started babbling and cooing, I moved to the back of the room. That's when someone approached me and said, "Would you like to stroll your baby outside? I want people to get the full experience out of this conference." I am a dad who brings kids everywhere. This is an entirely polite and reasonable response. If my kids are being distracting, I appreciate being told and have zero problem taking a baby out to calm down. They never said she had to leave because she had a baby. It's great when others are chill around your kids, but I would never just force random people to have to put up with children.
- 93po 2y ago
  "Would you like to stroll your baby outside? I want people to get the full experience out of this conference." According to response from the organizer, the offer here was to help the mom get the full experience by offering her accommodations so that she doesn't have to miss any part of the presentation despite having her child with her.
- h0ek 2y ago
  Congratulations on fully understanding the situation. There are a lot of such failed provocations unfortunately. Like the short movie in Poland with the lady on the bus who showed a piece of footage in which the bus driver asks her out of the vehicle, and it was an article along the lines of ‘he asked me out of the bus because I was with my child’, while the entire surveillance footage of the bus reveals that the driver asked the mother to fasten her pram with a seatbelt in a suitable place. She refused and the driver asked her out because she did not comply with his instructions and rules related to transport. People who have children completely fail to understand or do not want to understand people who have made a conscious decision not to have them. Thanks for this comment, your commentary is uplifting.
- hungie 2y ago
  Contextualize the event, though. Womanhood and motherhood are often quite strongly connected. An event celebrating and developing women should anticipate a higher percentage of the audience will be mothers with infants. Be prepared for that, communicate with your audience in advance, have clear expectations with staff, perhaps be more permissive with infants, etc. The context matters here.
iamleppert 2y ago
Should have used the baby as a prop or call to action in a booth, or unveiled a way for VCs to monetize it, and I'm sure ears would have perked up then.
- blooalien 2y ago
  See, I thought pretty much this exact same thing! Someone missed a golden opportunity there...
breck 2y ago
When I did YC I often had office hours with PG and JL while their son crawled around on the floor. It was very family friendly. I loved that, and it taught me good lessons that have been helpful now that I have kids of my own. I'm worried YC has "jumped the shark". The blocking of constructive criticism from people who have helped build this place is very sad. Maybe they need Founder Mode again.
- Atotalnoob 2y ago
  Or, the lady is downplaying her baby’s noise. Keep in mind, there are many people who can be more susceptible than others to noises. I know a few autistic folks who would have a very difficult time.
  - breck 2y ago
    > the lady is downplaying her baby’s noise. Do you have children? Don't you think those of us who do know exactly what the maximum amount of noise a baby can make is? Might we have concluded that even if that maximum noise level was reached (I wasn't there but from accounts I bet it was 1% of that), that it should have been celebrated, and applauded, and spun in a positive way, rather than how it was handled?
    - Atotalnoob 2y ago
      Nope, and even if it was 1% (doubt it) it’s still okay to ask someone to stop. Humans have evolved to find baby noises very disruptive, so even a low quiet noise can be distracting. A mother might be more used to baby noises and okay with a level the average person might not be. And again, people have conditions where they can find quieter noises distracting. Why does someone’s medical condition suddenly have to take a back seat to exiting a venue when your baby makes noise. If I ever have children, I wouldn’t subject others around me to things like this. You have a responsibility to other people in society. Your child isn’t special and doesn’t deserve consideration above medical conditions.
HomeDeLaPot 2y ago
After reading the few details in the article, it sounds like it could have just been a disagreement about when a baby's noises cross the line into "distraction." Was the talk recorded so we can judge for ourselves? :)
greenthrow 2y ago
That's some crappy behavior by the YC partner at any event let alone one targetted at women. If the baby was screaming/crying ok sure. But come on.
- dekhn 2y ago
  You are assuming she's explaining the situation correctly, in an unbiased way. I think there was context and nuance to the situation she may have intentionally left out.
rossdavidh 2y ago
It is, I have to say, so inexplicable (especially given the topic of the talk) that they would do this as a result of a baby "cooing", that I wonder if this is an accurate description of events?
cat_plus_plus 2y ago
I would like to lean into having kids at work whenever practical and having them eventually become apprentices to possibly do similar work when they grow up. This has been the historical norm for farmers, shopkeepers, craftsman etc and in my opinion beats institutionalized childcare and staying in college until age of 30 to get a good job. However I kind of wonder if the author would support that or suddenly switch to standard talking points about institutionalized childhood. Are moms and dads in the company she founded bringing kids to office daily instead of dropping them off at daycare?
- bumby 2y ago
  She's advocating for childcare in the workplace. From the article: >If you really want to make a difference for parents, offer on-site childcare.
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago
  Office workers are already riled up about the noisiness of open office environments. Seems doubtful they'll embrace having children added to the din.
vander_elst 2y ago
Parent of 2. Babies are distracting by design:) they cannot talk and they can only get attention by crying/cooing, and we are wired to listen and prioritize the sound of babies crying/cooing over other activities to guarantee their survival:therefore if there's a baby crying/cooing at a conference the attendees will give priority to the baby over the speaker. I personally didn't think it was rude to ask to go strolling outside as this was from my perspective distracting for the participants.
louwrentius 2y ago
[flagged]
joshcsimmons 2y ago
It is almost always "child free" people that are massively disturbed by even the quietest child noises. I can only speculate as to the (obvious) reasons for this attitude which gives me some level of compassion and even sorrow for those people. You're being gaslit by most of the comments here but you're not imagining things - there's been a huge shift from an attitude of "children, even other peoples' children, are our future so it's reasonable to tolerate some noise from them" to "children are a dirty loud nuisance that must be stopped". Again, the reasons for this seem obvious to me but you're an asshole if you point them out explicity.
- Atotalnoob 2y ago
  What reasons are those? Humans are evolutionarily evolved to listen to babies. It makes even quiet noises annoying.
  - Balgair 2y ago
    > Humans are evolutionarily evolved to listen to babies. It makes even quiet noises annoying. It's funny, once you have kiddos, you learn to be able to tell the type of crying they are doing. Some cries are really for attention that an adult needs to attend to right this second, some are just noise, and then there's everything in between. Once you're around infants enough, you kinda just tune out the less important crying, just like you would a fan or a car engine. But, it is a skill you learn, and can lose. So, parents of young children, I think, really can't see what the big deal is. They're skilled at tuning out the cries that aren't important.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > there's been a huge shift from an attitude of "children, even other peoples' children, are our future so it's reasonable to tolerate some noise from them" to "children are a dirty loud nuisance that must be stopped" Plenty of ancient civilisations treated children as glorified cattle. They weren’t expected to survive, so it wasn’t irrational. The notion of a babbling baby in the Roman Senate, a Victorian ball or Meiji Dai Shin’in is laughable. We are more considerate of babies and parents than we’ve probably ever been as a society. That’s a good thing. But it’s also regularly abused, as anyone who has been on a plane with a child screaming for their iPad knows.
oldpersonintx 2y ago
expect more of this childless flights childless restaurants childless hotels childless theaters etc etc all driven by soulless, self-centered singles and childless couples who cannot abide anything but a world that exists only for their personal indulgence just wait a generation until these vapid reptiles start to expire and their bloodlines disappear forever...memorialized only in a plaque on a bench in the office plaza where their VC used to be
tuetnsuppe 2y ago
I have seen good speakers with large audiences and screaming babies that can make a quip along the lines “baby, your skepticism is healthy, but let me convince you, I have done my homework” that is funny at least once, everyone relaxes, and it doesn’t kick anyone out. If the baby keeps yapping, parents will usually find another place anyway. Also onsite daycare would be a honking great business idea for so many events, including but not limited to company holiday parties.
rKarpinski 2y ago
> I later learned she was one of the partners of Y Combinator. > I'm not naming this woman because I think the problem is bigger than me or her Yet they are attacking her in the press and giving a specific enough description to damage her reputation...
root_axis 2y ago
The headline's characterization seems designed to stoke outrage over something that appears to be fairly mundane. From my reading, she was politely asked to stroll her baby out of the room, whereas the headline makes it sound like she was kicked out of the conference because kids are not welcome. In my experience, it's very common to simply exit the room with your kid in these kinds of situations and return after they've quieted down, just as a courtesy to those who are there to listen and to be heard. I recognize the mother is suggesting her kid wasn't very noisy, but I also know that parents are often biased and protective of their kids and can't always see things the way everyone else does. I guess it all hinges on "was the kid sufficiently noisy", but it's probably not worth litigating the subjectivity in this type of extremely common occurrence.
dekhn 2y ago
The person on the other side of this interaction wrote her response: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/surbhi-sarna_elevating-the-position-of-women-has-been-activity-7228899101495476224-IYdo/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/surbhi-sarna_elevating-the-po... Without seeing the full context I have a hard time deciding but I think the founder with a baby jumped to assuming the worst interpretaion and then got attention by feeding into existing stereotypes. This specific interaction was probably not a good situation to turn into a whole post about systemic barriers. There are probably better examples. Making these things into social viral communications reduces the overall positive effect that can be made.
Geekette 2y ago
“Right away, I noticed no other babies”. It was a business conference, not a creche or playground and the norm for such environments IS adults only. “That's when someone approached me and said, "Would you like to stroll your baby outside? I want people to get the full experience out of this conference.”” A perfectly reasonable request that I’d expect and have even proactively accommodated by stepping outside (vs just towards back of room) if I’d decided to attend with a baby. Author may not have felt her kid was noisy but chances are, the YC staff that approached her had noticed or been informed by other attendees that the noise was at distracting level. “I’m not naming this woman because I think the problem is bigger than me or her. It's about this tension in the business world right now. To many people, including me, the pandemic showed that it was possible to be a hands-on mom and a hands-on business partner. Others want to maintain the status quo of business and babies as entirely separate. To me, that's ridiculous. To ask me to leave with a quietly cooing baby during a talk that was explicitly about the challenges of being a mother and founder was shocking. I realized then that the monster of systemic barriers to entrepreneurs who are also moms is bigger than I ever realized”. It would be indeed be foolish to antagonize a YC partner in print over a paper thin argument that’s riddled with holes. Systemic barriers to female entrepreneurs including mothers exist but this wasn’t an instance of that and to suggest otherwise is what’s ridiculous.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  I understand feeling this way, generically. Let's imagine a public speech. In a small room. Dead quiet except for speaker. There's a suddenly loud happy baby, competing with the adult speaker for volume. They take 2 minutes to wheel the baby to the back of the room, that's only 30 feet away, so nothing really changes in terms of noise elvel. And another woman politely approaches them with their line asking if they'd like to take it outside. The thing is at that point, I have jumped to a # of conclusions: small room, disruptive over long period of time, dead quiet, and acceded to this odd cultural view I never saw anywhere other than moneyed SV and extreme money that talking obliquely means you're being polite. The article doesn't give us data to justify the conclusions I jumped to, but it does give us enough data to know this was a near-platonic caricature of a situation where the unprofessional bit isn't the baby making noise. It was during a talk about the practical challenges of being a founder with an infant, at an event targeted towards being more inclusive to female founders.

98 points by avs733 2y ago

The incident is illustrative, not ironic. So, given the example, what's the solution?

It's kind of hard to tell from the article, but given the timing and the linkedin response about 2024 (and the picture), it seems like this is actually about bringing a 3 year old to conference, not an infant.

erik_seaberg 2y ago

Didn't people used to get in trouble for "working from home" when they were actually parenting instead?

Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago

Am I the only one who was disappointed in reading "female founders"? Dads would have the same issue. Society hasn't adjusted yet completely to the idea that dads might have the same role that mums-only had in the past.

datadrivenangel 2y ago

https://archive.is/5clK8 https://archive.is/5clK8

eigenrick 2y ago

<jest> Well the baby was neither a founder nor a female, sooo... </jest>

actionfromafar 2y ago
Yet!
perihelions 2y ago
- "baby was neither a founder" "Show HN" is way more exciting when you don't yet have object permanence Where'd the startup go?! :D Now you see it–now it's been acquired by Google
- amne 2y ago
  ROFL! (typed from my phone while still rolling)
Ekaros 2y ago
Surely a baby would have better ideas than some start ups...
- FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
  And so we come full circle to "Goo-gle".

vavooom 2y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20240903143023/https://www.businessinsider.com/asked-leave-event-female-founders-y-combinator-because-baby-2024-9 https://web.archive.org/web/20240903143023/https://www.busin...

School-Cotton 2y ago
Doesn’t work for me, the other archive link in this thread works though.
- codetrotter 2y ago
  Works ok for me. But the other link is still better, as it has the picture while this one doesn’t.

MisterBastahrd 2y ago

[flagged]

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> it was an event for females, not women Chill out. One of these words alliterates with founders, the other does not.
marginalia_nu 2y ago
When referring to people, female is an adjective, woman is a noun. It only sounds like you're a ferengi when you use female as a noun.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  There is a very large and prominent movement that is trying to separate biological sex (male vs. female) from cultural gender ("man" vs. "woman"). Assuming someone sympathizes with that movement, what noun should they use to refer to someone of the female biological sex, and anyway what's wrong with "female"?
  - marginalia_nu 2y ago
    In that case you'd typically use "biological female" to emphasize the distinction and get around from sounding like a ferengi or andrew tate-like figure.

Workaccount2 2y ago

[flagged]

notimetorelax 2y ago
I think it greatly depends on the definition of “professional”.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  I would imagine there was at least a few other moms there who were perhaps foolish for arranging child care that day from the authors POV.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    I understand feeling this way, generically. Let's imagine a public speech. In a small room. Dead quiet except for speaker. There's a suddenly loud happy baby, competing with the adult speaker for volume. They take 2 minutes to wheel the baby to the back of the room, that's only 30 feet away, so nothing really changes in terms of noise elvel. And another woman politely approaches them with their line asking if they'd like to take it outside. The thing is at that point, I have jumped to a # of conclusions: small room, disruptive over long period of time, dead quiet, and acceded to this odd cultural view I never saw anywhere other than moneyed SV and extreme money that talking obliquely means you're being polite. The article doesn't give us enough data to help, but it does give us enough data to know this was a near-platonic caricature of a situation where the unprofessional bit isn't the baby making noise. It was during a talk about the practical challenges of being a founder with an infant, at an event targeted towards being more inclusive to female founders.
- n4r9 2y ago
  In some sense the article is an argument that "professional" can include "in the presence of babies".

sergiotapia 2y ago

[flagged]

giantrobot 2y ago
> Really bad look for YC, being a mother is literally the highest calling a woman can have. This is a weird take. Women can be more than just baby factories. They can have a far more reaching impact on the world beyond just adding to its population.
- speakfreely 2y ago
  > Women can be more than just baby factories That's a weirder take. Women who do a good job caring for the next generation are more valuable than most of the other impacts you're likely to make in a business career. Most people overestimate the impact of their work and underestimate the impact of their family and personal relationships. It's one of the most common deathbed regrets.
  - cthalupa 2y ago
    "Spending more time with friends and family" is not the same thing as "having kids" I know I will regret not spending as much time with close friends as I could have - I already do. Some of them I no longer have the chance to do so. I regret not traveling more when I was younger - and I traveled A LOT! Still do. But there are some things I'll never get to experience. I'm sure I'll regret some aspects of focusing on my career. Career and work are almost certainly not the most important aspect of your life. But that doesn't mean that you have to have kids, either, or that you'd regret not having them. I find it weird to suggest that the most meaningful form of interpersonal relationship has to be that of parent and child instead of whatever an individual finds to be the most meaningful.
    - speakfreely 2y ago
      There's certainly exceptions, but I would say for the majority of people, their relationships with their parents are amongst the closest and most important in their lives. It's one of the few relationships that survives the different phases of life. I don't have children so I can't recommend that for you, but I still think having children is a beautiful thing that should be encouraged.

vavooom 2y ago

"Trust that I would step out if my child were actually disturbing anyone." Key word here is trust, which I think many have lost the ability to provide to others since the pandemic. We live in a jaded society and sometimes people will project their opinions from positions of power that aren't quite justified. Good on the author for being capable of doing so much and taking conflict in stride!

bumby 2y ago
The problem is it leaves the entire interpretation of what is or is not a distraction up to the mother. The founder obviously thought the baby was being distracting enough to (politely) ask her to step outside. I've been at professional events with infants; as long as the infant was quiet there's no issue. But I think the it's also reasonable to defer to the attendees who also deserve a professional environment free of distractions. It's hard to know without all the details, but the author must have felt there was some distraction, or I doubt she would have moved to the back to begin with.
Manuel_D 2y ago
> When he started babbling and cooing, I moved to the back of the room. That's when someone approached me and said, "Would you like to stroll your baby outside? I want people to get the full experience out of this conference." It sounds like the child was indeed disturbing people. The author may have not be in alignment with the rest of the audience as far as what behavior is disturbing.

sickofparadox 2y ago

The world is far too cruel to children, and sees them primarily as nuisance. Part of this is because of increased childlessness, leaving people without the experience of dealing with young children previous generations had. Parents deserve to be able to go to all kinds of events.

marssaxman 2y ago
Of course parents can go to all kinds of events - sometimes they just have to arrange for childcare.
hungie 2y ago
I disagree with your reason, but agree with your conclusion. We've been pretty unforgiving and cruel to both mothers and children for a long, long time.
Aloha 2y ago
I'm not suited for raising children as a primary parent, but I'm happy to be part of that village raising kids.
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BadHumans 2y ago
I think the callousness towards parents is earned. I have seen children destroy gardens and when parents are told they show no remorse or attempts to reprimand the child. You are told to calm down they are just being kids. Of course this leads to people seeing children as a nuisance.
- gspencley 2y ago
  I agree. I'm a parent with two (now adult) daughters. I'm not intolerant of other peoples' children because I am personally child-free or was an only child (though I was). I'm intolerant of other peoples' children when those children draw attention to themselves. If your kid is quiet and keeps to themselves, then I haven't even noticed them in the first place in order to take issue. The reason I take issue is because your kid is being loud or obnoxious and ruining my experience in (grocery store | restaurant | movie theatre | public transportation | anywhere that I'm politely minding my own business but your kid is forcing me to know that it exists). As people like to say when discussing rights and freedoms: your rights end where my nose begins. My wife and I recently travelled to Walt Disney World for a vacation. While in a hotel lobby we walked past a child around 8 or 9 years-old (if I had to guess) accompanied by a man that I assumed was his father. As we walked past, the kid punched my wife in the arm. It wasn't a mistake. He telegraphed the hell out of it. When I confronted the father he just smiled and shrugged it off. If people didn't constantly have to deal with situations like the above, then we could talk about being more tolerant towards other peoples' children. But if it's not a child invading physical boundaries, it's auditory. God help those of us with misophonia that have to listen to children make the most hideous noises (and not always due to a temper tantrum, sometimes it's just loud screeching or yelling as part of play or whatever). Why should anyone have to tolerate this? And no, I don't blame the children, I blame the parents. But who is at fault is irrelevant. No one should be obligated to put up with assholes whether those assholes are 40 years-old or 4 years-old.

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misnome 2y ago

... at a Y Combinator event. I've been to several (scientific) conferences including babies. They sometimes make a small disturbance, but I don't think anyone has ever taken offence at this. > I'm not naming this woman because I think the problem is bigger than me or her. Probably A Better Person than I, but I'm in the privileged position of not being a man and not trying start a career. A YCombinator representative suggesting that a mother with a baby leaves in a talk specifically in a talk on "Mothering experience while starting a business" seems to send a very strong signal about what Y Combinator thinks of this situation.

gwervc 2y ago
I would be kinda mad if someone came with a (noisy) baby during a presentation of a conference paper I spend months working on, plus facing the stress of selection. They are professionals to keep care of them when needed, there is no valid reason besides saving a few bucks bringing a baby there.

bl4kers 2y ago

If the baby wasn't a founder makes total sense /s

bell-cot 2y ago
Five minutes with a lawyer, and baby can be a co-founder.
breck 2y ago
I saw the baby's application and it was terrible. Hadn't even launched anything (other than vomit) yet. The good news is he can keep applying. In fact, the average person in YC applied 2.4 times before being accepted.

legitster 2y ago

> Darwin was in a stroller, and I was rocking him back and forth to sleep. When he started babbling and cooing, I moved to the back of the room. That's when someone approached me and said, "Would you like to stroll your baby outside? I want people to get the full experience out of this conference." I am a dad who brings kids everywhere. This is an entirely polite and reasonable response. If my kids are being distracting, I appreciate being told and have zero problem taking a baby out to calm down. They never said she had to leave because she had a baby. It's great when others are chill around your kids, but I would never just force random people to have to put up with children.

93po 2y ago
"Would you like to stroll your baby outside? I want people to get the full experience out of this conference." According to response from the organizer, the offer here was to help the mom get the full experience by offering her accommodations so that she doesn't have to miss any part of the presentation despite having her child with her.
h0ek 2y ago
Congratulations on fully understanding the situation. There are a lot of such failed provocations unfortunately. Like the short movie in Poland with the lady on the bus who showed a piece of footage in which the bus driver asks her out of the vehicle, and it was an article along the lines of ‘he asked me out of the bus because I was with my child’, while the entire surveillance footage of the bus reveals that the driver asked the mother to fasten her pram with a seatbelt in a suitable place. She refused and the driver asked her out because she did not comply with his instructions and rules related to transport. People who have children completely fail to understand or do not want to understand people who have made a conscious decision not to have them. Thanks for this comment, your commentary is uplifting.
hungie 2y ago
Contextualize the event, though. Womanhood and motherhood are often quite strongly connected. An event celebrating and developing women should anticipate a higher percentage of the audience will be mothers with infants. Be prepared for that, communicate with your audience in advance, have clear expectations with staff, perhaps be more permissive with infants, etc. The context matters here.

iamleppert 2y ago

Should have used the baby as a prop or call to action in a booth, or unveiled a way for VCs to monetize it, and I'm sure ears would have perked up then.

blooalien 2y ago
See, I thought pretty much this exact same thing! Someone missed a golden opportunity there...

breck 2y ago

When I did YC I often had office hours with PG and JL while their son crawled around on the floor. It was very family friendly. I loved that, and it taught me good lessons that have been helpful now that I have kids of my own. I'm worried YC has "jumped the shark". The blocking of constructive criticism from people who have helped build this place is very sad. Maybe they need Founder Mode again.

Atotalnoob 2y ago
Or, the lady is downplaying her baby’s noise. Keep in mind, there are many people who can be more susceptible than others to noises. I know a few autistic folks who would have a very difficult time.
- breck 2y ago
  > the lady is downplaying her baby’s noise. Do you have children? Don't you think those of us who do know exactly what the maximum amount of noise a baby can make is? Might we have concluded that even if that maximum noise level was reached (I wasn't there but from accounts I bet it was 1% of that), that it should have been celebrated, and applauded, and spun in a positive way, rather than how it was handled?
  - Atotalnoob 2y ago
    Nope, and even if it was 1% (doubt it) it’s still okay to ask someone to stop. Humans have evolved to find baby noises very disruptive, so even a low quiet noise can be distracting. A mother might be more used to baby noises and okay with a level the average person might not be. And again, people have conditions where they can find quieter noises distracting. Why does someone’s medical condition suddenly have to take a back seat to exiting a venue when your baby makes noise. If I ever have children, I wouldn’t subject others around me to things like this. You have a responsibility to other people in society. Your child isn’t special and doesn’t deserve consideration above medical conditions.

HomeDeLaPot 2y ago

After reading the few details in the article, it sounds like it could have just been a disagreement about when a baby's noises cross the line into "distraction." Was the talk recorded so we can judge for ourselves? :)

greenthrow 2y ago

That's some crappy behavior by the YC partner at any event let alone one targetted at women. If the baby was screaming/crying ok sure. But come on.

dekhn 2y ago
You are assuming she's explaining the situation correctly, in an unbiased way. I think there was context and nuance to the situation she may have intentionally left out.

rossdavidh 2y ago

It is, I have to say, so inexplicable (especially given the topic of the talk) that they would do this as a result of a baby "cooing", that I wonder if this is an accurate description of events?

cat_plus_plus 2y ago

I would like to lean into having kids at work whenever practical and having them eventually become apprentices to possibly do similar work when they grow up. This has been the historical norm for farmers, shopkeepers, craftsman etc and in my opinion beats institutionalized childcare and staying in college until age of 30 to get a good job. However I kind of wonder if the author would support that or suddenly switch to standard talking points about institutionalized childhood. Are moms and dads in the company she founded bringing kids to office daily instead of dropping them off at daycare?

bumby 2y ago
She's advocating for childcare in the workplace. From the article: >If you really want to make a difference for parents, offer on-site childcare.
ThrowawayR2 2y ago
Office workers are already riled up about the noisiness of open office environments. Seems doubtful they'll embrace having children added to the din.

vander_elst 2y ago

Parent of 2. Babies are distracting by design:) they cannot talk and they can only get attention by crying/cooing, and we are wired to listen and prioritize the sound of babies crying/cooing over other activities to guarantee their survival:therefore if there's a baby crying/cooing at a conference the attendees will give priority to the baby over the speaker. I personally didn't think it was rude to ask to go strolling outside as this was from my perspective distracting for the participants.

louwrentius 2y ago

[flagged]

joshcsimmons 2y ago

It is almost always "child free" people that are massively disturbed by even the quietest child noises. I can only speculate as to the (obvious) reasons for this attitude which gives me some level of compassion and even sorrow for those people. You're being gaslit by most of the comments here but you're not imagining things - there's been a huge shift from an attitude of "children, even other peoples' children, are our future so it's reasonable to tolerate some noise from them" to "children are a dirty loud nuisance that must be stopped". Again, the reasons for this seem obvious to me but you're an asshole if you point them out explicity.

Atotalnoob 2y ago
What reasons are those? Humans are evolutionarily evolved to listen to babies. It makes even quiet noises annoying.
- Balgair 2y ago
  > Humans are evolutionarily evolved to listen to babies. It makes even quiet noises annoying. It's funny, once you have kiddos, you learn to be able to tell the type of crying they are doing. Some cries are really for attention that an adult needs to attend to right this second, some are just noise, and then there's everything in between. Once you're around infants enough, you kinda just tune out the less important crying, just like you would a fan or a car engine. But, it is a skill you learn, and can lose. So, parents of young children, I think, really can't see what the big deal is. They're skilled at tuning out the cries that aren't important.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> there's been a huge shift from an attitude of "children, even other peoples' children, are our future so it's reasonable to tolerate some noise from them" to "children are a dirty loud nuisance that must be stopped" Plenty of ancient civilisations treated children as glorified cattle. They weren’t expected to survive, so it wasn’t irrational. The notion of a babbling baby in the Roman Senate, a Victorian ball or Meiji Dai Shin’in is laughable. We are more considerate of babies and parents than we’ve probably ever been as a society. That’s a good thing. But it’s also regularly abused, as anyone who has been on a plane with a child screaming for their iPad knows.

oldpersonintx 2y ago

expect more of this childless flights childless restaurants childless hotels childless theaters etc etc all driven by soulless, self-centered singles and childless couples who cannot abide anything but a world that exists only for their personal indulgence just wait a generation until these vapid reptiles start to expire and their bloodlines disappear forever...memorialized only in a plaque on a bench in the office plaza where their VC used to be

tuetnsuppe 2y ago

I have seen good speakers with large audiences and screaming babies that can make a quip along the lines “baby, your skepticism is healthy, but let me convince you, I have done my homework” that is funny at least once, everyone relaxes, and it doesn’t kick anyone out. If the baby keeps yapping, parents will usually find another place anyway. Also onsite daycare would be a honking great business idea for so many events, including but not limited to company holiday parties.

rKarpinski 2y ago

> I later learned she was one of the partners of Y Combinator. > I'm not naming this woman because I think the problem is bigger than me or her Yet they are attacking her in the press and giving a specific enough description to damage her reputation...

root_axis 2y ago

The headline's characterization seems designed to stoke outrage over something that appears to be fairly mundane. From my reading, she was politely asked to stroll her baby out of the room, whereas the headline makes it sound like she was kicked out of the conference because kids are not welcome. In my experience, it's very common to simply exit the room with your kid in these kinds of situations and return after they've quieted down, just as a courtesy to those who are there to listen and to be heard. I recognize the mother is suggesting her kid wasn't very noisy, but I also know that parents are often biased and protective of their kids and can't always see things the way everyone else does. I guess it all hinges on "was the kid sufficiently noisy", but it's probably not worth litigating the subjectivity in this type of extremely common occurrence.

dekhn 2y ago

The person on the other side of this interaction wrote her response: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/surbhi-sarna_elevating-the-position-of-women-has-been-activity-7228899101495476224-IYdo/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/surbhi-sarna_elevating-the-po... Without seeing the full context I have a hard time deciding but I think the founder with a baby jumped to assuming the worst interpretaion and then got attention by feeding into existing stereotypes. This specific interaction was probably not a good situation to turn into a whole post about systemic barriers. There are probably better examples. Making these things into social viral communications reduces the overall positive effect that can be made.

Geekette 2y ago

“Right away, I noticed no other babies”. It was a business conference, not a creche or playground and the norm for such environments IS adults only. “That's when someone approached me and said, "Would you like to stroll your baby outside? I want people to get the full experience out of this conference.”” A perfectly reasonable request that I’d expect and have even proactively accommodated by stepping outside (vs just towards back of room) if I’d decided to attend with a baby. Author may not have felt her kid was noisy but chances are, the YC staff that approached her had noticed or been informed by other attendees that the noise was at distracting level. “I’m not naming this woman because I think the problem is bigger than me or her. It's about this tension in the business world right now. To many people, including me, the pandemic showed that it was possible to be a hands-on mom and a hands-on business partner. Others want to maintain the status quo of business and babies as entirely separate. To me, that's ridiculous. To ask me to leave with a quietly cooing baby during a talk that was explicitly about the challenges of being a mother and founder was shocking. I realized then that the monster of systemic barriers to entrepreneurs who are also moms is bigger than I ever realized”. It would be indeed be foolish to antagonize a YC partner in print over a paper thin argument that’s riddled with holes. Systemic barriers to female entrepreneurs including mothers exist but this wasn’t an instance of that and to suggest otherwise is what’s ridiculous.

refulgentis 2y ago
I understand feeling this way, generically. Let's imagine a public speech. In a small room. Dead quiet except for speaker. There's a suddenly loud happy baby, competing with the adult speaker for volume. They take 2 minutes to wheel the baby to the back of the room, that's only 30 feet away, so nothing really changes in terms of noise elvel. And another woman politely approaches them with their line asking if they'd like to take it outside. The thing is at that point, I have jumped to a # of conclusions: small room, disruptive over long period of time, dead quiet, and acceded to this odd cultural view I never saw anywhere other than moneyed SV and extreme money that talking obliquely means you're being polite. The article doesn't give us data to justify the conclusions I jumped to, but it does give us enough data to know this was a near-platonic caricature of a situation where the unprofessional bit isn't the baby making noise. It was during a talk about the practical challenges of being a founder with an infant, at an event targeted towards being more inclusive to female founders.