Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 1001 posts

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

#481

Post by neltnerb »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #455
rootusrootus wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the obvious downsides for a moment, I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now. This morning I went up and down the stairs at least ten times while trying to get my 7- and 9-year old kids successfully established in their first remote learning session, simultaneously participating in two consecutive Zoom meetings with coworkers, and figuring out how to solve a nagging issue i…

> the obvious downsides They're not obvious to me... What are the downsides?

I don't have em, but having adult children when you're older and the experience of being a parent both seem like they're intrinsically valuable. I have a hard time believing any 18 year long cohabitation wouldn't form something of value, and struggling to deal with a problem together is a textbook team building exercise, for better or worse.

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

#482

Post by tracerbulletx »

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…

Have you actually noticed this happening in your workplace? I've read these stories in the news but no one is acting like that at all where I work which is a mid sized tech start up. Everyone is VERY understanding and accommodating there is a general atmosphere of dealing with a very difficult situation together.

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

#483

Post by nickff »

polishdude20 wrote: post #320
nickff wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the children disproportionately benefit the parents (unlike jury duty or military service). This is a heads-parents-win, tails-childless-lose scenario. Your comment would be completely correct if the children ceased all communications and transactions with the parent upon entry into the labor force; but that's not what happens.

Well in proportion to the time the parents spend with the kids vs the time you are inconvenienced by them spending time with their kids balances out. Of course they will have a huge benefit from raising their kids. They raised them. But you will also have a benefit from the small temporary hassle it gives you during these times.

I am not saying that parents do not deserve attention from their children, I am only making the point that the proposed benefits are disproportionately beneficial to parents.

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

#484

Post by neltnerb »

outside1234 wrote: post #383
jonny_eh wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you still have time for HN!

One the most important self care things you can do right now is to take some time for yourself. That is true if you have kids or not. For many of us, HN is one of those things. It is orthogonal to having enough time - it is more about coping.

I agree until I disagree because it becomes a refresh trigger... but you sound like you have discipline.

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

#485

Post by rdtwo »

analog31 wrote: post #94

Come to the Midwest. Here's how we do it. First of all, you can't retire at 30 on an entry level engineer salary (poetic license taken). Second, there are no child care benefits. Instead, parents with kids split things up. One parent (usually the one who was earning less anyway) dials down their career, perhaps by going part time. The other parent dials up, by competing for promotions. For instance, it's almost like…

Also some minor issues with a while host of *isms and segregation that we don’t talk about. Oh and still trying to ban abortion because having children is a choice , but not really.

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

#486

Post by dheera »

mjangle1985 wrote: post #370
dheera wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the real broken part of this system is that people are not getting legally-protected personal time. A big part of the resentment is that a person who chose to have children ends up being able to be excused from work to take care of children, while a person who has no children is not as easily excused to do what they want to do, because it is deemed low priority compared to children. We need to be prioritizing peo…

>It's when people are working till 11pm and someone says "I need to leave at 6 to make food for my kids" that the resentment happens. If everyone got off at 6, there wouldn't be any resentment. What would you propose then? The parents starve their children? What an absurd thing to have resentment over. Do you believe the parents don't feel guilt over having to duck out early while others without children continue to…

Please re-read the full comment. I am not expressing resent, I am explaining why resentment occurs in the masses.

> What would you propose then?

I proposed a solution, in the very first line of my comment: "legally-protected personal time"

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

#487

Post by Romanulus »

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #286
Reedx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only after having a kid did I fully realize just how much time and freedom I had.

Freedom to go to bars (closed), clubs (closed), trips (not happening), concerts (canceled), conventions (postponed indefinitely), festivals (closed), etc... Most things childfree people get meaning out of are canceled until further notice. You still have your parenthood. What do we get? Extra work for equal pay? Great, that'll make the pandemic suck less.

I would wager that you do not have children.

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

#488

Post by outworlder »

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…

> (a) take care of the continuation of the human race

I understand the sentiment. But the human race is not in any danger of going extinct any time soon. We are at almost 8 billion people now. Certainly we don't need to add that much more?

> What's next, complaining that the cancer patient gets extra time off so why don't I?

This slippery slope is not needed. A cancer patient has no say on whether or not he's going to get sick.

Parenting is a choice. One that's been ingrained in most people from an early age, but still a choice. That's in no way the same as a disease.

If parents get benefits, non-parents should get benefits too. Possibly different ones. But we shouldn't pretend that only parents have issues. This is even ignoring the fact that people may have other people they need to take care of that are not their direct descendants.

Extend benefits to everyone. End of story.

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

#489

Post by neltnerb »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #380
jbay808 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Edited to clarify my intended meaning) > I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now. For those childless co-workers that wish they could accept the other end of this deal, this phrase is both common and quite painful to hear. Please consider not using it unless you really mean it, which you don't, as you actually wouldn't give up your kids for anything.

“Trade places with” is meant figuratively here, not literally.

Even figuratively it's obviously going to read as mean to someone who wants but cannot conceive children.

Or at least that's how I read it, a polite reminder to be a little sensitive when it comes to such things...

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

#490

Post by outworlder »

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…

> 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

Interesting. That's exactly what's expected from H1 holders.

Post reply on HN