CEO Praises The 'Grit' Of Mom On Maternity Leave Who Was Called Back Into To Work 48 Hours After Giving Birth — 'This Is Not Inspiring'
Praising this as grit instead of desperation is everything wrong with everything.
Kauka Jarvi / Shutterstock Sometimes, America's world-famous work ethic starts to seem a bit more like a form of psychosis than diligence. Our work days and weeks are getting longer while our pay becomes ever more inadequate, and basic necessities like healthcare and housing grow prohibitively expensive.
The desperation this creates requires all too many people to resort to basically turning themselves into automatons that do nothing but work just to survive. It's dystopian. But somehow, the most privileged among us see this as inspirational — like a delusional CEO currently outraging half the internet.
The CEO praised the 'grit' of a mom who went back to work 48 hours after giving birth.
Those of you old enough to remember the glory days of George W. Bush (please read that in the most pointedly sarcastic tone you can imagine) may remember the moment at a 2005 Town Hall when he praised a Nebraska mother working three jobs for her sterling work ethic.
"That's uniquely American, isn't it?" Bush said of the woman, so close and yet so far (as always) from getting the point. Yes, it is a uniquely American thing to need to work multiple jobs just to survive.
Nearly 20 years may have passed since that idiotic quote, but nothing has changed — in fact, it's only gotten worse. And a lot of us obviously haven't learned a thing if this CEO's wisely deleted Mother's Day LinkedIn post is any indication.
He celebrated the mom for having the 'grit' and 'drive' to work her fast-food job with her newborn in tow instead of 'complaining or doomscrolling.'
The CEO wrote that he had visited a fast-food drive-through on Mother's Day that was slammed with customers, so he decided to go inside instead. What came next is among the most dystopian things you'll read in your life.
"She came over, and as she did, a baby was crying in a stroller parked next to the register," he wrote. "She then told me she was actually on maternity leave but came in to help the staff (ON MOTHER'S DAY) because they were swamped."
The CEO went on to ask how old her toddler was — the toddler that was currently standing beside her behind the cash register of a fast-food restaurant. "She points to the one I saw crying and says, 'he’s two, but this one is 2 DAYS OLD.'"
"Instead of complaining or doomscrolling on her phone, she made a choice to come in and help the team ON MOTHERS DAY!!" the CEO wrote, in what has to be the most patronizing sentence ever composed in the English language. And then it got worse still.
"This type of grit, determination, care, and drive is inspiring," he wrote. "My wife and I were completely floored." Floored enough to maybe offer her some money or a better-paying job so she wouldn't have to work behind the counter of a fast-food restaurant while likely still actively bleeding from giving birth two days prior? He didn't say.
But he did say he was "nearly brought to tears" as "someone … who was raised by a single mom" and that he hopes her story "inspires you in whatever situation you are in to keep going. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Keep going. You’re seen."
The CEO's oblivious post has left people outraged and highlights how utterly dehumanizing America's economic system is — especially for mothers.
Maybe I'm just a whiny libtard loser or whatever (and a quick glance through this guy's LinkedIn profile, which I am doing him the favor of not linking to, makes it clear that is exactly how he'd feel about everything I'm about to say), but I simply cannot fathom staring at something as utterly horrifying as a single mother two days out of the maternity ward working a fast-food job with two kids at her side and feeling inspired.
None of this is a criticism of the mom herself, to be clear. It is an indictment of the way the wealthiest country on Earth casts aside its hardest-working people and the way all too many of the most privileged among us seem to see some kind of deranged poetry in the lengths the poor must go to to keep themselves alive.
"What’s more confounding?" one Redditor in the LinkedInLunatics subreddit wrote in response to the post. "This guy acting like this story is somehow inspiring instead of dystopian, or all of the thumbs-ups he got from fellow brain deaders in his network?"
But others felt like there was more at play — specifically that this incident likely didn't even happen, given how destroyed women still are two days after giving birth. If he made the post up, it would be easy to guess why: His profile is full of overtly political, right-wing Christian propaganda.
We are, of course, preached to constantly nowadays about how a supposedly Republican, capitalism-worshipping Jesus Christ would tell the poor to get over themselves and work harder just like our politicians of both parties do. Guess the Bible misquoted him or something?
Regardless, the social and legislative effects of this attitude are clear — the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy nation on earth; a complete lack of the affordable government-funded childcare system to which working mothers are entitled since they pay taxes; a federal minimum wage that has not changed in 15 years and has in fact fallen 26% when adjusted for inflation; and a population 59% of which is one surprise expense away from homelessness.
In short, whether this selfish, bloviating goon made up this story or not, what he posted to the internet is a perfect encapsulation of the ways this country, the supposed beacon of freedom and opportunity for the entire world, dehumanizes and grinds its citizens into dust and then blames them for it — unless they're willing to drag their two-day-old infant behind the counter of a Burger King instead of "complaining and doom-scrolling."
Imagine having the power, money, and influence that comes with being a CEO and wielding it to vomit crass propaganda onto the internet instead of trying to make your country better for those who most need it to improve.
That thing Jesus said about it being easier to shove a camel through the eye of a needle than get a rich man into heaven seems ever more relevant — not that his followers seem to take a moment's notice.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.