It's kind of breathtaking to me to think this is legal even though I've known about it for about a year, thanks to Moms Rising bringing it to our attention.  

I think a lot of this kind of questioning during interviews takes place at more blue collar and secretarial level positions at bigger companies where HR directors know what they can get away with. It seems unthinkable to me that anyone interviewing at an arts organization would ever be asked this. I could, of course, be sadly mistaken.

While they could make the line of questioning illegal, I don't see how it is possible to make unspoken assumptions and choices on the part of employers illegal.  

The employer who sees a three year gap in an applicant's work history perhaps assumes it's due to birth/parenting even if they don't ask about it, and perhaps chooses another candidate instead who seems equally qualified.  Or who chooses not to hire someone because she wants to work part time, or just got married and (the employer might assume) may leave relatively soon if she has children.

Kind of like equal housing opportunity.  They can make the landlord accept applications from anybody, but they aren't able to make them pick a nonwhite renter.

I can't believe that's legal!  

(On a totally unrelated note, her daughter and i share a name...it's unusual enough that I'm thrilled everytime it happens!)

Health insurance costs have become too much of a burden on small employers.  The addition of an older or sicker employee, or one responsible for children, is going to push the premiums higher for everyone.  If an employer is trying to do the right thing and offer insurance to his current employees but is having trouble meeting the cost, can you blame him for wanting to hire only the youngest and healthiest single candidates?

We need to take the responsibility for health care away from the employers.  

to work in a child/family friendly field - we work with children and families, and many of us at work have kids.  In my experience, as a boss and as a worker, organizations that recognize that people have lives outside of the work environment (whether it's kids or parents or other things) and that create some flexibility in their work environment, have happier more productive employees.

Another division in our agency is less flexible and their staff are less happy, report less satisfaction with jobs and supervisors on their staff surveys, and turn over more quickly.

Someone who wouldn't hire me because of my children is (IMHO) someone for whom I wouldn't want to work because it signals an unfriendly work environment.  That said, not everyone is as lucky as I have been to have choices about where to work.

My boss says and does all the right things--happy for me about the pregnancy, says he will do all he can for the pregnancy to be smooth at work.  Asks me all the time how I'm feeling.  I have good happy feelings.  Last week, one of the coworkers' FIL died, and he sent out a nice email telling the staff and telling us to remember what's really important--sets the right tone, y'know.

But.  He's a total workaholic.  He has no family, so 16 hour days at the office are the standard for him.  He does not hold anyone else to the standard, but those in the office longer than me say he does have expectations that his staff is dedicated to the job, willing to log the time if necessary, and that he would never entertain a shift to PT hours, which is supposedly an option.  So I guess there is a limit to his family friendliness, but for now I can cope.  I don't know if I would want to go PT, its something I thought about.  But I would have to find another office to do it.

I do talk about the pregnancy in the office a lot right now, because i've just come out of the closet and everyone is asking me questions.  I'm also still sick, so I look terrible and walk around muttering that I'm going to puke.  (Its like I have tourrette's--I can't control what comes out of my mouth.  Oy.)  but I've also been busting my butt on a project, so I think I'm balancing it out.  One of the senior guys today did say something about not wanting to ask the pregnant woman to go get something (in a nice, chivalrous way) and I was very clear that he shouldn't do that, and that I would tell them when I couldn't handle something.  We're looking at having to move soon, and I KNOW I can't do any lifting, so I already made that clear to them.  And that I can't travel out of CONUS for now.  (CONUS-continental US). So, there's a balance there, and I feel good about it right now.

It's interesting: I think sometimes lesbians and gay men get caught in a double trap. Companies that are willing to hire us (and have DP benefits to match), may also secretly assume that they're getting a deal because we're less likely to have kids vying for our time. That may have been the case years ago, but the gap is closing fast, and it's a dangerous assumption.