One thing really annoying that I’ve noticed working in the white collar industry is that some people get a free pass all the time on important things, just because they have kids. For example, in a different team who often has to step away during business hours and becomes unreachable, simply because they have kids. There’s always some sort of excuse with them. Have to go pick him up from the bus stop, have to go pick him up from school because they got in trouble, dance recital during the middle of the day, always something. But when it comes to ordinary normal people who don’t have kids, it feels like there’s a lot more scrutiny. Why do you need a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day? Why do you need to go pick up a prescription at lunch time, like why can’t you work through lunch?
But also, when it comes to employment, it feels like there’s a lot of preferential treatment for people with children. Oh that person has kids / children! They need the job a lot more. They have a little girl! Clearly they need it more than the the person who has a disabled spouse, because kids are way more important than an adult dependent! We can’t fire this person, they have kids! Let’s choose someone who doesn’t have a family. Like, stuff like this. Why is there so much preferential treatment to people who have children? Is this some sort of utilitarian thing? The least number of people affected?
I don’t have kids myself, but I understand that it’s the employers fault they don’t extend the same privileges to me, not the parents fault for receiving the privilege.
There’s always some sort of excuse with them. Have to go pick him up from the bus stop, have to go pick him up from school because they got in trouble, dance recital during the middle of the day, always something.
I am a single parent and work the same hours per timesheet and get the same allotment of personal leave per year as everybody else at my employer.
If I happen to use that personal leave to pick up a kid who threw up in their classroom while somebody else uses it to see their optometrist or attend a funeral isn’t really anybody’s business.
I take one early afternoon each week to take my kid to an after school activity, this puts a weekly 2 or 3 hour deficit in my timesheet that I either make up by working a bit longer on the other days or if the sheet doesn’t balance I make up the difference by spending some annual leave. (I try to avoid using AL like this because I would rather save it for holidays but it is occasionally required.)
I don’t telegraph all of this timesheet accounting to my colleagues, they will know which day I’m leaving early that term and the rest isn’t really their business. At the end of the day/month/year I have my schedule OKed by my line manager and work the commitments of my contract.
But when it comes to ordinary normal people who don’t have kids, it feels like there’s a lot more scrutiny. Why do you need a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day? Why do you need to go pick up a prescription at lunch time, like why can’t you work through lunch?
If your employer / manager is second guessing your leave thats an issue between you and them and shouldn’t have your looking at your peers with resentment.
In practice, kids provide more good excuses to work around unrealistic expectations, like needing fifteen minutes to pick up something. There’s a good emotional excuse in “I need to take my kid to the doctor”, much more than “the Elden Ring expansion came out”. If your boss is being unreasonable, you’ll need something good to dissuade them. Unfortunately for everyone involved, kid stuff just happens a lot less predictably and a lot more during office hours than (your own) adult stuff. Kids get sick more, do more dangerous things, are more vulnerable, and have weirder schedules than adults. They also can’t really get around by themselves up until a certain age, and at certain age ranges they probably shouldn’t be going to doctor’s appointments without adults either, even if they can get there by bike or by public transport themselves.
As for kid stuff happening during the day: that’s just how kid stuff works a lot of the time, unfortunately. Doctors and schools are open for only so many hours a day. It’s not like parents get that time off, they need to do chores they’d rather not be doing when they’re away from work. However, if you need to see a doctor or pick up medicine, you shouldn’t be restricted to super uncomfortable times because you’re not a child.
I don’t see why a kid would be more important than a disabled spouse, or any spouse for that matter. If there’s a family concern where you need to be present, kids shouldn’t get preferential treatment. When it comes to things like being available in your free time or being put forward as a backup, your time should be as valuable as anyone’s time. However, something to consider is that in some occasions parents will negotiate their contracts to be exempted from certain things, often at a cut in pay or with something else to make up for it; in those cases your time is legally worth less than theirs, but that’s down to contract negotiation.
As for being fired and other stuff where dependents may suffer, I think that’s only logical. It often doesn’t matter which team member gets fired for economic reasons, so a compassionate boss should probably fire causing the least amount of suffering. Someone’s going to feel the pain, but unless there’s a good reason to fire someone else, a single person having their life upset by getting fired will be preferential to a family of four having their life upset.
That sounded very American. Is this a US specific problem?
why can’t you work through lunch?
Seriously, there’s something wrong with your boss or perhaps even the whole company. If you need to get stuff done during your lunch hour, you just go ahead and do it. Why should your boss care as long as you do your job during the other hours of the week.
Yes and no. Everyone deserves the same benefits here. The issue isn’t why someone with kids gets a free pass, but why you don’t get the same offering. Why should someone have to work harder because they’re infertile, gay, or otherwise unable to reproduce?
But that’s on the capitalist, not on the worker. They should hire some more people to cover for whoever has emergencies.
I have a kid now and I understand the frustration of who didn’t have kids. The problem is that the frustration is to the wrong person.
If you are treated badly, don’t get mad at people who are treated a bit less badly.
The better question is why management is giving you flack? That’s the issue. Not your coworkers with kids.
Lots of great points in the comments. But I think so far no one has really addressed your core complaint head on, which is why society tolerates a double standard here.
Parents get a pass because they are supporting more than just themselves… It may appear that the parent who is getting a free pass is pulling less weight, if you look at this exclusively through the lens of comparing contribution to the company’s productivity. But if you expand that lens a bit, you see that raising a child is also work to be valued (which you benefitted from yourself, btw). Frankly, a company with a work culture that considers its social responsibility to the community beyond merely spitting out products is a really good thing.
If you are ok with the double standard of handicapped parking, you should be ok with this too.
raising a child is also work to be valued (which you benefitted from yourself, btw).
This.
And it’s not a binary thing, it’s a scale. Kids who are supported by emotionally stable parents who are able to spend their time together are more likely to succeed in life than kids who are left to their own devices and end up picking up all sorts of insecurities due to the parent being sort of a nerve wreck, and them eventually feeling like a burden all the time.
I will happily support my colleague spending more of his time with his daughters, because then when I’m old, I have higher chance that those daughters being confident, nice and educated adult people who can produce economical value. Only then, part of that value can come back to me in various forms of support, whether it’s pension, better social services or just more options. (Unless they move to another country – but then again, that depends on the relative quality of life in this country, which in turn boils down to the same principle.)
Now, maybe I’m a nice guy here, but none of the above logic requires me to be nice. I could be a totally selfish asshole and still the position works out the same.
It’s all about that work-life balance. For example, I fuck off to the bar all the time
Daydrinking isn’t a hobby, it’s a necessity
Reproductive labour is the largest segment of labour and entirely necessary to the continuation of society yet is entirely unpaid. Why is that and why do you think that someone contributing to that segment of the labour economy should be treated the exact same as someone not doing that unpaid labour? You say it is entirely their choice yet you benefit from that labour without contributing to it. That is your choice
Earth is overpopulated.
There’s an argument to be made that the “reproductive labour” is as good for humankind as “extracting oil to keep polluting the atmosphere”.
Also, most if not all people have kids for selfish reasons, not for society not for others, only for themselves, so cut the bullshit here.
You’re looking at it all wrong.
You’re letting yourself get pushed around. The parents have their priorities figured out. They know work isn’t their life. You should stop trying to narc on other people and stand up for your own self.
Having kids you have absolutely unbreakable obligations. Work shit can wait. You’ll learn that eventually.
Because my boss knows if he tries to make me pick between my job and my baby girl… He WILL lose. There wont be a discussion or an argument, he will lose, I might get fired but so be it.
Once people have kids they have more to lose, but running head to head with them instead of making minor concessions is the dumb move. Theres always another job and guaranteed they will start looking immediately if they dont quit outright if you pick that fight. As a supervisor at my job people with kids are also more inclined to bust arse to make sure people arent carrying their load when they do need a bit of special treatment because they still need to provide and have a solid income.
You can also get fired for it. At least in the US. A parent is less likely to get fired for taking an hour or three off here and there to deal with kids than someone is for taking the same time off to deal with other life stuff.
Is that the fault of the parents, or shitty to inexistent worker rights?
Parents just might quit over work interference in kid stuff. There a legal repercussions for not doing some kid things.
Everything here is great until you got to the sanctimonious “you’ll learn that eventually” shit.
So you’re telling on yourself that you haven’t figured out that “work can wait”?
You’ll learn that eventually.
I’m disabled, so there’s no more work anyway. But yeah, go ahead and be condescending and incorrect.
Sorry for treating you like I do everyone else. I’ll do better.
Aren’t you delightful.
I mean we should all be able to leave our desk to go pick up a prescription for ourselves or a family member. That’s the problem, not that parents are the only ones with the privilege.
The discrimination in regards to parents is real. In an interview I was asked if I would be able to keep up with a demanding schedule because I have kids. In my experience, women with children get the opposite end of that consideration than with men being considered bread winners. This is messed up any way you slice it.
This might be unique to each parent as well. Some children do require extra attention and it is very difficult to managed work time in.
With most schools letting kids out around 3pm it’s not easy to keep the children occupied before the work day is finished. This leaves parents either on a work call with kids heard in the background or working late at night al week.
Think of it as if the person is a caretaker and a full time employee at your company. It’s basically two full times just that happen to overlap during the day.
I think calling it a privilege is really unfair but if the people are missing work and not meeting deadlines then management needs to step in and work out a solution. Work life balance is hard.
in a different team
Maybe this all comes down to the boss of the other team not being a dick? Life and work are not separate things. A good manager knows this. If your manager is making you work through lunch , not take breaks, not go to the doctor, etc. then you have a manager problem and this has absolutely nothing to do with who does/doesn’t have children.
Also depending on where they live making them work through lunch / breaks is illegal without extra pay. Look up your local labor laws.
They already are. Months of parental leave, come back, make another child, get another couple of months off. If the money is it there to allow this, why can’t we get some kind of sabbatical
Depending on your state, you can! Is your parent dying of cancer and requires constant care? Did you get in a car accident that requires a multiple day hospital stay, and a wound the size of a dinner plate? You too can have a few weeks unpaid leave to recover. Thinking of maternity (or paternity) leave as a sabbatical is a joke.
I got exactly one day off for the funeral after a parent’s cancer but it’s not really comparable. Becoming a parent doesn’t exactly happen against your will. I may as well take a dog and claim I need time off to walk it.
