Imagine If a Mom Did This?

X’s antics were soon the only thing anyone was talking about coming out of the press conference (sorry, DOGE). Some people were tickled or charmed by the boy, calling him “adorable” and saying he brought “playful energy” to the White House.

Others online jokingly fashioned him as some sort of #resistance hero, saying that the child’s sassing of Trump and refusal to pay attention was an act of radical pushback against the administration’s policies.

“Little Democrat,” said one person on Twitter.

And yeah, sure, it was cute to see a child in the Oval Office, being given the space and understanding that he would act exactly as you’d expect. The problem is that this privilege is one that only a father, like Musk, could exercise.

I know it’s somewhat of a cliché to say, but what do you think would happen if a high-powered woman in the American government brought her kid to a press conference?

Musk isn’t exactly getting praised for bringing X along, but he’s not being questioned for it either. The general consensus is that the press conference is a zany viral moment, an odd thing for someone in a position of power in the government to do, but not anything deeper.

Musk isn’t being questioned about whether he’s being a good parent for bringing his kid to work, and he’s not being treated as if he’s a less serious person because he consistently brings his child with him. In fact, there’s been speculation that one of the reasons Musk has made X his constant companion is to improve his public image, to change the perception of himself from an online provocateur to, as New York Magazine put it, a “cuddly dad who has it all.”

This, of course, is a pretty clear-cut example of the difference between being a mother and being a father. Working moms in the US face, according to the National Institutes of Health, a “motherhood penalty,” meaning they are viewed as “unfit for leadership roles, are evaluated as less competent and less committed to their careers, receive lower salaries, and are denied advancement opportunities.” Once a man becomes a father, he is often treated as more respectable and serious, receiving a “fatherhood premium.”

As one particularly astute TikTok puts it, Americans “expect women to work like they don’t mother, and mother like they don’t work.” To be a working mother in this country is to face a series of hurdles, from the lack of mandated time to recover from giving birth (the US is one of six countries with no federal paid leave) to facing discrimination when you return.

For Musk, his child is a complementary accessory, something he can slide onto his shoulders to telegraph something positive about himself. Women don’t have that luxury. Our mothering is something that we are usually forced to tuck away, to shake off before we walk in the door of our office. To be seen with our child in our own workplace, not to mention the most influential workplace in the country, is usually a risk we cannot take.