I think the internet and social killed it. If a kid wants to know what a marketing manager does all day, she can use Google, YouTube, or TikTok and access far more information than her mom’s colleague could awkwardly tell her in an hour.

Back in the early 90s, most kids didn’t have internet access and this information wasn’t widely available to middle and high schoolers, unless their parents or family friends were in the field.

Anonymous wrote:My company back in 1992 did Take your Daughter to Work Day when it first started.

We targeted 13-16 year girls in year one. They all dressed in business clothes. Was extremely professional, of the girls who attended many went on to be interns our company in college and some joined us after college graduation. This was New York Stock Exchange.

By 2003 became take your kids to work day and they added sons. Which made no sense in places like Wall Street which was trying to attract women.

Around 2003- 2019 they kept lowering the ages to attend to like 5-10 and became a day of pizza parties, games and coloring books. A nonsense day. No longer any value to company or participants.

Covid came in 2020 and seems most companies never restarted it.

How did in my case 1993 where we had HS aged women on trading floor at NYSE in trading vests learning how to trade stocks, attended opening and closing bell, attend lunch in executive cafeteria, meet with CEO, tour market operations and have formal meetings to learn about various departments and learn about how a stock exchange works by 2006 became little kids eating pizza and candy and by 2020 be done.

Was a great idea. Who killed it? Can we bring it back to how it was intended?

Is it not beneficial to women for their sons to see them in professional action?

Anonymous wrote:I mean it’s blatantly sexist so there is that.

Is it? Do you know why it was started? In the past, men/fathers/husbands went out to work and mothers/wives stayed home. It was a way to show girls that they were welcome in the work environment. Would you take away a ramp for people in wheelchairs?

Anonymous wrote:I went with my father as a teenager and it was pretty interesting. I think bringing the ages down is what killed it. No kid under 13 is getting anything out of seeing a workplace. It just becomes snacks and coloring day. It really ought to be about exposing teens to an adult workplace.

This. A former coworker used to bring his elementary-aged daughter to work every year. She was the only child in the office, and he would pawn her off on female coworkers (“do you have any work she can do?”), take her to a fancy lunch, and then go home early.

His wife was a SAHM and he would make comments about needing to expose the daughter to professional women because she didn’t get that from her mom. It was pretty gross.

Anonymous wrote:I went with my father as a teenager and it was pretty interesting. I think bringing the ages down is what killed it. No kid under 13 is getting anything out of seeing a workplace. It just becomes snacks and coloring day. It really ought to be about exposing teens to an adult workplace.

+1. It became a carnival (I’m at NIH and this is what it essentially is now) with games and handouts, instead of showing kids what we do.

I went with my father as a teenager and it was pretty interesting. I think bringing the ages down is what killed it. No kid under 13 is getting anything out of seeing a workplace. It just becomes snacks and coloring day. It really ought to be about exposing teens to an adult workplace.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's sexist and exclusionary.

More girls already go to college now. If women aren't making it in the world now, they have only themselves to blame.

It's either take your kids to work day or nothing. And let's be honest, take your kids to work day is nothing more than a zero productivity day of free babysitting on the company's dime and parents all leave work early.

Waste of time and money.

Yet Nursing, Teaching, Social Work programs are mainly women and Accounting, Engineering and CS are mainly men in 2025. Have things changed much?

Because people have personal choice. Nothing is stoping women from doing engineering. They already get so many freebie scholarships, exclusive summer programs, preferred dorm room housing, etc. No more excuses. It is personal choice.

Anonymous wrote:Yeah pretty sure it was "take your kid to work" day back when I was a kid in the 1990s. In the past decade at my workplace it's always been "take your kid to work".

It was Take your Daughter to Work Day from 1992 to 2002. It became Take our Children to Work day officially in 2003. However, a lot of companies started letting boys come in the 1990s.

We had it Daughters only the first few years at Stock Exchange.

I find it a great loss. My daughter went in 2010 at age of 8 and by then it was a bunch of screaming 7-10 year olds in room with boys not particularly suited to sit still in a chair all day and girls of that age not much better. She turned down going the next year as it was for babies.

As opposed to 1995 when we literally had a professional event with the women (not little girls) in business outfits. The teenagers attending a professional run event. Kick off meeting CEO, formal Breakfast, formal Agenda for day, meeting all department heads, tours. And a full day. And parents not even there except lunch. They took the Daughters at start of day. They met the CEO of Stock Exchange that day, toured the trading floor, went to command center, toured Data Centers. Each area HR, Audit, Market Operations, IT, Finance all did sessions on what it is like working in their area and what a career in their area was like. At lunch break you could take your Daughters out to Lunch and then expense it and walk them around. A lot took Daughter to Harry's for lunch where the power brokers eat lunch. Even more fun at 8am program started and all the daughters got to put on trading jackets and do mock trading on floor of NYSE and get their picture on podium pretending to ring opening bell.

Last time any company I worked at did it was 2015. Been ten years since I have even seen it done. The watering down to allow boys to attend and make the ages younger ruined it.

Anonymous wrote:It’s such a nepo baby thing. Yeah, you might have been on Wall Street but most of us normies went to work with our dads on their construction sites, etc. and I am sure it was killed because of the legal risk.

It was, "Take Our Daughters to Work Day" and not originally meant to be about taking your own kid to your job, but exposing girls to different job opportunities in a sort of mini internship day way. My parents had office jobs but I went to shadow a Veterinarian for the day because that's what I was interested in. It was great! This was mid 90s.

Yeah pretty sure it was "take your kid to work" day back when I was a kid in the 1990s. In the past decade at my workplace it's always been "take your kid to work".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's sexist and exclusionary.

More girls already go to college now. If women aren't making it in the world now, they have only themselves to blame.

It's either take your kids to work day or nothing. And let's be honest, take your kids to work day is nothing more than a zero productivity day of free babysitting on the company's dime and parents all leave work early.

Waste of time and money.

Yet Nursing, Teaching, Social Work programs are mainly women and Accounting, Engineering and CS are mainly men in 2025. Have things changed much?

That's not any gender's fault, imo.

You like what you like. If anything, I would love it if men were in more childcare environment, but then I read about the DCUM ladies who are afraid to have their children changed by these male childcare worker b/c the assumption that the men are pedophiles. From my perspective, the engineering colleges, med schools are not excluding women in any way.

The ones being left behind are actually the boys in elementary/middle schools.

Anonymous wrote:I mean it’s blatantly sexist so there is that.

As a female who eventually entered engineering, I always hated how sexist "take your daughter to work" was.

Open it up to everyone of a rightful age (13-17). Boys should not be left out.

Anonymous wrote:It's sexist and exclusionary.

More girls already go to college now. If women aren't making it in the world now, they have only themselves to blame.

It's either take your kids to work day or nothing. And let's be honest, take your kids to work day is nothing more than a zero productivity day of free babysitting on the company's dime and parents all leave work early.

Waste of time and money.

Yet Nursing, Teaching, Social Work programs are mainly women and Accounting, Engineering and CS are mainly men in 2025. Have things changed much?