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

#321

Post by jdm2212 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #268

ethanwillis wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This argument is made again and again in this thread, and it never got addressed. 1. There are already functional mechanisms for contribution. A single, childless person is already contributing more through their taxes. The government already heavily subsidises child-rearing. 2. Child-rearing is given an arbitrary pass that other equally charitable actions wouldn't get. A single, childless person couldn't let his com…

1. Government subsidies don't cover anything close to the cost of raising a child.

2. Child-rearing is a thing tens of millions of people actually do interleaved with full-time work, and has to be addressed by high-level decision makers. There are lots of hypothetical things a specific individual might want to do that maybe have high social utility, and that's an interesting question for them to sort out with their manager and isn't really relevant to how parents are treated.

3. A stable population -- not growing -- requires a little over 2 children per woman, and the US fertility rate is waaaay below that right now.

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

#322

Post by rdtwo » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

bzb5 wrote: post #53

Barrin92 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm perfectly fine with working more than people with children right now, because children are as the saying goes, quite literally our future. I don't have any but seeing how difficult it is for friends right now who do I am perfectly fine with picking up some extra work. I wish we could stop treating this like an individual issue, as we do everything nowadays, which is probably why we're getting so screwed by this v…

> I'm perfectly fine with working more than people with children That’s cool. Seems like not everybody agrees with you

It’s cool if they don’t they should just pay more taxes to compensate

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

#323

Post by ethanwillis » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #268

ethanwillis wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This argument is made again and again in this thread, and it never got addressed. 1. There are already functional mechanisms for contribution. A single, childless person is already contributing more through their taxes. The government already heavily subsidises child-rearing. 2. Child-rearing is given an arbitrary pass that other equally charitable actions wouldn't get. A single, childless person couldn't let his com…

1. If you don't want to pay taxes don't be part of society. The government subsidizes child rearing because it should. But it also doesn't fully cover the cost.

2. It's not an arbitrary pass. A childless person's commitment to Doctors Without Borders is much more flexible than a parent's commitment to a living a human.

3. The world population is only really growing in less developed countries. But it doesn't matter because if you have too many people they will either die because the system can't support them. Or the system will innovate to be able to support them.

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

#324

Post by true_religion » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

YarickR2 wrote: post #259

CydeWeys wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would say that's a non factor since there are more straight people total that choose not to have children or can't for some reason.

For that matter, adoption is also an option so we can't look simply at fertility.

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

#325

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #196

jacquesm wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woodworking is a hobby. Raising kids is a full time job, no time off, no pay, no changing jobs.

What if "woodworking" was replaced with "volunteer firefighting"?

This has to be the all time prize winner in moving the goalposts.

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

#326

Post by aftergibson » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #291

One thing I wish I could make my childless peers grok is that THERE IS NO VACATION when you have young kids. I’m taking this week off and people speak as if I’m on vacation. Please please hear my words literally: my job is my break. Weekends are more physically and intellectually exhausting than weekdays when I get to $&@# off to work for eight hours. My paid time off is a way to give us a fighting chance at laundry…

I feel you. Took my first "vacation" with our son last week, it was a far more stressful experience that a week working.

My partner is seriously my hero.

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

#327

Post by nicbou » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

RHSeeger wrote: post #283

nicbou wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who loves to cook, I don't fully agree. 60% of cooking is logistics: knowing what to eat, setting time aside for grocery shopping and meal preparation, and keeping food waste to a minimum. In my opinion, this is a lot harder than the actual cooking. If you've never done it before, it's surprisingly hard. Cooking in a well-organised, well-stocked kitchen is very different from starting with an empty pantry,…

I have a hard time agreeing with this. Cooking things like hot dogs, dogs and beans, pasta and meat sauce, etc... that's relatively simple for anyone. And it can be done for the time being until they figure out how to cook better things; things that will make them happy. The ability to ease your way into cooking for one's self should make it relatively trivial. Honestly, compared to figuring out how to work from home…

I just remember what cooking was like when I moved out of my parents' house. It was daunting at first.

Just to be clear, I was just adding to the conversation. I agree with you that the transition won't tank your productivity and make you a nervous wreck.

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

#328

Post by a-nikolaev » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #268

ethanwillis wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This argument is made again and again in this thread, and it never got addressed. 1. There are already functional mechanisms for contribution. A single, childless person is already contributing more through their taxes. The government already heavily subsidises child-rearing. 2. Child-rearing is given an arbitrary pass that other equally charitable actions wouldn't get. A single, childless person couldn't let his com…

If you tried to take care of a baby or a toddler, you would see that it's like a second job in terms of how much time and effort it requires from you every day. Now imagine yourself doing all that x2 amount of work, would you ask for help or extra accommodations?

It's not a model, a mental experiment, or a charitable action. It's the x2 amount of work you need to do, day and night, 365 days a year.

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

#329

Post by tabtab » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

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 not sure if this is sarcasm. I'm confused. Without children, humans cease to exist. Although, arguably there are too many humans already.

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

#330

Post by CydeWeys » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #308

CydeWeys wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I also think it's stupid to resent parents; they need the time for the kids, who aren't at fault in any of this. That said, why do you assume we all care about having a future society? Frankly I only care about existing humans. The species is irrelevant to me.

It doesn't matter if you personally don't care; society as a whole cares about its self-perpetuation.

Also, your life is gonna be pretty damn bleak in your twilight years if everyone stops having children now. There will be no one to take care of the old people, no one to farm the food, etc. Every single job that keeps society up and running would have to be performed exclusively by elderly people, many of whom would be in no condition to work and would in fact need to be cared for rather than being able to care for others through work. Good luck with that.