Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19 • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by johnjj257 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #20

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.

The problem with this analogy is that everyone uses the school system at some point in their life, but not everyone is a parent at some point.

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

#252

Post by jartelt » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #18

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…

It is not necessarily just hostility to parents. I see it more as hostility to the HR policies in place at some of the companies. A new parent at facebook gets 4 months leave after the birth and then can take another 10 weeks of family leave.

Alternatively, non parent employees at facebook can take 3 days off to cope with stress or else need to take sick days. Otherwise they can take sick days, which probably would be frowned upon if overused.

Yes, parents have to deal with a lot more added stress during this pandemic. But, the difference between 10 weeks off (with no questions asked) and 3 days off (to "cope with mental health issues") is pretty stark. It seems like the tech companies could at least give those who do not take family leave an extra week of vacation or something.

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

#253

Post by markus_zhang » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

I think this is more of the firm's responsibility to communicate in a better way and sort out the conflicts in one way or another. This is stressful time for everyone and indeed the conflicts will intensify here and there. As a would-be parent I do believe that everyone is selfish and if the number of people who show such frustration do increase to hundreds then the company better addresses it directly instead of letting people attack each other. It's HR's (and manager's) duty to quiet such conflicts before it gets to that point.

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

#254

Post by YarickR2 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #236

mc32 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Pets are optional ? I didn't expect myself to hate this statement so much

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

#255

Post by mlady » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

save_ferris wrote: post #131

itsoktocry wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> employer expectations have historically been incredibly high at companies I’ve worked for, to the point that sacrificing one’s personal life is pretty much expected (although never explicitly stated). This sounds horrible. Honest question: why do you want to carve out a solid career in an industry that you can see works this way?

Because it's likely my best shot at financial independence. There's no other line of work I can pursue without taking on tens of thousands in student debt and starting over career-wise. I've worked in several industries in my life, and it's not like tech is unique this way. In a lot of ways, finance is much, much worse. It would be great to have enough money to pursue whatever goal or passion I wanted, but that's not…

I would refer you to the Parable of the Fisherman and the Businessman.

https://www.momentum-coaching.eu/en/inspiration/the-parable-...

TL;DR: try to live now in the way you would want to live once you achieve "financial independence"

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

#256

Post by umvi » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

sulam wrote: post #242

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…

Just keep in mind, those people working two full time jobs might be barely making ends meeting in Silicon Valley. Maybe one is a tech writer earning 5-figures and the other is a nurse with a schedule they don't control and that doesn't give them real benefits (this is all too common). They can't afford to quit and now they have to juggle kids, too. Everything worked fine when the kids were in school and they could pa…

I hate to say "move", but if dual income is super hard to make ends meet in SV, it's time to move out of SV. The US is huge, there are tons of places with decent tech scene, but affordable housing on a 5-figure salary without needing dual income (Texas, Utah, etc.).

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

#257

Post by mattlondon » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #226

lrem wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have it crossed your mind that maybe these people had the time and means to raise the kids, until a global pandemic has broken the plan a, the commercial plan b, the social plan c and the plan d? Because at the time the schools closed, the after school care also closed, people were told to not leave their kids with friends and no matter what never ever let them any near grandparents? Or have you totally missed that p…

Extended families have been isolating together since the beginning; Never were families discourages from isolating together. Visiting with friends (groups under 10 people) while following safe interaction guidelines was also not discouraged. EDIT: This is from the point of view of someone in the US; international laws vary as pointed out by replies.

> Never were families discourages from isolating together.

False - at least in the UK different households were not permitted to mix. So if grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins/etc lived in a different residence, well that is different households and no mixing was allowed. There goes a huge source of a lot of people's adhoc/emergency childcare options.

No mixing of groups of any size was allowed either.

There was some relaxing of this, but now we are seeing a second spike as obviously nothing has changed so people are back to infecting each other.

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

#258

Post by rayiner » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #18

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…

It’s mathematics. Your society ceases to exist surprisingly quickly if people don’t have kids. And as one of the immigrants folks in the first world are counting on to perpetuate their society, the child hostile culture still sucks. I don’t think my parents appreciated this aspect of moving to America—raising kids without the network of parents you can count on in other countries. My wife and I had kids at a pretty normal age (starting at 27) and it was lonely waiting around for everyone to transition to that phase of their life (which for the most part never materialized). My wife and I grew up with boatloads of cousins, but my kids were alone except for highly structured activities. If you wanted to hang out with people who have kids you’ve got to go meet people a decade older than you. I’m a city snob, but I’ve been a million times happier after moving to an exurban neighborhood where there are normal people and lots of children.

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

#259

Post by YarickR2 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #225

gones00n wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Benefit society as a whole" sounds good in theory but rarely works in practice because people are inherently self-interested. A simple counterargument is that someone's kids may not turn out at all to be productive members of society. Fundamentally corporations are different to the government. So whereas government can tax and progressively tax to soften wealth inequalities, corporations ultimately need to be profit…

The benefit to society as a whole is that human society literally continues to exist. If no one has children then society ceases to exist because there isn't a next generation. It's hard to think of anything that benefits society more than having children to comprise the next generation of society. And you know what's really bad for corporate profitability? Not having any workers in a few decades because conditions w…

What do you think of LGBTQ, then ? Fertility rates among them are near zero.

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

#260

Post by ajford » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

WD-42 wrote: post #56

This feels like a symptom of a society that has accepted the act of completely outsourcing child-rearing clashing with an event that makes that outsourcing impossible. Being able to work full time while comfortably having other people/institutions raise your child seems like a privilege. Now we are just seeing what happens when that privilege is taken away. I can't help but imagine there are a bunch of parents out th…

Being able to work full time while kids attend school isn't a privilege, it's often a necessity, at least in many parts of the US.

Until relatively recently, supporting my family of four required both my partner and I to work full time. Raising kids is an expensive endeavor. Luckily, I've advanced in my career enough that I can now support my family on my own.