Just idled away a coffee break in the local bookstore flipping through The Baby Boon by Elinor Burkett (I think I’ve got the name right…). It discusses a debate that I hadn’t encountered before, so naturally I had to share it with you. The argument is that currently trendy “family-friendly” policies are placing an unfair burden on working adults who are not presently bringing up children. The supporting arguments seem to fall into two basic categories:
“Family-friendly” employee benefits packages (on-site daycare, school/college summer camp subsidies, etc. etc.) and tax breaks mean that parents are effectively getting much more compensation than their childless colleagues, whose non-work activities are not similarly subsidized.
Job requirements are often modified for parents, who are (officially and unofficially) given time off for parental responsibilities to an extent that would never be considered for non-parents, who end up working harder to make up for the parents’ absences. Parents are also more often excused from burdensome dutoes such as overtime and weekend work and business travel, which again means a more difficult or demanding job for their childless co-workers.
My questions: Is there indeed an unfair “baby boon” in contemporary American culture? If so, where does the problem lie and how should we fix it?
My naive take on the subject (remember, I hadn’t known there was any real concern about it till this afternoon): The issues mentioned in (1) don’t really bother me. I have no children at present, but I don’t believe that parenting is just another personal-fulfillment choice like the comparatively inexpensive hobbies of yachting or collecting antiques. I don’t think that child-rearing in our society should be completely paid for by parents (and I don’t think it realistically can be). If employers want to offer daycare or summer camps or education subsidies—anything, in short, that comes down to shelling out money for children’s benefit—I view it as just their contribution to the larger society, not as an unfair bonus to employees with children. (Though I think that employers should similarly contribute to the larger society in non-kid-specific ways too, as in supporting the arts or matching charitable gifts.)
But (2) does sound like a problem (assuming it’s really happening). Parents should definitely be given the flexibility they need for parenting, but they shouldn’t be turned into a privileged class of employee, especially at the expense of their childless coworkers. If childless colleagues are really having to contribute more time and effort without extra compensation to make up for parents’ shortfalls, or if they are being denied things like leaves and flex-time and holidays off that the parents can have just for the asking, then I see a big ol’ culture war looming ahead.
So—potential crisis in American culture, or just the “whine of the week”? You tell me!
Just a quick comment - my wife and I have never received either of the above advantages, and in fact have taken quite a few of our scarce personal / vacation days to handle parent-style chores such as taking the kids to the dentist and such. In fact, I don’t personally know anyone else that’s received either of those advantages, either. That doesn’t mean that plenty of folks don’t receive them - just that I don’t know anyone in that particular category.
(And tax-wise, at least in terms of my kids, kids cost a lot more than the deduction I get for them.)
Having said that, though, I’m not upset about the situation - having kids was a decision my wife and I made while aware of the ramifications involved. That’s just the way life goes sometimes…
Well, of course parents are going to be treated better than nonparents. The childless ones are just going to suck up resources until they die, but the parents have the burden of creating another generation of people who are going to suck up resources until they die.
Precious few of those benefits exist. The FMLA (which benefits childless people who have to care for a sick parent or spouse, too, by the way) only guarantees unpaid leave, which few people can afford to take. Only a relative handful of companies have onsite or subsidized childcare programs.
I get the same number of leave days as my coworkers without kids.
The way I see it is that it’s a free market question. Sure, the government mandates some concessions to the fact that workers have a life. Any other benefits are usually extended by companies because they value good workers and want to make themselves as attractive as possible at the lowest cost. Family-friendly policies are a good way to do that, because there are a lot of workers who also have families. Other companies are starting to offer things like pet health insurance or on-site gyms.
IMO, if a person doesn’t feel their company is treating them fairly, they should address it or find another job. If more parents are getting things like flextime, I’m willing to bet it’s because they are fighting for it.
I was teaching a class off site at work. There were 4 of us, and once you were done w/ your slot, there wasn’t much to do. One of the Instructors, a “mommie”, asked to leave early to get her kids to ballet class(don’t get me started about the dangers of ballet fro young children), the Laed, another “mommie” said “of course”, and even scheduled her slots so she could leave early twice a week. I had a volunteer civic improvement comm, I was on, thus I asked if it was OK to leave early ONCE a week. She said, no way. I pointed out the other instructor, then the lead said, in tones of puzzlemnt AND indignation: “But it’s for her CHILDREN!” Notwithstanding that I feel a civic commission is more inportant than ballet class, and that I was only asking for 1 day, not 2, I believe her ruling was unfair & a perfect example of what you are saying.
OH, and the recent “tax cut”? Only cut taxes for the rich and for people w/ kids. Us middle-class workers w/ no family got butkis!
I’ve been on both sides of the issue. I was a single middle-class taxpayer until I adopted two children.
When I was single, I paid taxes at the highest rate possible. But my disposable income was so high that I didn’t even bother to file federal tax returns; the time and effort wasn’t worth the money.
As a parent ten years later, I make double the pay I used to in an area where the cost of living is two thirds of where I lived when I was single. However, I have far less disposable income than I did when I was single. I have to maintain a much larger house, feed to voracious teenage boys, own two cars (I needed none when I was single), etc. etc.
Raising children is a civic responsibility. Someone has to this difficult and demanding task. Unless you have no loyalty whatsoever to the human race, cutting us a little slack here and there is only fair, unless you want to relegate parents to low-paying inconsequential tasks.
Damn whiners. You have no idea what kind of limitations raising children places on one’s lifestyle. It’s a difficult, demanding, exhausting, usually thankless task that nonetheless must be done to ensure nothing less than the future of the human race. Cry me a river.
That’s beside the point. If you get any tax break at all, it essentially means that childless folk are subsidizing your decision to have children. Same goes for property taxes used to pay for schools. I am subsidizing your children’s education.
SingleDad, I find myself agreeing with you on many issues, but you lost me on this one. Please explain to me again why your children are my responsibility.
To me this whole phenomenon is the baby boomer generation at work again. They are such a large population chunk that they can vote themselves subsidies as they move through life, then withdraw them when they no longer need them. Baby boomers are in college? Student loans and grants for everyone!!! Baby boomers graduate? Hmmm, let’s toughen those requirements for repaying loans. Baby boomers have children? Tax credit for kids!!! Baby boomers’ children leave the nest? Watch those tax breaks evaporate. Baby bommers get old? Well, let’s just say I’m really looking forward to funding your retirement years. :rolleyes:
YOU chose the thankless task of having kids, YOU should be the one to support them without being subsidised with time and money of single people. I don’t remember you consulting with me when you chose this thankless job, why should I bear any resposibility at all for it?
Personally, I’ve never been the recipient of any of those fabulous perks mentioned in the OP. When I worked for a large hospital, I was unable to take off a single day to take my son for his major hand surgery. When the kids were sick, I had to use my own sick days but my attendance was still better than many of the childless people at work. What’s the deal with company-subsidized daycare? I’ve never seen such a thing.
I was terribly envious every time a coworker had a baby, allowing her to take a few weeks of (unpaid) leave. (This was literally the only way a person could take a vacation.) If I were to have a baby, I wouldn’t have been able to take off those few weeks because I can’t imagine how anyone could afford to do so.
In my present job, I don’t even get sick days for myself. No vacation, no insurance.
I do take a tax credit for my kids. On the other hand, I spend a lot more than that on feeding, clothing, and sheltering them. My kids are pure consumers, contributing nothing to the family income. All the money I spend on them (they’re not spoiled, but they do get a pair of jeans and a birthday present here and there) goes into the economy.
I find it goes the opposite direction: it’s the child-free two-income families who are ripping off the single-income parents.
The benefit package offered by my company is geared to the single person; if I want “family” coverage, I have to pay for it. The arrangement is set up through a flexible plan, so each employee gets a set allowance. Generalizing, the married-with-children people want (need) adequate life insurance; the single people or two-income families don’t need to spend their benefits money on life insurance, or family health coverage, and can get other benefits (like buying extra vacation days.)
My company will provide some reimbursement for pet care if I am travelling on business IF MY WIFE IS ALSO TRAVELLING ON BUSINESS. If my wife is away visiting a sick aunt (which was the case in my last trip), then I don’t get any reimbursement when I needed to kennel my dog for a business trip. (If I were single, I would get the reimbursement.)
That’s just the latest example, but it goes on and on… the single person or married-with-two-income family wins out over the married-with-children-and-one-income family. Happens over and over.
I can’t speak for Singledad, but I think the point he’s making is that in a broad sense, the continuation of the species is everyone’s responsibility, whether it be saving the environment, helping the needy, or taking care of our children.
A side note: Good workers (parents and singles alike) are getting harder to find. Employers have to offer more benefits to attract good employees. The parental bennies are just part of the picture.
All those who believe in telekinesis raise my hand.
To me the last straw is in ending the so-called marriage penalty. The logic behind the marriage penalty is that two can live as cheaply as one, i.e. you have a lot more disposable income if you have someone to split your rent or mortgage payment with. The logic behind repealing the marriage penalty is that workers with the same income should pay the same tax rates regardless of their household situation. (The flaw in the marriage penalty is that it fails to identify couples just living together, but Republicans miss the point by focusing on “holy matrimony”).
But people with children are already getting double, triple, quadruple helpings of tax relief, justified by their household situation, so now they’re trying to have it both ways! No amount of rationalization is too great for people to justify their childbearing descisions. Certainly there are many circumstances where one’s “civic responsibility” would be to avoid/delay having children, but to argue that is practically a hate crime.
Well, I’m coming up on yet another year of not taking all the vacation days I’m entitled to because I had too many deadlines and not enough support, so my absentee rate isn’t a factor. And both Mrs. Kunilou and I tend to come in earlier and leave later than the people we work with, so we aren’t exactly slacking in the hours department, either.
I know that putting my family ahead of my job did hurt my career. I’m not complaining, it certainly feels like a fair trade, but it’s not like I was handed anything either.
As far as all of those supposed tax breaks we’re getting, well, I don’t use mass transit, but I help subsidize it. When I was a renter, I was subsidizing the mortgage-interest deduction, and I know my father long outlived what he put into Social Security, so I was subsidizing him. The reason for all of this is that we as a society have determined that all these things are beneficial to us as a whole, and we’re willing to pay for them in some small degree. (I hope you aren’t arguing that my “tax breaks” come anywhere near the actual cost of raising a child.)
If you do not think the benefits to you as a member of society outweigh the costs you have to pay, perhaps you should contact your legislators. Perhaps you’d be willing to discuss the “marriage penalty” at the same time.
I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.
I wish that this was actually true. In the earlier days of humanity this may well have been the case. But how close is the world right now to negative population growth? I know that there are some countries that are into the negative, but is the world as a whole? Until then, no one’s performing a “civic duty” by having children.
In America, at least, it seems that the choice (and it is very much a choice, not an imperative) to have children is more of selfish one. You want someone to carry on your family; you want someone to cuddle and feel good about. And, of course, you expect everyone else to pay for it in some way.
I have a friend with infertility problems who has tried for years to have children. She is finally pregnant, but why? Maybe someone can explain to me the need to have children. I don’t want to hijack here, though, so maybe I’ll start another thread…
SingleDad, despite the above, I admire you. I think that if we as a society did away with added benfits for parents, adoptive parents should still get those benefits. You personally didn’t add more wetware to the world, but you are taking responsibility for some it.
“One more anal-probing, gyro, pyro, levitating, eco-plasm, alien anti-matter story and I’m gonna take out my gun and shoot somebody.”
– Fox Mulder
Sorry, but “I need the money” is not a valid justification to tax me for it.
kunilou wrote:
and
This is exactly my point. Single people, because we are in a numerical minority, and because we have no organization to speak for us, have no real voice in the matter. The majority (those with children) are voting tax breaks for themselves at our expense. “Society” didn’t make the decision, a few politicians did, because they saw it as a way to pander for votes from the huge “parent” demographic. I’m still trying to figure out how a tax break to parents “benefits” me.
I’ve been enjoying this, so I hope it doesn’t degenerate into yet another “MY house isn’t burning down at the moment, so why should I subsidize the City Fire Department through my taxes?” thread.
That car analogy is awful, so I’m not even going to try to use it in some clever way.
Children are the people who grow up to rob convenience stores, the people who write insightful novels, the people who become clergy or construction workers or CEOs.
Everything in our society is accomplished by human beings, not robots. Human beings with love and rage inside them. What people teach them to do with that rage or that love has a gigantic impact on what happens to society at large.
Everyone is getting so caught up in talking about numbers and tax breaks, that they are forgetting; the child that they “pay for” today, could be the person who fixes their pipes tomorrow, who gives them brain surgery, who renovates their church.
Human beings are worth investing in. Even if it isn’t your human being, because every individual has a rippling effect on the people around them.
Rugrats don’t seem to have much to do with you now, but one day they will when they are your minister or your cable guy or the punk who sticks up your liquor store.
“I mean, if you can’t wear panty hose in your hair, what’s the point?”
I don’t understand these complaints about tax breaks for parents. It’s not like the option isn’t open to everyone. We’re renting right now, so we don’t get the tax breaks open to homeowners. If I whined about this you’d tell me to save up and buy a house, right? So if you want to claim dependents on your taxes, get some.
The argument is that currently trendy “family-friendly” policies are placing an unfair burden on working adults who are not presently bringing up children. The supporting arguments seem to fall into two basic categories:
