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?
In a way, yes. Good healthy families are a core of a functioning society. However some examples you gave:
Why do you need a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day?
Unless you’re in a society where doctors are available in the evening, this is a silly question
Why do you need to go pick up a prescription at lunch time
Again, depends on the pharmacist’s opening hours
like why can’t you work through lunch?
This is just stupid completely
They need the job a lot more. They have a little girl!
This makes sense, as again, someone with a child needs to provide for a family
Clearly they need it more than the the person who has a disabled spouse, because kids are way more important than an adult dependent!
This is stupid and a disabled spouse or any dependent should also be taken into consideration
We can’t fire this person, they have kids! Let’s choose someone who doesn’t have a family.
This makes sense. Some people need more money than others. That’s a basic fact. You or I would find more value in £1000 than a billionaire would.
Society flourishes when there are more middle class families flourishing. (By “more” middle class, I mean raising people to the middle class and maintaining those who are as well.) It is natural order that we should make society an easier environment to have a family in, rather than harder. Lest you end up like Japan or China with a declining population
Society was wrong when it started to hate women who had more kids and lived off of child benefits (and maybe a husband’s wage helping as well). If they’re actually doing a decent job at parenting, let them.
By the same logic a disabled spouse doesn’t mean you get any additional consideration right?
“I nutted in a girl once, I’m better than you”
No. Everyone should get the same treatment, as if they had children.
Exactly this. If you need to step away, take care of something, or just need a break, that ought to be entirely acceptable.
The reason it seems like parents “get away with it” is because they push limits, because they have a priority higher than anything else related to employment. I have to go get those kids. Is that report urgent? Cool, I’ll get to it as soon as the literal humans whose lives are depending on me for basic survival are safe at home. Are you going to fire me for parenting? Because that doesn’t change my priorities.
My opinion on this, it fully depends.
I fully agree that people should be empathetic to people with kids because there are events that are outside of their control. This being said I don’t think they should be sympathetic to it. At the end of the day it isn’t that person’s problem that someone else has a kid, so therefore they shouldn’t be affected by it. Being said the world isn’t a perfect place and if you straight out don’t show any sympathy period you’re going to make enemies Having a kid should not be a get out of jail free card for any type of commitment, no if ands or buts.
Since you mentioned the professional World I’ll keep it more leaning towards that, a worker with a kid should not be getting preferable treatment to someone without a kid unless it is something that is directly out of that person’s control. A kid being sick is one thing, leaving early due to a doctor’s appointment is a whole different thing. They make sick days and they make vacation days for that, if the company is willing to work around your appointments that’s great, but that should be a treatment that they are given to everyone regardless of if you have a kid or not.
As for the lunch example that you gave, without getting too far off topic I firmly believe that that shouldn’t be happening. Regardless of if you have a kid or not. Depending on your contract you’re entitled to a lunch, and in most companies that lunch is unpaid. If I’m not being paid my company is not going to dictate what I’m doing. Lunch period Is very often the period that I use to be able to do the things like what you mentioned such as going to the store or going to the bank, that’s none of my employers buisness what I’m doing during that time.
in the professional World shit happens, managers will give preferable treatment to people they like and to the more efficient workers. Some managers also struggle to see the difference between empathy and sympathy and go a little too far in worker preference, this doesn’t mean that it’s right. This is a human trait, it’s against our nature to go against it. However as cold-hearted as it sounds employees life outside of the job should not be a problem of the employer. I’m not saying they should be the first one on The Chopping block, but I am saying that if that worker is less efficient, or ends up working less than higher other workers, the fact that they have a kid at home should not be taken into account.
Please note that this post is not including if your country has laws prohibiting certain actions. Such as in the US FMLA states that once the worker has been with the company for a year they can be entitled to up to 6 months of job protected unpaid leave as long as it’s being used by one of their eligible statuses, and one of these is if I remember my paperwork is caretaking of a dependant or immediate family
“A kid being sick is one thing”
You just wrecked your whole argument and put the flaw to OP and all the kid-free people here.
If your opinion is that “a kid being sick is one thing” then all we’re talking about here is degree of consideration, not whether to consider or not.
OP and others here are acting like having a kid is some get out of work card. “This one weird trick drives bosses insane!!”
It very well may be the case that parents get a little more grace, but chances are that the boss has kids too. Because it starts with “a kid being sick is one thing.”
Depends on the situation. If the parent(s) look absolutely done with life because their crotch goblins are draining the very life from them, I’d do shit like let them go ahead of me in line even if they have hella shit and I just have 1 thing. Let them get on their way and get some rest.
Like, I’m thinking more about the parents than the kids unless the parents are being Karens.
Working class trying to strip other working class of rights and privileges. Yes parents of children should get considerations according to their need.
Fuck no
Up until the last few years I’d hear the same argument about smokers taking breaks. Think the solution is to just keep heading ceos till things improve.
Smokers are actively detrimental to their health, though, while families benefit society
Pretty much agree with the last statement.
Disagree with the first statement. Given that the survival of our species is one reliant on us not only having children but also raising them in a way that improves our world and doesn’t make it worse.
The later of course is the Crux of the problem. A society that doesn’t encourage parents to be good parents and just shits on them instead is not a society that wants to survive.
I’m a parent, and I don’t want special treatment. Some consideration would be nice, but honestly I just want every employee to be treated like adults.
The only co-worker I have on my team has two kids. She’s an absolute pleasure to work with and is a champ when it comes to getting shit done.
As a result, I go out of my way to ensure that she’s covered when she needs to do things for/with her kids. Mainly because I really don’t wanna lose her but also because she pulls her weight and doesn’t ever take advantage of the situation.
I don’t have kids, don’t want 'em, and don’t really care if anyone else does, but if you’re a good teammate and I can see you’re a great parent too, I’ll support you as much as I can.
I would assume cos as humans with empathy for our children hard wired into us to the point that we will kill to protect them (insert some quote about natural selection here). As humans with empathy we can empathise with how that feeling is for others (a feeling a non parent can never understand). As social pack animals we are programmed to ensure the future of the tribe thus the collective protect the young even if the young dont nessasarilly have ur genes. Thus these feeling hardwired into us by evolution may manifest in the behaviour u have witnessed.
Ie. Without well adjusted and cared for children our society is fucked. And most people realise that.
Without well adjusted and cared for children our society is fucked.
Sadly I’d say that most of those who have children today don’t have a clue about how to raise such kids, because they’re neither well adjusted nor cared for. Some self-centered societies are much worst than others in that respect.
Having a child is morally equivalent to aggravated murder (you’re intentionally directly causing that person’s death, as well as decades of pain and suffering), so no, breeders shouldn’t be treated differently than any other murderer (though they probably aren’t more likely to murder an already conceived person than the average citizen, which isn’t saying much).
Of course some people might adopt, and therefore are merely enabling murderers, but they’re statistically insignificant, so I’d say it’s safe to assume that anyone who has children is either a murderer or a child trafficker.
In any case, no, fuck them, they might deserve to be treated differently, but definitely not in a positive way.
Asking the big questions. Drag disagrees, but appreciates the energy you bring to the table. You make some good points that drag can’t argue with.
Dude I think you need a hug. No one chooses to live or die. But I’m glad I’m alive. Billions of years of physics have made us self perpetuating machines. There’s nothing wrong with not having kids. By the same token there’s nothing wrong with having kids. I’ve been through some pain in my life, less so than others I’m sure, but if I had to endure a thousand years of torture for five more minutes of petting my dog I would.
Both pain and pleasure are all temporary; but if we consider that our lives are on average less violent and longer than those who came before us; it seems that the good parts of life are winning. No all wrongs are righted, there are new evils and old evils.
Would you deny the hunter gatherer the joys of seeing their children’s first steps though in contrast we know their life will be short, uncomfortable, and painful? If not then I do not see how one can justify denying a modern family the same. We can argue about population control, but on a macro level it is not wrong to have children.
This reeks of incel
Step away from the 4Chan and back away slowly
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.
It seems like you might not realize, but much of White collar America works right through lunch. It’s the standard. You will work your ass off your entire life, and you will be grateful for your job, they will not be grateful for you. That’s the standard that has been set in the USA. Hell, at least once a week I’m on a call with some other team and there’s someone calling in from a doctor’s office. Had a guy say he had to step out of the doctor’s office mid visit with his doctor just to take a call and I thought that was the most absurd and ridiculous thing I have heard in a really long time. You’re literally in the chair talking to the doctor and you say hold on sorry I got to leave really quick for business. Like what the heck?
I work in the US and this is not universally true. Though a lot of companies will make you feel that way, there are many that wouldn’t do this. My company respects my lunch hour. I know many that have the same situation.
I work an office job in the US. You need to find a better job. No one here is required or even expected to skip lunch. Scheduling is often difficult, so many of my colleagues put it on their calendars as reserved time/another meeting. You can’t schedule a meeting with John at noon. It doesn’t matter if it’s because he’s in another meeting or at lunch; he’s already booked.
Yes, there are many terrible employers. If you work for one, you need to leave.
That can’t be healthy in the long run. I wonder if it makes Americans snap and go totally postal. Or maybe people just burn out and decide to jump in the nearest river.
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.
Fuck no, if anything you should be punished for bringing children into this world. (The kids shouldn’t be, but damned if they aren’t going to be already anyway)
What u trying to say here?
Which part tripped you up? There’s too many people. The world sucks. Mostly because there’s too many people.
I applaud you for doing your best to back up your arguments
Thank you random person. Your support is everything to me.
Are you suggesting the people in countries with heigher birth rates should be punished for having more children?
I got the stats on that. So whats ur idea here? Stop the Africans from having children cos they are the biggest impact? Seems kinda racist to me ngl.
Calm down there hitler, I’m suggesting that ALL people should stop having children.
So u want the human speicies to die out?
Now you’re getting it.
Wow. I see an obvious way u can help that happen a little quicker.
Some stupid ideas should just be kept to yourself.
I wish your parents hadn’t had children.
