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

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

#231

Post by x87678r »

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…

> 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.

Is that really true though? In my team parents are still online 40+ hours a week. Definitely if some single person (or parent) is producing double everyone else they should get bonuses or promotion over everyone else.

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

#232

Post by majormajor »

falcolas wrote: post #199
bpodgursky wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously suggesting that you should only have kids if you have the resources to fully support them in a once-in-a-century pandemic wherein half of civil society collapses around them? You're right that it's an unpopular opinion, because it's an extraordinarily dumb one.

If a pandemic were the only potential cause of a child not going to school, you'd be right. But it's not. Between mental issues, behavioral issues, and health issues, there's many potential causes for a child to not go to school. Not to mention the first 5 years of a child's life and summers.

And there are usually ways you can exchange money for help with those things. Special schools and programs for those with different mental or behavioral issues (this one often doesn't even need extra money, if your school system is adequate). Temporary leave for extreme cases like hospitalization. Day care or babysitters or nannies.

Think about those first 5 years of life and summers you bring up. Obviously there are normal mechanisms that these parents used in these cases in the past. Now they're unavailable. And you have contempt for the parents because they didn't anticipate that all of these options could evaporate all at once. Please.

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

#233

Post by eanzenberg »

CydeWeys wrote: post #213
ng12 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've seen is the complaints are largely coming from couples that want to raise kids while both parents work full time jobs. Asking for fewer hours so you can continue that lifestyle is asking your employer and fellow employees to subsidize your second income, not your ability to have and raise children. My coworkers with SAH spouses aren't feeling the burn anywhere near as badly -- it's just an extended summer f…

In modern society it's basically required that both parents work full-time jobs. It's not the 50s anymore; you can't support an entire household with children on one income. So you can't have the expectation that one of the parents give up a large chunk of their salary just to have kids. If you do structure society in this way then you get rapidly declining birth rates and very bad long-term population demographic pr…

This outlook is widely in-the-coastal-city-bubble.

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

#234

Post by ethanwillis »

nicbou wrote: post #160
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 don't fully agree with you. Back when I worked in retail or fast food, smokers could step out for a 5 minute smoke break every once in a while. As a non-smoker, I wasn't allowed to just sit there for 5 minutes. At the end of the day, we got paid the same, but smokers got 30 minutes off, courtesy of the non-smokers who picked up the slack. Likewise, parents are excused from work because they have children. I fully a…

They get the perk of more flexibility because they're providing a service to society, raising children for the next generation. You don't get this perk because you didn't have children. Your contribution is more work because you have more time to do it.

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

#235

Post by nicbou »

tbatchelli wrote: post #57

How much of this issue is related to having a part of the population think that people having children is solely a private question? "You had children, why should I bear your burden!" If none of us had children there would d be no economy to support anyone's life in, let's say, 40 years from now. People making and raising new sane and healthy people should be considered a social and common good, for the sake of all,…

As I understand it, we already subsidise child-rearing through taxation. Single, childless people are taxed at a higher rate. This is fine.

However, this is happening at a smaller, more arbitrary scale. It's not "I support our future through a legally defined contribution", but "my colleague is working 25% less and still gets paid the same, but I need to take PTO to get a haircut".

I think it depends on how you frame it.

1. We should all get equal treatment. Parents enjoys benefits that other employees don't. Their personal life can affect their performance, but that doesn't apply to other employees.

2. We're all in this situation together. To each according to their needs, from each according to their capacity.

I think both are true.

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

#236

Post by CydeWeys »

mc32 wrote: post #45
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 agree. Parents are making sacrifices which benefit society as a whole. Those children the parents are taking care of now will be the ones who will provide for the one complaining now via taxes as well as services rendered to them. If anything, companies should be providing more childcare so that more women (as well as some men) will have less of a burden balancing career and caregiving. I see these people as being…

> Parents are making sacrifices which benefit society as a whole.

100%. We need people to have kids (and for it to be financially possible to do so) because kids are literally the future generations of human society, and if no one is having kids then we'll see a very rapid collapse.

This is, incidentally, why it pisses me off when people complain that their pets don't get the same kind of accommodations that children do e.g. on airplanes or in restaurants, or that tax breaks exist for children. Your pets are optional. Children are mandatory. Not everyone has to have children, but enough people do. Having children isn't just planting trees for future society to enjoy the shade of, it's literally creating that future society (to reference an old proverb).

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

#237

Post by RHSeeger »

pojzon wrote: post #76
PeterisP wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then, direct the anger at those who do the telling or the requiring.

That not always help but for sure will backfire at you. Im writing next part as a parent of two. We have in team people who take multiple days off due to taking care of children, often not even counting it as taking a day off. Management doesnt care and expects people who do not “exploit” their privilages to do work for 2-3-4 people. Its also not the way to go, but any comment about that is a hard “stop being so self…

> Management doesnt care and expects people who do not “exploit” their privilages to do work for 2-3-4 people.

Out of curiosity, why is "just don't" not an option. You do what work you are capable of, maybe push a little harder because we're all pushing a little harder, and that's that. Things don't get done because there's less manpower doing it (people taking time off for kids; people taking time off for sickness; people working less efficiently because they're now working on the kitchen table etc).

Everyone takes a hit because of covid; that includes parents, non-parents, AND companies.

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

#238

Post by garden_hermit »

wayneftw wrote: post #153
tbatchelli wrote: post #57

How much of this issue is related to having a part of the population think that people having children is solely a private question? "You had children, why should I bear your burden!" If none of us had children there would d be no economy to support anyone's life in, let's say, 40 years from now. People making and raising new sane and healthy people should be considered a social and common good, for the sake of all,…

I’ve always thought that people should need to get a license to have a baby. You need a license to pull fish out of a river or to plant bamboo in your own yard, but any moron is allowed to make new people. How does that make any sense? With a baby license, hopefully we would actually only make new sane, healthy people - currently that’s not happening because the world is chock full of unhealthy idiots that I don’t wa…

It starts to approach eugenics pretty quickly, which we as a society have pretty much rejected.

But we do regulate the raising of children, to a certain extent. For example, we regulate school curriculum to install a certain set of values and knowledge in children. As a society, we also attempt to regulate certain kinds of parenting, by making certain forms of child abuse and neglect illegal.

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

#239

Post by hnFarmboy »

This is media framing that seems to be designed to divide parents and non-parents. Who really knows if many of the non-parents are actually mad at the parents rather than at their employers?

This seems like a fabricated narrative pushed by wealthy tech companies, or maybe just by the media to get clicks and be controversial.

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

#240

Post by CydeWeys »

eanzenberg wrote: post #233
CydeWeys wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In modern society it's basically required that both parents work full-time jobs. It's not the 50s anymore; you can't support an entire household with children on one income. So you can't have the expectation that one of the parents give up a large chunk of their salary just to have kids. If you do structure society in this way then you get rapidly declining birth rates and very bad long-term population demographic pr…

This outlook is widely in-the-coastal-city-bubble.

Expand on this please? What percentage of the country do you think is easily surviving on a single household salary?
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