Um, this may vary by state/culture, but… erm… what about bringing the kids to work? Is it not that hard to bring the kid, some snacks, some toys, books, etc., or set up an unused computer, and let the kid enjoy while the parent works? I know it may be hard in some circumstances, but we’re talkin about a law firm/office jobs here, people…
I spent maaaaany weekends (and weekdays over the school breaks, and afternoons after school and after school activities) at my mom’s (and sometimes dad’s) office. They brought my schoolwork, and if I had projects I did them, and I read a lot, and they gave me a pen and markers and a notepad. Woohoo! Also, at my mom’s office she had a small dollhouse in one of the corners, and I played with toys she brought for me.
And like villa said, I wonder about the married person’s partner… why can’t he/she take care of kids, at least once in a while? I know many times mom was the one who stayed behind in the weekends with me while dad worked… and a few times, vicerversa, dad stayed with me when it wasn’t his turn to work.
Fuck society! you mean. I ain’t telling you how it is; I’m telling you to suck it up, Gertrude, because that’s how it is.
It sure is. Paid any school taxes lately? How about when you were a kid: did someone pay your school’s taxes for you?
First, I don’t have kids (though I’ll have one soon–woohoo!). Second, your feelings are immaterial. If you don’t like it, get society to change its attitude, and good luck with that.
Wow, first it’s fuck society, now it’s the equivalent of “I never asked to be born!” Yeah, you didn’t join a society that allows free speech; you didn’t join a society that requires you not to be drunk in public; and you didn’t join a soceity that says everyone is responsible for raising the next generation collectively in many ways.
Except you’re wrong. Again: our society considers the raising of the next generation to be, in many ways, the responsibility of ALL adults, just as we were raised by all the adults of the previous generation. If you don’t like it, start your own society, or try changing the rules of this one. But pouting like a teenager about it (Fuck society! I didn’t ask to join this one!) ain’t gonna do that much good, I’m afraid.
Sweet fucking Og! As a person without kids, my responsibility for “raising the next generation” would, aside from taxes and such, only be something like saving your kid from being hit by a bus.
Other than a situational safety issue like that, I have no goddam responsibility whatsoever for any person’s kids.
And it is complete bullshit to expect a childless coworker to continually get screwed at work because the baybee has a birthday.
That’s not helping society raise the next generation, it’s being taken advantage of by rude, self-entitled parents.
Sorry, but the fact is, childless folks DO get the short end of the stick.
I missed my best friend’s wedding, for crying out loud… and why? Because it just so happened that they could only afford to have one employee off that day, and two of us asked to book it. Given that the other employee had a kid, guess who got told they’d just have to suck it up and come into work?
Yes, sometimes there are really special can’t-miss moments in your child’s life… but that doesn’t make them any more or less important than the can’t-miss moments in my adult life.
Of course it does. Daniel over there is one of the most sanctimonious twats around here, and he wants to be an elementary school teacher, so naturally he thinks everyone should bow to those who have reproduced.
His attitude toward the childfree is one of the many reasons he should go fuck himself. He’ll make a great elementary school teacher, given that he worships kids and the people who have them to such extremes that everyone who didn’t breed or devote their life in some other way to the raising of sprogs is an asshole if they don’t actively support those who did by working longer hours and paying more in taxes.
They don’t belong in the office. The people who are there working are there to do just that – work. Not to be functioning as a day care center while they attempt to do the job they actually get paid for.
Well this childfree person is standing up for her right to her personal time, so shut the fuck up if you can’t take a day off for junior because I already had plans.
I’m not responsible for ‘raising the next generation collectively’, you nutless wonder. It’s not any part of my job to deal with your kids, ever. All I have to do is not actively harm them, and I’ve fulfilled my social obligation. Of course, knowing you, your kids are going to be insufferable twats just like their daddy, so that’ll take a miracle.
If that’s how it works at your workplace, awesome for you. But if it’s not, then it’s not, and getting really steamed about it won’t change that.
Look: it ain’t illegal for workplaces to prioritize time off for people who will devote that time off to raising the next generation, and to deprioritize it for people who won’t devote it to raising the next generation. It ain’t frowned on in our society overall. If you want a workplace that gives equal priority to everyone’s time away from the workplace, it’s up to you to look for that in a workplace, or to make your own workplace with that system. It’s not up to the rest of society to change everything to match your whims.
Or do you think such measures should be illegal?
catsix, I’ll no more get in a slap-fight with you than I would with Rain Man, for much the same reason.
I don’t know you, nor the poster at whom your loathing is directed, but I just have to say Wow, you have a lot of vitriolic hatred! I’m amazed at how much you seem to hate children, because I’m quite certain that you were a child once. I wonder if you hated yourself that much, when you were young.
Calm down! Nobody is asking you to adopt an orphan, but you might try to act like a member of civilized society, and treat other members of society with some modicum of civility.
Oh shut up, sanctimony. People without children are not morally obligated to do more work for the same pay and be continually put upon because they’ve committed the grand sin of not meeting someone on an accelerated timeline or decided against children or may be unable to have them. No one (other than maybe catsix) is saying we don’t want to help you out within reasonable limits. It’s the repeated assertions that we are expected to put our personal lives/plans behind your sainted plans Christmas after Thanksgiving after Weekend after Date that Could be the One Where We Meet the One neverending. If you are anything other than a leech and/or complete slacker you’d agree that maybe you have the obligation to repay the favour by occasionally helping out your single/childless co-workers when they need the time for something really special. See, the whole point of getting help is not to lecture the people helping you about how you are entitled to it-it’s a symbiotic relationship. And people aren’t going to keep doing you favours (because that’s exactly what it is) for long if you don’t give anything back. Even chimpanzees know as much.
I know not all parents are like this but these posts make you sound like one of the lamprey-esque ones. FTR, I eventually plan to have kids but I damn well do not expect other people to raise them or put their lives on hold time after time for me to be able to be there for my kid. That is MY responsibility, not theirs.
It’s funny y’know. Apart from ONE woman w/kids, the vast majority of people at my who take time off/sickies are the single folk wanting a long weekend or needing to recover from said long weekend. Can’t provide a cite, but at least in Australia, it’s been found that parents and particularly single parents are far more conscientious about fulfilling workplace obligations than single childless people.
And of course we have the usual chorus singing the praises of childlessness and how put upon they are by those of us who chose/chose to breed. Fancy seeing you here catsix.
So, you don’t want kids and don’t want to pay for them? Bully for you. Where are all of these youthful trained workers of the future going to come from then, if you don’t help support them now.
I do hope that when you’re a snivelling, incontinent blob of mushed vegetable in a nursing-home bed that they put a sign on the head saying ‘Nil Consideration’. Hey, that’d be karma.
Hasn’t the responsibility of the parent been shifted in your argument? If it can be said that it’s fair for childless workers to take on more hours for the same salary, might that not simply point out the inefficiency and irresponsibility of a parent working at an hours-intensive job? Having the kid was no one’s choice but the parents. At what point does responsibility in choosing a workplace with reasonable hours shift to the childless co-workers?
Actually, I despise Daniel a lot more than I dislike kids.
It wasn’t my favorite part of life.
I’m rather polite when I refuse to work late or on the weekend so that someone can take junior to tee ball.
I don’t object to cutting someone a break if I know they’re going to return the favor later. I object to cutting someone a break purely because they are a parent and feel they are entitled to it.
That would be whenever Daniel over there finds it more convenient.
Look, YOU are the one talking about moral obligations, not me. I’m not saying you’re morally obligated to do shit. I’m saying you’re obligated by the society you live in and by (apparently) your employer. I’m saying society is not morally obligated to change itself to match your idea that the responsibility of raising children shouldn’t be shared by those who aren’t parents, nor is your employer.
I’m not the sanctimonious one, frankly; I’m not saying what’s right. That’s what you’re doing, and it’s tremendously ironic that the folks demanding society change to conform to become more convenient for them are calling other folks sanctimonious.
I AM NOT A PARENT. I will be soon, but what the fuck? I can’t possibly be lamprey-esque: my experience with this issue is wholly from the other end, wholly from the side of picking up slack for parents who need to go off to raise their kids.
Now, I’ll point ouit that there are two different ideas around here. One is that parents who take time off for raising kids (and who get prioritized over anyone who takes time off to do something recreational) are abusing the system; that’s bullshit. The system deliberately allows for that kind of behavior, and if you don’t like it, form your own damn business or start your own utopian society.
The other idea is that parents who take time off to do something recreational with their kids (and who are prioritized over anyone else who takes time off to do something recreational) are abusing the system; I have much more sympathy for that position. Please don’t conflate the two.
I’m not clear on your first sentence, and I really am not seeing why the second part of the second sentence logically follows from the first part. Maybe I need coffee.
The third sentence is irrelevant. Again, society doesn’t do this to help the adult: society does this to help the child. It’s sort of the reverse of social security (where you take care of the current old folks on the assumption that when you’re old you’ll be taken care of): here, we collectively take care of the current young folks because when we were young we were collectively taken care of. Who chose for the child to be born is irrelevant.
As for your last sentence, everyone is responsible for choosing a workplace with hours they consider reasonable. This includes parents and childless people alike. If you’re a parent and you’re unhappy with the fact that taking care of junior is treated as a time-off request equal to going fishing, look for a new employer. If you’re childless and you’re unhappy wtih the fact that taking care of junior is prioritized as a time-off request above going fishing, look for a new employer.
Or, y’know, complain about it on a messageboard. Whichever you think will be more effective.
I was referring mostly to the weekends and other times that, you know, you were complaining about not getting off because the people with children had to be with the kids (since nobody else would take care of them). So… erm… the workplace would be in most cases empty or almost empty compared to a normal work there. You would not even be there because it would be your time off (the person with kids is working and has brought the kid with him/her while she works). The person who should look out for the kid is the parent, no one else. And I don’t know how you were like as a kid, but I and other parents’ kids didn’t need constant supervision past 5 or 6 or so. Give us a toy, a book, a pen or something easy and we will spend the time in a corner not bothering anyone (especially when the place is mostly unoccupied). Just like many kids are at home (I cannot imagine a kid needing constant attention at that age at home, either).
And saying no to that option seems like a catch-22 to me. Parents cannot constantly get priority for time off raising/looking after the kids (just staying home with the kids, not going fishing with the kids), but if they decide to come to work and bring junior (who will probably just be playing with its PSP/Gameboy/toys/etc most if not all the time), then they can’t either. Huh?
I’ve brought my daughter into the office plenty, on a weekend or even a snow day. When she was little, she was content to color or read or play on one of the spare computers. When she got older, I put her to work. A ten year old can file or do rudimentary internet research.
That said, my daughter has always been able to amuse herself, quiet, and extraordinarily well-mannered. If your children are NOT these things, your coworkers will not thank you for bringing them in. Please be honest with yourself about this.
At my last job, I was always happy to see my boss’s kids, as well as any number of my coworkers’ kids. They were pleasant company, and occasionally even helpful. But there were definitely a few people whose kids were a loud, hyperactive nightmare, and those people should have stayed home with them, because not only were the parents not getting *their *work done, other peoples’ work was affected as well.
Oh please, you’re the one who started with the whole “it takes a village to raise my child because I’m a lazy entitled ass” meme. And since you’re so up on the free market thesis of taking my employment talent elsewhere, I’m sure you’re perfectly comfortable being fucked over by 99% of employers as a dad, right? As in limited paternity leave and statements that your wife can take care of it but you’re expected to be at work? Because after all SOCIETY has dictated that women have the lionshare of childbearing responsiblity which means that if you SOCIETY can dictate that you miss your kid’s birthday if your wife manages to make it. I mean, after all, if you want to establish some pansy utopia where you take a hand in childrearing you can go do that!
Anyway, everyone is ignoring the obvious tradeoff here, and it’s the one I’m reasonably comfortable with-which is that the slacker parents who don’t put in the time as the singletons should not a) get the same bonus and b) should not be promoted as fast. This is what actually happens in most workplaces as is fair and right (unless the lamprey parent wants to argue that NO, he deserves the UTOPIC conditions of accelerated promotions and the same salary as the villagers raising his PRESHUSH BAYBEE) unless someone is majorly fucking up playing the game. If this weren’t the case there would be a major talent flight at organizations. Plus, it’s interesting that people like Daniel would cop the entitlement attitude because my experience has been that the first thing the bitter childless people do when they get into power (faster than the slacker parents) is start maneuvering to get the ones who pissed them off/took the most most advantage of the flexibility fired for laziness and lack of drive. Of course, I’m sure Daniel would get his panties in a twist about both these situations.
As I said, most canny people (and every chimpanzee) understand that this is a system of tradeoffs and favors. The people that don’t are usually the first to be stabbed in the back as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
Does “society” really expect me to help raise other peoples kids?
And it does so by enforcing unwritten rules that say I have to work extra hours so the kids can be with their parents?
Do I have to wipe their snotty noses in the mall, too?
What other rules are there for my role in raising other people’s kids?
This is a ridiculous idea. If “society” wants to enforce that requirement then set up a tax that EVERYONE has to pay to cover the costs of extra child care, or temp workers or whatever will allow junior to be raised properly. Make it like property taxes that EVERYONE who owns property has to pay to educate the populace. Or just like social security taxes that EVERYONE who works has to pay to guarantee a minimum level of comfort in retirement. Every other societal good from public transport to defense is paid for by taxes. I’m not opposed to the idea of societal mandates.
But I don’t believe there is a societal mandate to help raise other people’s children. And if there were it certainly shouldn’t be exacted by individuals (the parents) on other individuals (the screwed over single people or whoever has to repeatedly cover for them).
Sometimes you can’t have everything. You want to spawn, that will cost you at your job. You want a job, you’ll miss some time with the brats. It’s the parents who should suck it up, not the ones covering for them.
I think the thing here is, not that the kids aren’t important, but that they’re treated as the MOST important. They’re not, and part of living in a society with others involves a give and take between what you want and what others want. Some of the examples in this thread are pretty crazy–being asked to miss a friend’s wedding? That’s something that (hopefully) only happens once in a person’s lifetime. The idea that people with children ALWAYS have priority in these situations is stupid–some things are more important than others, and the presence of kids do not determine which is which.
[quote]
What other rules are there for my role in raising other people’s kids?[/.quote]
Plenty.
If that’s what you want, go for it–propose that legislation! But that’s not how the system currently works. That’s not how most people want the system to work.
Awesome. Don’t budge an inch when someone needs ot take time off work to take care of their kid. Maybe your employer is cool with that. I have no beef with that.
anu-la, are you really that dumb, or is REALLY BIG FONT invisible to you?
