Children in the Workplace : Brouhaha Over Baby Fades, but Sensitive Issue Remains

The furor that made Anne Foucault Nelson the most controversial baby in Oceanside history has ended, but the sensitive issue of whether city employees should be allowed to bring their offspring to work is a political hot potato around City Hall.

After enduring two weeks of public scrutiny and media attention for keeping her adopted daughter in her Oceanside City Hall office two days a week, City Manager Suzanne Foucault took time off from her administrative duties Friday and spent the day at home “breaking in” the baby sitter who will care for 11-week-old Annie in the future.

Although Foucault has complied with a City Council directive ordering her to get Anne out of City Hall by March 1, she must still deal with the question that her office baby-sitting brought to the fore--whether children should be permitted in a work environment.

“What came to light in all this was that I was not the first employee to bring her child to work,” Foucault said.

To prevent such problems in the future, the council has ordered that an employee committee be formed to draft a policy on the right of city workers to bring their children to the office. The policy will be submitted to the city’s various department heads and should go before the council within 30 days.

“I asked them to work rather quickly, so that the question of whether children should be allowed, and under what terms and conditions, wouldn’t be hanging forever,” Foucault said.

The employee panel, to be chaired by Assistant City Manager Bill Workman, will include one person from each of the city’s three employee groups, plus a representative of middle management. Foucault said she will not participate in the group “to avoid any question of conflict.”

Councilman John MacDonald said he is confident the council will adopt a policy permitting children at city offices in certain circumstances.

“I think there’s an appropriate place for (children),” MacDonald said. “Not too much has been said about it, but there have been times when single-parent women have had kids who got sick and they had no one stay with them, and so they brought them to work. I think we’ll work out a solution that the council will accept and that will meet the needs of the employees.”

However, Councilman Sam Williamson, who led the opposition to Foucault keeping her baby in her office, said he is still opposed to having children in the workplace.

“I may be old-fashioned, but my feeling is that mothers really belong at home with the youngsters,” he said. “And if the mother has to work, there are many baby-sitting agencies that can care for the child.”

The dispute over the infant’s presence began last month when Williamson, after receiving complaints from constituents, said it was “disruptive” and “unprofessional” to have the child’s bassinet in the city manager’s office.

Although other council members did not imbue the matter with the same importance Williamson did, little Annie still became a controversial and divisive figure in Oceanside politics. Columns and letters to the editor in local newspapers took turns criticizing Foucault for being a poor mother and chiding the city for its heartlessness.

“We got as many letters and calls of support as of complaint,” Foucault said. “I think most people thought it wasn’t an issue that affected them and that there were a lot more important things to be concerned with.”

MacDonald said the controversy over Foucault’s daughter was “blown way out of proportion,” adding that criticism of the city manager was personally motivated.

“This is not just an isolated issue,” he said. “There are people who are opposed to Suzanne, and they used this as a way to attack her. They had a lot of fun with it, but I think most people are glad it’s over.”

Williamson, however, rejected the contention made by some council members that the issue was just a “tempest in a teapot.”

“It’s a very important question: Are children going to be allowed in the workplace?” he said. “I think the people were concerned and I think the news media just brought that out.”

Foucault said she and her husband, Del Mar City Manager Bob Nelson, are looking forward to a respite from the public attention of the last few weeks. Although she said the dispute surrounding her daughter has been taxing, Foucault said the matter will be something to joke about in the future.

“Twenty years from now, I’ll remind Annie about this, what an issue it was, how it was quite a media event,” she said. “I think by then the work environment will have changed so much as far as child care arrangements that she won’t even believe it. It will be like my parents telling me they had to walk three miles through the snow to get to school.”

Nelson, who cared for the baby at the Del Mar City Hall for three days a week until the couple found a baby sitter, said no similar furor arose in that community.