County Kids Following in Adult Footsteps : Jobs: Girls spend a day at the office on Take Our Daughters to Work Day. Complaints prompt Navy officials at Port Hueneme to include boys in event.

Chelsey Miller admitted that she wasn’t really looking forward to Thursday, when a friend of her father offered to take her to the Port Hueneme division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center as part of national Take Our Daughters to Work Day.

“I thought it would be boring, but it was fun,” said Chelsey, 9, who shadowed engineer Karen Kjos for the day. “I thought Karen would just be working all day and I’d have nothing to do.”

Instead, Chelsey took a tour of a remote-controlled battleship, worked on Kjos’ computer, and took part in a video conference with children and parents in Hawaii who were participating in Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which is sponsored by the Ms. Foundation for Women to introduce girls ages 9 to 14 to the workplace, particularly in fields traditionally dominated by males.

“The general public doesn’t have access to military bases, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to expose Chelsey to this work environment,” said Kjos, who often is the only woman working as an engineer on the ships. “Also, we’re in a time where you almost have to have a dual income, so it’s important to show young girls the non-traditional roles they can get into.”

But the decision to include only girls irked some parents, who thought boys should be invited to tag along.

Parent complaints prompted Navy officials to include boys this year. Thirty-four children participated--17 girls and 17 boys.

“We should extend the same courtesy to the young men as we do to the young women,” said Dwight Blackledge, a supervisory engineer who brought his son, Dwight Jr., 12, to watch him for a day.

Ms. Foundation officials, however, said another organization should look into sponsoring a day for boys.

“I guess someone will have to start a Mr. Foundation,” said Stephanie Daniel, who is coordinating the effort from the Ms. Foundation’s Santa Monica office. “But there are already so many of those, and so many opportunities for boys. That’s why we started Take Our Daughters to Work Day.”

The day was founded in response to research showing that beginning about age 9, girls become less assertive in math and science classes and begin to lose interest in those subjects.

“Girls who participate along with boys have a completely different experience,” West Coast organizer Laura Deutsch said. “The same thing happens to them as happens in the classroom. That is, they are overshadowed by the boys and become more reserved. We welcome a separate day for boys, but no organization has stepped up to sponsor one.”

The Ms. Foundation--which does not tally participating companies that include boys--estimated that 750,000 girls participated in the day, up 50% from last year. Oxnard’s City Hall and Police Department as well as the Ventura County courts were among businesses across the county sticking to the traditional daughter’s day.

The Ventura Regional Sanitation District, however, opted for a gender-blind day, the second year it has allowed boys to participate. As part of the district’s Bring a Child to Work Day, 17 daughters and sons of workers toured Bailard Landfill, practiced filling out W-2 forms, e-mailed their friends, and took home a mock paycheck at the end of the day for their efforts.

“These days, kids are more environmentally oriented,” district personnel manager Arlene Morrelli said. “They’re interested in what happens to waste when you throw it or what happens after you flush the toilet. It’s an educational process.”

Morrelli’s daughter, Lauren, 12, trailed her mother last year, but decided personnel was not for her.

On Thursday, however, after spending the day with senior engineer Mark Capron, she went home with a career in mind.

“I want to do something combining art and math, and that’s what he does all day,” Lauren said. “It’s a real challenge. If you don’t figure out the right amount of chemical or sludge to use in the landfill, you’ll destroy the land. It’s an important job.”

In Ventura, Dr. Ronna Jurow brought her two young girls to her gynecology practice for the afternoon.

But unlike many of the Ventura County children participating in the day, Alexis, 11, and Ariel, 10, were no strangers to their mother’s workplace.

“I bring them along all the time,” Jurow said as the girls climbed onto the electronically controlled examining table, contorting it into a body-twisting array of positions.

Jurow said having to interrupt conversations with her daughters to rush to the delivery room was taking her away from her children. So six months ago, she gave up delivering babies to spend more time with them. But she said she will continue to bring them to work with her.

“I don’t think it should be a once-a-year thing,” Jurow said. “What are you going to learn in a day? If you want your children to learn, and follow in your footsteps, their exposure to your work has to be an ongoing process.”