Wellington City Council turned its dedicated parents' room into a massage room earlier this year. Photo / Nikki Williams
Wellington City Council turned its dedicated parents' room into a massage room earlier this year. Photo / Nikki Williams
Opinion by Georgina Campbell
Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.
She spoke candidly, saying she wasn't blaming anyone for her particular situation.
"I could have pushed and ensured that a suitable private room was available but I just felt like I really didn't want to make a fuss or draw attention to myself."
Therein lies the point.
Removing a dedicated parents' room sends all kinds of messages.
Wellington City Councillor Fleur Fitzsimons resorted to expressing breast milk in her car for her new born daughter Kate. Photo / Supplied
The move indicates that it's more important for people to receive their lunchtime massages than for mothers to have a proper space to breastfeed or express.
It's not a situation where there was no space for a dedicated room, there was one, and then it was taken away.
A clear facility had been replaced with uncertainty about when rooms could be used for parents.
Can you imagine expressing in this room and being interrupted because someone had a massage appointment?
Or if the room was already booked, so you went to the first aid room and someone was there too, feeling unwell?
It's unacceptable mothers feel they have to turn to feeding or expressing in places like cars and toilet cubicles.
To be fully transparent, I am not a parent, I don't pretend to relate to how Fitzsimons' was feeling when she made those comments about why she didn't address the situation at the time.
But as a woman, I would hope that if I have children, I could expect to have a space I felt comfortable in and one free of people getting deep tissue massages or coming down with a fever.
Wellington City Council, of all organisations, should be leading by example.
It has an important role to play in promoting a society that supports parents' being able to keep their commitments to both their children and their work.
It's 2019. With this decade comes progression in workplace wellbeing, like massages, apparently, but that shouldn't come at the expense of enabling working mothers.
