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Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

cnet.com

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Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#11

Post by mmm_grayons »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #4

I am a middle-aged adult with no children who's worked at tech firms for the past couple decades. To be honest, the "resentment" of those without children have for "benefits" those with children get strikes me as extremely selfish, immature and displaying a total lack of empathy. This is time off specifically to take care of children, something now that has become exceedingly more difficult in Covid times. What's nex…

Well, there's a good argument to be made that having children is much more of a choice than having cancer. And yes, it's natural to be selfish, because employment benefits are at least something of a zero-sum game. More for one often means less for another. I could easily argue that those who demand extra benefits because of a personal decision they made (having children) are more selfish than those who resent that they receive them.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#12

Post by ll931110 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #4

I am a middle-aged adult with no children who's worked at tech firms for the past couple decades. To be honest, the "resentment" of those without children have for "benefits" those with children get strikes me as extremely selfish, immature and displaying a total lack of empathy. This is time off specifically to take care of children, something now that has become exceedingly more difficult in Covid times. What's nex…

The problem is, people without children are told (or required) to pick up the workload left behind when the coworkers having children taking (multiple) weeks off. For once or twice that might be okay, but if became a chronic problem, no wonder they are not happy.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#13

Post by orky56 »

codemac wrote: post #5

Personally, I struggle with these feelings as well. It seems nuts that someone working 50%+ less than someone else is going to keep all the same equity, vacation, and salary. Then again it seems nuts that they don't. All employees who had children or family members to care for before or after COVID get none of the same support. I don't think backpay is coming for those who were forced to take leave or even quit their…

Outside of US, people expect the government to provide that safety net. In the US, we expect corporations to provide for health insurance, disposable income, and the tools/resources to focus on work. Meals, soda, and Slack work for early 20s fresh grads but not for parents/caregivers.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#15

Post by jacquesm »

codemac wrote: post #5

Personally, I struggle with these feelings as well. It seems nuts that someone working 50%+ less than someone else is going to keep all the same equity, vacation, and salary. Then again it seems nuts that they don't. All employees who had children or family members to care for before or after COVID get none of the same support. I don't think backpay is coming for those who were forced to take leave or even quit their…

They are working as much or more. Just not on the same things. It's not as if being a parent somehow translates into more free time, in fact it translates into substantially less free time if any at all.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#16

Post by cheschire »

ng12 wrote: post #7
rblatz wrote: post #2

A lot of this feels like people looking into their neighbor's bowl to see if they are getting more than them. Love him or hate him Louis C.K. has a great quote here “The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.” Times are tough, don't blame the parents for what they have to do, blame your management if…

At the same time it's kind of hard for me to be sympathetic. Their bowls aren't empty: they kept their cushy, white-collar, benefit-rich jobs while tens of millions became suddenly unemployed.

And that comparison can keep on going once you start bringing in folks from other parts of the world. A poor person in America is still well beyond the quality of life of a well off person in some villages.

It's kind of fucked up to say a struggling person doesn't deserve your sympathy just because their suck isn't the same shade as the other person's suck.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#17

Post by olliej »

jansan wrote: post #3

There is a reason why the term "childless privilege" exists.

What’s that reason?

Because to my knowledge people aren’t forced to have children.

This phrase exists to attack those without children by portraying people who made a different choice as having a privilege, when many literally can’t have children.

Privilege is something you have irrespective of your choices, you don’t get to portray the consequences of your choices as if other people have privilege.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#18

Post by softwaredoug »

It's simply depressing how parent/kid-hostile society has become... I'm not saying we need explosive population growth. But I feel one of the main purposes of society is raising and protecting children. If you're a human-future-optimist, you want some kind of generation that's better than us to continue on.... I'm not saying you NEED to have kids, but I feel it's part of society's collective duty to consider the next generation, build a better world, enable them to build something better than came before...

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#19

Post by asciident »

pyronik19 wrote: post #9
rblatz wrote: post #2

A lot of this feels like people looking into their neighbor's bowl to see if they are getting more than them. Love him or hate him Louis C.K. has a great quote here “The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.” Times are tough, don't blame the parents for what they have to do, blame your management if…

There is a team of 4 people. 2 have families, 2 don't. The ones that don't picked up the slack for the ones that did. Work quality was equal, but output was greater for the singles. The team has 2 slots for promotion. Do you ignore the fact that the single people put in more work or do you factor it in in the promotion decision?

In this scenario, is there a way to handle the promotions such that no one is upset? I can't think of one. Maybe put them on different tracks -- those who took "parental flexibility" can get promoted, but it occurs later, and the money saved from that deferred promotion gets given to the singles who put in extra time/effort? Not sure, just brainstorming.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#20

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

This reminds me of local retirees who are resentful that their taxes are paying for public schools. They seem to have forgotten that someone paid for them to attend school.

Regarding parental time off, it's conceivable that their own parents never had that support. Maternal/parental leave is taking decades to roll out - perhaps as long as it took for public schooling to become universally available.

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