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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

#861

Post by dkersten »

betterunix2 wrote: post #697
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…

"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." So, a few problems here: 1. Parenting is not a choice when you have children in your home. 2. Most parents do not want to be woken u…

> Parenting is not a choice when you have children in your home.

Of course not, but choosing to have children in the first place is.

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

#862

Post by dclowd9901 »

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…

While I think your argument is specious at best, your point is salient. I‘m a parent and have several co workers who do not have children, and I push them —- have to push them —- to take time off. I think there’s a lot going on here:

* parents need more time to care for their kids

* parents feel guilty for the time off they’re taking

* non parent workers might feel some resentment, but probably not overtly

* non parent workers probably feel like they need to pick up the slack

Let’s be real here: very few of us are doing anything of actual consequence. Your job is not important. Your job is not you and you are not your job. Take as much time as you need, and if your company or your boss doesn’t get it, leave. I’ll fucking hire you.

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

#863

Post by kelnos »

> More than half of 1,000 people surveyed by Care.com said they felt like they'd let down their colleagues due to juggling children and work during the pandemic.

Frankly, it's true, they probably have. I've quickly learned that my co-workers who have kids will be less productive. But so what? This is just the reality we're all facing, and we have to account for that when planning and assigning work.

Now, I don't think that should mean that I have to pick up the slack and work 80 hour weeks (that's just generally unfair, and I'm dealing with my own COVID-related difficulties), but that does mean that a project that would normally take 3 months might now take 4 or 5 or 6. Tech companies are lucky that they mostly still get to complete their projects, even late! Companies that require in-person and in-office work to get things done aren't completing projects at all right now.

> And 45% believe their career advancement has suffered because they're juggling work and kids at home.

This is the only thing that's actually a problem. Parents shouldn't have to be judged against their pre-COVID productivity levels. That's entirely unreasonable to expect of them, and there's nothing anyone can do about that.

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

#864

Post by jelliclesfarm »

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…

People should have kids they can afford. No one is asking human beings to cease procreation.

The point is that we have made child rearing so easy and incentivized it to a point where one puny little pandemic comes around the corner and parents completely lose it and cannot cope.

If I wasn’t taken aback by the sheer number of parents who are legitimately feeling lost, I would be laughing. Are most of these people even equipped to be parents? I don’t think so. We have evolved to care for our young so they themselves can have their young and in the process we pass on our genes and memes.

That’s how we went from hunter gatherers to pastoralists to sailors to warriors to farmers to factory workers to ..here we are. What we have seemed to have lost is INSTINCT to care for our young.

Worse than outsourcing child rearing to hired help or the govt or public schools, current crop of parents seem to depend on employers to hold their hand while they raise their young.

This needs to be discouraged. This is absolutely unacceptable. Maybe there should be Parenting 101 MOOCs before people can decide if they are cut out for the challenge of parenting.

I shudder to imagine how these kids will turn out. While I think parents or anyone else who need help deserve it, every thing has a price. It’s not a favour to the world to be a parent.

On a relevant note, all of this only suggests to me that 4 day workweeks will become the norm. No one is going to go back to offices after covid evaporates. That’s how this problem is going to be resolved. It’s the only way.

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

#865

Post by Mirioron »

hodgesrm wrote: post #573
Mirioron wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except children benefit their parents. Before social security, children were your social security. This mechanism hasn't disappeared. Childless people already pay more taxes that are used to subsidize other peoples' children, but they don't get nearly the benefit from that that parents do.

Average price to raise a child to 18 in the US is $233,610 according to the USDA. Tax benefits don't come close to this. And heaven help you if your kid goes to college. ;-) [1] https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/01/13/cost-raising-chil...

It's not tax benefits that makes parents better off. Tax benefits are in addition to the general benefits children provide. Children are your caretakers in old age. People who have children tend to live longer.

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

#866

Post by hvidgaard »

jartelt wrote: post #270
usrusr wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your assessment about how social distancing is in some ways worse for singles, but I fail to see how time off would help.

Time off would allow people to relax, work on a hobby, exercise, etc. If you are feeling run down after working from a crappy, crammed apartment for 3 months, it can be refreshing to get an extra week or so off work with no questions asked.

Being single, you have time for all that in a normal week anyway. And if you don't you wouldn't have had the time for social interaction in the first place.

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

#867

Post by kelnos »

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…

I don't think that's entirely relevant when most existing childcare in the US has just been completely unavailable due to COVID-19. It's not lack of funds or state support; childcare had been shut down along with everything else.

But I agree that it's messed up that this is causing parents and non-parents to turn against each other; non-parents should be siding with parents to get their companies to provide better conditions.

(I don't think I'll go as far to suggest this outcome is intentional by employers, though, despite the fact that turning your employees against each other is a classic employer-vs-labor tactic to keep benefits and wages low.)

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

#868

Post by Mirioron »

wrkronmiller wrote: post #421
Mirioron wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except children benefit their parents. Before social security, children were your social security. This mechanism hasn't disappeared. Childless people already pay more taxes that are used to subsidize other peoples' children, but they don't get nearly the benefit from that that parents do.

I strongly suspect that, among wealthy tech workers, children are a net drain when you factor in: - These workers have enough income to finance their own retirement easily - The additional real estate to raise children near a tech hub is often prohibitively expensive - These kids will almost certainly go to college and maybe private school, which adds up _rapidly_ It's important to consider _who_ we are talking about…

>It's important to consider _who_ we are talking about here.

But then their noble sacrifice isn't as important for society anymore, is it? If we simply need more children, then it's not relevant whether they're born to the family of the tech worker or someone worse off.

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

#869

Post by Mirioron »

knolax wrote: post #492
Mirioron wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except children benefit their parents. Before social security, children were your social security. This mechanism hasn't disappeared. Childless people already pay more taxes that are used to subsidize other peoples' children, but they don't get nearly the benefit from that that parents do.

Yes but we live in a time after social security, where old people, regardless of whether or not they have children, are often completely subsidized by the current SS taxes of young people.

They're subsidized by young people, because when the old people were young they were forced to subsidized old people back then. It's a deal society forced upon people, so you can't act as though old people today didn't earn it.

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

#870

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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