Thoughts on Pride Month from Our Community Coordinator, Luke
Written by Luke Winter, Community Coordinator
It’s that time of year. Time for rainbow flags and parades and celebrations of love and acceptance. I personally love Pride not because of the festivities — as an introvert, I dislike large-scale events of any kind — but because of what it represents. It is a demonstration of love and embracing our differences.
Being an LGBTQIA+ individual in any job can be difficult. You want to be authentically yourself, but you don’t want to draw attention to it. You don’t want to “rock the boat” and do anything that could make things more awkward for yourself or others, but you also don’t want to hide who you are in order to go about your day-to-day life. We tend to live in a culture where LGBTQIA+ people are supposed to be accepted, but, in reality, there are still many places where it can be uncomfortable if you are not straight and/or cisgender. As a LGBTQIA+ individual myself, I have experienced this myself more times than I can count.
Smart Sitting is not one of those places. As a caregiver for Smart Sitting since 2017, I had always felt supported, but I also know from past experience that many people are supportive only until a certain point, so those doubts are inevitable when working with any organization.
Since April, I’ve been working as Smart Sitting’s Community Coordinator, and I have witnessed firsthand just how much work the company does to ensure we as an organization are not only supporting and affirming all caregivers, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, but that we also work to educate families on these matters.
We want to state that we are, unequivocally, an anti-discrimination organization. We actively work against unconscious biases and discrimination to better serve both our caregivers and our families. We stand with and support members of the LGBTQIA+ community, so that they know they are welcome in our company.
First and foremost, we want to promote understanding and education. We have had families in the past who have attempted to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ individuals. Similarly, we will sometimes get requests for “female applicants only”, discriminating against perfectly qualified male or nonbinary caregivers. Both of these instances are discrimination against protected classes, and we will not engage with anyone looking to unlawfully discriminate due to their own biases. Not only that, but these requests are contrary to the core values of our company. Everything we do at Smart Sitting is firmly rooted in our values, and we will not be doing business with anyone who does not align with what we stand for.
While we understand that every parent has a right to make their own decisions about what they feel is best for their child, Smart Sitting is not in the business of working with families who openly and unapologetically discriminate. If they are not willing to see past the exterior of a caregiver, and choose to focus on things like gender identity or sexuality, then they are not a good fit for our company. We believe that children learn and grow from having a diversity of perspectives and personalities around them. We first began in New York City, the ultimate melting pot — celebrating all sorts of humans is literally in our DNA.
With June being Pride Month, we felt it was the perfect time to reaffirm that our company is strictly anti-discrimination. We love our caregivers, and we support you and stand with you in the face of societal resistance. Our goal is finding the ideal caregiver for every family we work with, whether that person is male, female, nonbinary, straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans…we want to create meaningful, lasting, human connections between our caregivers and our families.
We are here to support and affirm our caregivers of all gender identities and sexual orientations. If you feel there has ever been a time where you have been discriminated against, or if you are concerned about potential discrimination, please reach out to us. We see you and appreciate the work you do. As cheesy as it sounds, the world is a better place when we celebrate one another for being our authentic selves, so we are committed to being a place where every caregiver feels safe being who they are.