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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

#171

Post by falcolas »

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 "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.

Unpopular opinion:

We should not be rewarding or elevating people for having unprotected sex without the support network to take care of their children in the event they are unable to attend school.

There's a thousand reasons a child might not be able to attend school. If your plans for raising a child rely upon schools being able to take them off your hands for 8+ hours a day (not to mention feeding them), that's your problem, not ours.

It's "selfish" and "immature" to bring a child into the world that you don't have the time or means to raise.

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

#172

Post by treeman79 »

QuercusMax wrote: post #127
treeman79 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have small elementary age kids. It’s rough. 8-10 interruptions the first couple hours of work. Then meltdown over being hungry. Then afternoon interruptions because they are bored. Lots of crappy reasons, but also because they want me to spend time with them. Also dealing with my own chronic illness. I was managing to cope/hide before Covid. Between it all is a sense of guilt of not getting enough done for work and n…

It's not much better with older kids either; I have 3 teens with mental health issues (depression/anxiety/migraines/ADHD) which have gotten worse with 6 months sheltering-in-place.

Me and kids have adhd and migraines.

Migraines for them have improved greatly since they are away from harsh lighting.

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

#173

Post by kube-system »

bradstewart wrote: post #99
kube-system wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you (legally) differentiate between people who put in less work because of their children and those who put in less work because they underperform?

Communication. Talk to your teammates, its usually pretty obvious if someone is bullshitting you. Decent managers already know who their over- and under-performers are. Using "time at work" as a proxy for performance generally doesn't work well in general.

I know how performance is judged, functionally speaking. I am suggesting that the specific expectations that would be communicated in that context are straddling the boundaries of what is legal in some places.

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

#175

Post by asciident »

wffurr wrote: post #27
mmm_grayons wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Society doesn't exist without children. Child care is right up there with fire departments for things you, personally, as a childless person whose house has not burned down, need to exist in order to live in society, and not just a hermit in the woods.

It's not so clear to be honest. The global population is growing and leading to environmental disasters, and it's not clear why we need 10 billion people on this planet, rather than a more manageable 100 million.

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

#176

Post by dimitrios1 »

falcolas wrote: post #171
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 "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. Unpopular opinion: We should not be rewarding or elevating people for having unprotected sex without the support network to take care of their children in the event they are unable to attend school. There's a thousand reasons a child might not be ab…

Just do yourself a favor and relearn basic human empathy again.

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

#177

Post by dang »

mdoms wrote: post #40
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…

You're comparing your parenthood with cancer, but it's the others who lack empathy?

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#178

Post by dang »

doopy-loopy2 wrote: post #92
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…

"I'm thankful for all those people with kids who will (a) take care of the continuation of the human race" lol gtfo

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've been doing it repeatedly and we're trying for something different here.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

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

#179

Post by onetimemanytime »

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…

>>If anything, I'm thankful for all those people with kids who will

Bravo!! Your choice or luck in life is yours. But kids will pay for your social security, will pay taxes to maintain the city/state/country and will be the soldiers and military guarding you. That's just the selfish part.

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

#180

Post by falcolas »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #176
falcolas wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Unpopular opinion: We should not be rewarding or elevating people for having unprotected sex without the support network to take care of their children in the event they are unable to attend school. There's a thousand reasons a child might not be ab…

Just do yourself a favor and relearn basic human empathy again.

I have. I have a lot of empathy for children who are going hungry because their parents brought them into this world without a means to support them. I have a lot of empathy for children who are unwanted, ignored, and otherwise harmed by "inconvenienced" parents.

I have no empathy - I have nothing but contempt - for the parents who bring those children into this world.

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