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

#741

Post by jelliclesfarm » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:01 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #386

room500 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this sentiment. Farming is critical for society. However, we don't require everyone to pull on their overalls and work the land. Security is critical for society. However, we don't expect every person to pick up their machine gun and jump in a trench. Society is nowhere near a population level that is dangerously low. In fact, we are more concerned with overpopulation and overconsumption. If you ha…

Modern technology means that 2% of the citizens of a developed country can feed the rest. That's why nobody wants/needs the average J. to farm. Modern technology means that only a small percentage of citizens are enough to defend the rest. That's why nobody wants/needs the average J. to fight. If all of a sudden, say, 50% of the people having children now, in developed countries, would decide to not have children, we…

Everyone should be respectful to all women.

I don’t think many people understand the abuse and contempt childless women face for their choices. This thread and the comments demanding medals of honor for the breeders is very triggering to me.

Parents can also be nasty selfish and self absorbed. Many parents raise children so badly that they are a burden to society. Who is counting those?

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

#742

Post by medium_burrito » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:03 AM UTC

It is only fair for those who cannot have children to let them have parental leave when they get a pet (fur baby).

I don't buy that we need to keep on producing children- there aren't enough decent jobs for the present generation, let alone a bunch of new kids, unless you count OnlyFans.

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

#743

Post by ultramundane8 » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:07 AM UTC

This thread is absolutely bananas. I actually read most of it at 759 comments.

The short version is that people with kids are insanely defensive about it. In many cases, they have literally rewritten their brains to see reproduction as exclusively good and necessary. If you suggest anything else, you will be swiftly brigaded and condemned.

Those without children are all over the place. Their opinions vary from complete disinterest to strong resentment of parents.

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

#744

Post by frequentnapper » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

ipython wrote: post #718

frequentnapper wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>an essential service that some people perform to ensure that society as we know it can continue to exist I empathize with parents, but please don't make it sound like it's a selfless act they are doing for the good of society. Also, childless couples/singles get taxed at quite a high rate (after any returns) vs parents. You compound that over 21 or whatever years it takes for kids to become "productive". Furthermore…

Well, technically, that child you “raised” with your tax money is the one paying your social security benefits when you are older. The SS taxes you are paying now don’t benefit you directly, they pay for current retiree benefits. As far as being taxed “more” than a couple with kids, yes you do potentially miss out on a tax credit of $2k/year. Going through my food bills I easily spend that much just feeding that chil…

You and I both agree that it's not a selfless act to have a child. That was my entire point.

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

#745

Post by sokoloff » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

throwta22 wrote: post #615

throwawaybabies wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm probably going to get downvoted for being "selfish" but I absolutely do not care about the continuation of the human race and I want as much time off as my coworkers who made the bad life decision choice of making children.

I guess I'm out of the loop but I didn't realize that parents actually felt like they're doing society and the human race a favor by having several kids. I always viewed it as the opposite. We're at no risk of extinction and companies should not subsidize people for having kids, at least not more than 1. Many people love taking advantage of that sweet sweet 16+ week parental leave.

I love my kids. Even with that, I assure you I was looking forward to the break and reduction in workload when my parental leave expired and I went back to the office...

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

#746

Post by IG_Semmelweiss » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

kevstev wrote: post #140

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…

As a mid 30s childless man I completely agree. We essentially sent people home on a Friday, told them to figure out a work from home situation, and then they were told welp your kids aren't going to school either, and whatever childcare you had lined up has now vanished too- and this is all happening in the course of a few days at most. So now you have kids to worry about all day, home schooling to oversee, focusing…

I dont think this is a wild assumption.

It is well documented that financial support as well as the policies of the democratic party (Defund, UBI etc) is heavy in the FAANGs particularly FB and Google[1] Starting from that premise, one can assume that any sample drawn of a subpopulation that includes single employees will be heavily titled towards (D)[2]

Therefore, one notes that the same people that support most (D) platform policies today, are very much against parental benefits.

How to reconcile this?

Here is where we get to the uncomfortable zone:

Supporters of defund, UBI, BLM etc are happy... as long as the cost of said policies impose a burden that is at least as heavy on them, as everyone else.

However, when they are asked to sacrifice themselves only, they fail to report to duty.

In other words, their public position (everyone must show empathy to others) clashes with their private one (self empathy to their tribe)

Problem: when your private beliefs clash with your public persona, this invalidates your public persona, not your private beliefs.

[1] campaign contribution disclosures by company. [2] see voter trends by age group.

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

#747

Post by rauhl » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #459

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…

A BIG chunk of all that drama is due to the US social safety net not including childcare. That's the thing disturbing thing about these stories: employees are turned against each other when it's a) the company; and b) your tax dollars, not providing any kind of built-in childcare for society. In France, kids can go to preschool and have pre- and post- school childcare, which has to be paid, but it's only like $500/mo…

The problem with that is two-fold: first, the median childcare worker is less concerned with the child’s long-term success than is the median parent (that’s not a slight against childcare workers!); second, that the presence of state childcare makes it less competitive for parents to spend time taking care of their children themselves rather than to work and earn money, which means more and more folks are likely to utilise state childcare, which is less ideal due to the first reason.

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

#748

Post by robbiemitchell » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #152

What I find short sighted about these policies are they don't realize that people without children can also feel stressed and need more time off. e.g. if you're single during this time, you are completely isolated from the world, and your colleagues. This can be extremely difficult mentally and on an individual level can be much harder than just someone with a kid. These policies shouldn't be "oh if you have kids you…

Taking care of a child isn't time off, it's work. And it's not even time away from work because you're still getting pinged on Slack, still expected to review Google docs or leave people blocked, still missing meetings or dialing in (poorly) because they can't be rescheduled, and generally feeling guilty that you can't get enough done.

All while trying to handle a baby, or monitor a first grader attending live school on a computer, or trying to re-create preschool at home... whatever. Oh, and prep meals, plan after-school isolated activities, etc. All while feeling guilty because your kids are suffering and miss their friends.

We're all isolated. As a parent, I'd love more time off [to myself, as you imply]. But that's not what I'm getting. I work more than ever yet do everything (work, parenting, life) worse than before.

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

#749

Post by dcolkitt » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #478

rayiner wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect a fair number of the complainers are people with Democratic leanings, and I think I can describe their thought process to you. > I think their problem is that a private company is doing this, not the Government. Is that a Democratic take? I think it's a liberaltarian take on it. Here's the conservative libertarian response: raising children is one of the primary functions of society, and social norms that…

What's the conservative libertarian take on what to do when those norms are gone and haven't been replaced?

It’s not a full answer to your question, but given a long enough timeframe the problem is self-correcting.

Sub-cultures with anti-natalist norms will find themselves subsumed by those that produce a lot of children. Simple math tells us that the typical American circa 2100 is a lot more likely to be descended from Utah Mormons than Bay Area rationalists.

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

#750

Post by baddox » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:12 AM UTC

0xB31B1B wrote: post #730

baddox wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes it sound like raising children isn't already an extremely strong biological urge and something that tends to provide immense satisfaction to parents. If parents didn't receive special benefits at work to help them raise children, or if all adults were given comparable benefits regardless of whether they have children, I don't think that would shatter the incentive structure and result in having too few hum…

uhhh, we already have a shattered incentive structure and are not reproducing enough humans to support the next generation. US fertility is below replacement, as is pretty much every other developed or middle income country. Its likely that we will see peak world population in our lifetime.

Luckily the US population can grow other ways too! And the global population is increasing. And “seeing peak world population in our lifetime” doesn’t sound too scary. Shortage of humans due to humans choosing not to reproduce because they don’t want their non-parent coworkers to be frustrated is one of the smallest existential threats I can imagine.