Working Mom Sends Powerful Message by Saying Hardly Anything at All

When journalist Rebecca Traister made a recent appearance on MSNBC to deliver her smart take on the Hilary Clinton email scandal, she didn’t let her maternity leave get in the way — she simply brought her newborn daughter Bella to the television interview, cradling the sleeping newborn while she spoke. To Traister, a senior editor at The New Republic, it may have been a quick decision of convenience —many working women on maternity leave don’t yet have childcare lined up — but to professional women everywhere, it was a major boon.

Case in point: Twitter erupted with support for Traister’s March 3 appearance on All In With Chris Hayes, which was seen by thousands or maybe even millions of viewers given how viral the story is going. CNN contributor Sally Kohn called Traister a “trailblazing giant rockstar,” the New York Times’ Motherlode columnist KJ Dell’ Antonia commented, “What was most remarkable, perhaps, was how unremarkable the baby’s presence was,” and author Kate Harding announced “Rebecca for president. And Bella 2060.”

Even when Hayes made a loose connection between Traister bringing her daughter to a work event and Clinton conducting private business over personal email, Traister doesn’t allow the remark much time to register before launching into an analysis of how Clinton’s decisions would potentially affect her political future.

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Traister’s interview was particularly notable because, as Randye Hoder writes in a story published recently in Fortune, many women avoid acknowledging that they’re also mothers when they’re at work.

“In most professional settings, there still is great pressure for women to pretend that their kids don’t exist, at least from 9 to 5,” Hoder writes. “Women feel the need to go out of their way to avoid the stigma—yes, stigma—of being labeled a mom. They don’t say they’re leaving work early for a parent teacher conference. Instead, they say, ‘I have a meeting.’”

Why? Even in 2015, being a mom in the workplace means having your commitment questioned, some colleagues won’t take you seriously, and your boss may pass you over for a promotion — no matter how hard you’ve worked or the results you’ve produced.”

One possible reason: Mothers are paid less than fathers (even if they’re equally qualified) and are seen as less competent, according to a story published by The New York Times. Research shows that’s especially true for breastfeeding women, whose coworkers view them as less capable than women who don’t nurse. Study authors point to breastfeeding stigmas — breasts are mainly viewed as sexual regardless of the context and women who are objectified aren’t taken as seriously.

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Complicating matters further, women are having babies at the height of their professional careers — a subject Traister herself tackled in a recent piece for The New Republic. The average age a woman has her first child is 26, right when she’s beginning to hit her stride at work. Even mulling over the mere idea of motherhood can impact a woman’s career, she adds: “There’s no telling how long it will take to actually get pregnant. The professional paralysis brought on by anticipated pregnancy can drag for years—not because women are less ambitious, but because they are navigating the culturally and politically crafted disadvantages of our social policies.”

Ironically, Traister’s story was published one day before executive Katherine Zaleski published a public apology in Fortune addressed to working mothers she had previously discriminated against — admitting she’d rolled her eyes at colleagues who skipped happy hour to get home to their children, scheduled late-day meetings that coincided with daycare pick-up, and stayed silent when a colleague suggested firing a coworker before she “got pregnant.”

It’s attitudes like that that have held back working parents (and especially moms) for years, but Traister’s quiet stand is a loud step in the right direction. Although she told Fortune that she “wasn’t trying to draw attention to myself or my situation” by bringing her baby on air, she also stressed that “the context was important.”

Plus, she had backup. “If the baby had been awake or started to cry—if she was interfering with the audio—I would have handed her off,” Traister, who came to the event with friends, told Fortune. “I wouldn’t have stood there with a crying baby.”

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