I have kids, worked full time as a parent for 25 years and no problem with this. Set the baseline flexibility and treatment good enough to accommodate parents. You don't need to take it from childless people to give it to parents. Not a zero sum game here.

What I do have a problem with is hostility towards parents, and hostility towards non-parents. We are all in this together, and it's not frivolous to raise the next generation, someone did that for you. Nor is it selfish to just live your own life - work should not demand our whole lives.

Now that my kids are grown, I still work at a flexible employer, and use that flexibility for doctors appointments, errands to places only open during working hours, and concerts & shows. Would I defer to someone with a child or aged parent with an emergency? Yes. Would I defer to someone with no kids whose partner was having an emergency? Yes.

And non-smokers should be given as many breaks as the smokers!

I love these wholesome debates. Let's all hate on each other as we fight over scraps from the Master's table.

I think this question pits parents and others against each other, when it shouldn't. Parental leave is necessary to raise a child. But at the same time, workers in general need leave for mental health among other things.

I also think this is more of a problem for places like America where leave is really, really unfairly distributed and there's basically no worker protections. There should be plenty of medical and annual leave, as well as government support in case medical leave isn't enough to get better.

Hot take, company executives should get as little flexibility as the employee at the company that’s awarded the least flexibility.

I think we all should get more guaranteed time off to just enjoy our one finite life.

I think if someone needs to come in late/leave early/go home unexpectedly we shouldn't have to justify it because we are adults (so long as we get our assigned tasks done WHO CARES). If we can't meet work goals I think we should (as again - fucking adults) have a conversation with our team/manager to handle it.

I think if we are sick we should be given time and space to recover. It's not our employer's business how, what, or why (that includes not requiring an employee to see a doctor or get a FUCKING DOCTORS NOTE). When it comes to sick time I don't care if someone is taking care of themselves, their sick child, their elderly parents, or their chihuahua with a broken leg, they shouldn't have to explain it, they shouldn't have to justify it, and it should be given identical time and grace.

I don't think that unmarried or childfree people should have to cover all the holidays because ThEY dON't HaVE fAMilY. That's cruel and untrue and heteronomative. And if you have ever said this to someone, stood by while someone else said this, or benefited from someone using this logic to make the same person/people work EVERY holiday please know I think you are a trash person.

I think management/the owners/corporate will give us all as little time as they can get away with and LOVES it when we segment ourselves into in- and out-groups that fight over off-time like it's a resource the workers control. We don't. Don't let them convince you we aren't all in this together and that we don't ALL deserve more free time.

Controversial take: Pit the workers against each other while the boss takes even more time off.

Not quite the same formulation, but I've read the argument that paternal leave should be equal to maternal leave, and that both should be mandatory, because otherwise it creates an incentive for companies to hire men rather than women who might make use of maternity leave. I can see a similar argument for all workers, so that there isn't an incentive to hire people who will never have children over those who will.

Of course, all of these scenarios presume that any companies would willingly provide any leave whatsoever, which is already a fantasy. A company will only provide as many benefits as it is forced to, and a functioning regulatory state is the only entity that could force such compliance.

This thread is so fucking sad to read. All of you are workers squabbling over the basic dignity to have paid leave from work. You all sound like slaves, justifying your lashes. What if, and I know this is radical, we enabled all workers to have as much flexibility as possible over how they are productive with their labour?

And everyone should have a stable home, healthcare, good paying job, etc.

ITT: people thinking that offering everybody the same flexibility means taking that flexibility from parents

smfh

Genuine question here -- where and how are employees without children treated differently? In the US, besides parental leave at the birth of a child (which only some employers offer), are there employers that offer differing time off? I work in healthcare, and everywhere I've ever worked provides paid time off equally to everyone. The biggest difference is parents usually end up burning vacation days due to sick kids or school holidays

A lot of parents in the comments here. I do believe that there are some concessions that parents should receive, but there is a noticeable imbalance in the flexibility given to parents and non-parents.

I think that paid parental leave is something that parents should receive over non-parents without question. You are being given that time to recover and raise your infant. In my country, it is even paid by the government to the employer so that they can pay the employee.

The thing that irks me is when parents get priority for leave requests etc because of their kids. My wife and I have missed out on family holidays because our employers have told us that parents get priority for leave during school holidays. Ignoring the fact that our families are travelling in school holidays because there are children in our family.

I have been told by employers that I cannot start an hour early today (in a job that has no client facing role) in order to leave early for an appointment. Yet there are people sending the “out of office for an hour to pick up the kids” message every other day.

Poverty is caused by greed and wealth hoarding, we should have good enough working conditions it wouldn't matter if you're a parent or not; 16 hour work weeks, universal housing, universal access to clean water and food, etc. without the constant distractions and division by a wealth class of leeches.

Agreed, all workers should have maximum flexibility to balance their lives. Why hurt productivity for the sake of a rigid schedule?

Its my contention that happy workers are more productive. Let every worker take the time they need to maintain their work/life balance, so long as the quality of their work is unaffected.

People should be accommodated by their workplace for their unique circumstances, even if others in that workplace don’t share those circumstances. This should not come at the expense of their coworkers. Accommodation can be fair without being strictly equal, but care needs to be taken or resentment will occur.

A lot of this could be solved if the standard business strategy about staffing wasn’t “cut payroll to the bone then hire back when things start to break down to maintain the absolute bare minimum at all times”

Check out the crabs in the bucket.

Yes, fight among each other and leave us millionaire bosses alone 🤑

Same energy