<story><title>Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19</title><url>https://www.cnet.com/news/tech-firms-face-growing-resentment-of-parent-employees-during-covid-19/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CydeWeys</author><text>In modern society it&amp;#x27;s basically required that both parents work full-time jobs.  It&amp;#x27;s not the 50s anymore; you can&amp;#x27;t support an entire household with children on one income.  So you can&amp;#x27;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 problems (which many countries are already dealing with).  Personally I think the best solution would be to have universal child care going down to age 0 (rather than just age 5 as it is now), which is common in many other countries.  Because of efficiencies of scale, that&amp;#x27;s cheaper than subsidizing all the foregone salary required by parents all individually giving up one of their two household jobs to devote to child-rearing.</text></item><item><author>ng12</author><text>What I&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t feeling the burn anywhere near as badly -- it&amp;#x27;s just an extended summer for them.&lt;p&gt;I feel a lot of empathy for single parents but those seem to be relatively rare in the field.</text></item><item><author>mc32</author><text>I agree.  Parents are making sacrifices which benefit society as a whole. Those children the parents are taking care of now will be the ones who will provide for the one complaining now via taxes as well as services rendered to them.&lt;p&gt;If anything, companies should be providing more childcare so that more women (as well as some men) will have less of a burden balancing career and caregiving.&lt;p&gt;I see these people as being petty complainers who wouldn’t raise their own children (own or adopted) but complain someone else is willing to be a productive member of society engaging in the workforce and raising the productive adults of tomorrow when these complainers will be asking for benefits and services that would be unavailable without future adults.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s similar to &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t take the bus, why should my taxes pay for public transit.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I would concede if there are people exploiting this privilege then that’s a problem and management should address it.</text></item><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>I am a middle-aged adult with no children who&amp;#x27;s worked at tech firms for the past couple decades. To be honest, the &amp;quot;resentment&amp;quot; of those without children have for &amp;quot;benefits&amp;quot; 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.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s next, complaining that the cancer patient gets extra time off so why don&amp;#x27;t I?&lt;p&gt;If anything, I&amp;#x27;m thankful for all those people with kids who will (a) take care of the continuation of the human race, and more selfishly (b) support our society and economy when I am too old to do so.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>GuB-42</author><text>Ok, it is not the 50s but why could people do it in the 50s and why can&amp;#x27;t we do it now?&lt;p&gt;We are hearing &amp;quot;automation will destroy jobs&amp;quot; left and right and for some reason, we can&amp;#x27;t afford stay at home moms.&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;universal child care&amp;quot; argument makes me feel uncomfortable. It one step short of a dystopia. One where women would surrender their child to a state sponsored center where child care specialists make them productive members of society. Freed from their child rearing duty, &amp;quot;mothers&amp;quot; can continue working efficiently.&lt;p&gt;Why not just let mothers be mothers? What&amp;#x27;s the point of progress if we can&amp;#x27;t even do that. And also turn gender equality the right way, by letting fathers be fathers instead of requiring both parents to work full time.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19</title><url>https://www.cnet.com/news/tech-firms-face-growing-resentment-of-parent-employees-during-covid-19/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CydeWeys</author><text>In modern society it&amp;#x27;s basically required that both parents work full-time jobs.  It&amp;#x27;s not the 50s anymore; you can&amp;#x27;t support an entire household with children on one income.  So you can&amp;#x27;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 problems (which many countries are already dealing with).  Personally I think the best solution would be to have universal child care going down to age 0 (rather than just age 5 as it is now), which is common in many other countries.  Because of efficiencies of scale, that&amp;#x27;s cheaper than subsidizing all the foregone salary required by parents all individually giving up one of their two household jobs to devote to child-rearing.</text></item><item><author>ng12</author><text>What I&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t feeling the burn anywhere near as badly -- it&amp;#x27;s just an extended summer for them.&lt;p&gt;I feel a lot of empathy for single parents but those seem to be relatively rare in the field.</text></item><item><author>mc32</author><text>I agree.  Parents are making sacrifices which benefit society as a whole. Those children the parents are taking care of now will be the ones who will provide for the one complaining now via taxes as well as services rendered to them.&lt;p&gt;If anything, companies should be providing more childcare so that more women (as well as some men) will have less of a burden balancing career and caregiving.&lt;p&gt;I see these people as being petty complainers who wouldn’t raise their own children (own or adopted) but complain someone else is willing to be a productive member of society engaging in the workforce and raising the productive adults of tomorrow when these complainers will be asking for benefits and services that would be unavailable without future adults.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s similar to &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t take the bus, why should my taxes pay for public transit.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I would concede if there are people exploiting this privilege then that’s a problem and management should address it.</text></item><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>I am a middle-aged adult with no children who&amp;#x27;s worked at tech firms for the past couple decades. To be honest, the &amp;quot;resentment&amp;quot; of those without children have for &amp;quot;benefits&amp;quot; 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.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s next, complaining that the cancer patient gets extra time off so why don&amp;#x27;t I?&lt;p&gt;If anything, I&amp;#x27;m thankful for all those people with kids who will (a) take care of the continuation of the human race, and more selfishly (b) support our society and economy when I am too old to do so.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rayiner</author><text>It’s not just the cost of childcare. Since divorce became acceptable, it became a huge liability for women to exit the workforce and permanently give up earning power to raise children. I’ve seen this first hand in my family and it’s really difficult.</text></comment>