I heard the most fascinating story over dinner last week. Earlier in her career, a friend of mine worked for a large, successful software company (which has since been acquired by a larger, even more successful software company). A management position opened up on her team, and my friend, who wanted to move into management, applied for it. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out. Afterwards, she heard from a colleague that there were concerns about her ability to manage people because she did not have children. Apparently, this interview team believed parenting skills were an important part of leadership training. Wow.
I’m curious….has anyone else witnessed this kind of bias? I’d like to hear from you.
–Karen
© 2012 by Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.
Karen Catlin 
I agree that parenting is valuable experience but to block a promotion for lack of kids is awful. Parenting isn’t the only path, of course. Worse of course are the other biases that may have been built into that decision. Did they block men with this criterion? People who would love children but can’t have them? How many false positives in the form of lousy parents do they hire?
All good points, Ed. And, just because someone has kids doesn’t mean they are a good parent. Right?