You're the ones who CHOSE to have children

The BBQ Pit
21

I think your company must be one of the more enlightened ones around, and I commend them for allowing the parents to be given time to cope with family issues as well as holding a job. For many parents in the workforce it is not so easy: kids do get sick and they do sometimes need attention during business hours but ‘Child Friendly’ workplaces are few and far between. So women take ‘sickies’ or they cut into their annual leave and all in all it tends to marginalise them in the labour market, often relegating them to part-time/casual and other poorly paid niches.

Y’see, not all women have grandma’s or other extended family/friends available to look after the kid/s while you’re at work. Sick kids can’t be sent to daycare, and there are not always ‘Holiday Program’ facilities and/or vacancies when you need them. What do you suggest? Leaving a 7 yr old kid with a fever to fend for themself? Parents I know are loathe to take time off unless really necessary and are acutely aware that ‘time-off’ is not an infinite resource. Thus it is saved for real emergencies…but there are some weeks when the emergencies come one after another. Shit just happens sometimes.

In your particular case Starving, the women must be considered valuable employees by management. You mention staff-cuts etc, so I imagine they would have been the first to go if their performance (as you imply) had been notoriously poor. That they CAN manage to combine family committments and maintaining a decent job is perhaps a reflection of their hard work as much as of management leniency.

Oh, and is it a new rule that because we’ve chosen to have kids that we’re not allowed to complain about some of the trials and tribulations? Does that mean that people who ‘choose’ to buy a house are not allowed to complain about rising interest rates, or that people who ‘choose’ to drive cars musn’t whinge about traffic jams?

:rolleyes:

22

If your boss and/or company isn’t fair (and if they are going to blame you for not working overtime and no one else - they aren’t), this isn’t a kid thing - its a popularity contest (which may be decided by having kids).

I worked for a company out of college where about five of us did similar jobs. We were all young, fresh out of college, and single.

Debbie could take a two hour lunch. Molly could show up hung over an hour late. Kim could spend an hour on the phone planning her wedding every day. Laura spent her time gossiping (and sleeping with the boss). I got in trouble for not pulling overtime to make sure all the work got done.

When Christmas came along, Kim had to go visit relatives out of state, Debbie and her boyfriend had tickets to Hawaii, Laura was sure as hell not going to work it - and no one wanted Molly to cover anyway - so guess who was told they “couldn’t” take vacation?

I eventually quit, and started down the path of un-doormatness.

23

I think you’re missing the point of everyone’s advice, Starving: don’t suddenly become a hardass. Go talk to your boss. Tell her/him that you’re unhappy about the burden placed on you, and you want it redressed. Maybe you’ll get more money, maybe your boss will make some compensatory time off for you. Unless your manager is a complete asshole, they’ll recognize that you’re being treated unfairly and try to redress it. Negotiate a bit, and try to find a solution before dropping the bomb.

And if they don’t redress it, drop the bomb. But at least give your boss a chance, first.

24

I’m glad to see so much support for the OP’s opinion. I support the position quite strongly, and believe that it should go far beyond just the commitment of one’s time.

I live in Florida – retiree capital of the world. (I’m not one of them yet and won’t be for quite a few years yet.) Our voters have recently changed the state constitution to enact what amounts to “citizen laws”.

One of the recent “mandates” is a limit to the number of students in every class. Another is that all schools have to offer a “voluntary” pre-Kindergarten. All paid for a tax-payer expense, of course.

Just as the OP suffers by having to cover for co-workers that their needs are more important than hers, Florida’s taxpayers (AKA, me) have been mandating with paying for a year’s free daycare and other goodies.

sigh…

25

Kambuckta, as the other posters have pointed out, my problem really isn’t with the fact that the other workers are failing to work their full hours due to family demands. It’s that I’ve been leaned on to do the overtime to finish the work that isn’t getting done, and that I’ve been told the others can’t be expected to pitch in with doing the overtime because they have children.

Basically, it takes 40 ‘woman-hours’ to do the work in our department, and they have scheduled workers for just those 40 hours. If 2-3 of those women-hours (at a minimum) vanish every week due to people leaving early, the solution cannot be to require just one of those workers (me, to be specific) to work overtime to finish off.

I don’t want the overtime work, not on a every single week basis. I have other interests to pursue in life, hobbies to enjoy, education to pursue, other relationships to nurture and enjoy. I want to be able to make plans for my ‘after work’ hours and be allowed to carry them out.

There is indeed more to life than work. Even for those of us who don’t have children.

26

A “child-friendly” workplace sounds great in theory, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the childless people. This is similar to a workplace where smokers take a five minute smoke-break every hour, but non-smokers just sit there and grunt away. One worker shouldn’t have a tougher job because of other co-worker’s life choices.

(kambukta, there’s a difference between people complaining about the trials of raising children, and people complaining about how hard it is and looking at me with jealousy in their eyes and saying spiteful things about how easy my life is, how lucky I am, etc. These are the kind of people I find hard to take.)

27

My mom worked off and on during my childhood. She’s worked at home in the interim times between offices, so this wasn’t as much of an issue then. She made every effort to do two things: take care of her kids when necessary, and do her job well without dumping masses of work on somebody else when a kid-related issue came up. (This extends to her dealing with me as an adult moving back home very suddenly; she’s working at home now and had to send some work back to the companies to assign to another transcriber when the shit hit the fan with my ex-fiance, but she virtually never does that, so they didn’t argue.)

I’d say management is right in letting them take care of their kids but wrong in letting them take advantage of YOU at the same time.

28

I think the thing to do is to talk to somebody: possibly your boss, possibly the women you work with, but only if you have a good raport with them. Either way, remember this:

Don’t blame the other women. Don’t say “because of them and their kids . . .” This will breed defensiveness and divisivness and create an “us vs. you” envioroment.

Do blame the economy. It’s an equal opportunity target, a scapegoat that allows everyone to keep their dignity and deal with the issue instead of focusing on blame, or fault, or fair.

The way you get from blaming the economy to your work hours is by pointing a finger at the staff cuts. Again, don’t blame the boss for making the cuts! Blame the economy!

Do keep records. It transforms brainless bitching into a legitimate complaint. Everytime you have to stay after and are the last one to leave because someone had to leave early, put check on your calender. Do it retroactivly for the last couple of weeks if you can remember.

Don’t even mention the kids. It’s a whole can of worms that you want to avoid opening if at all possible. The problem isn’t that they have kids, it that you are having to work overtime every week. By dragging the kids into the issue, you make it infinitly more complicated.

Go to the women you work with or your boss (who ever you think would be more willing to work with you), red-checked callender in hand and say something like: “I hate to complain, but as you can see, last month I stayed late to finish up almost half the days we were open. I have no life. I had to drop that photography class because I was always late, I don’t remember what the inside of the grocery store looks like, and my mother is complaining she dosen’t remember the sound of my voice. I know the economy sucks right now ,and I know that the staffing cuts have made everyone’s life harder, but we need to work out something so that I am not always the last one here.”

Then try real hard to shut up and let them come up with a solution you can live with. Just let them talk. If they start with 'yeah, but we all have kids . . . .", just look at them and hold your tounge for three beats. There is a good chance they will realize how foolish that is once they hear themselves say it… If they don’t, say something mild like “I know, but I just can’t stay late three nights a week, not every week.” Do NOT get dragged into an arguement about fair.

If they come up with a solution, they will be much more likely to embrace it cheerfully. If you try this and it just doesn’t work–they shrug their shoulders and say “Just deal.”, THEN you can go to the lmore radical plans.

29

Ah, Manda JO, there you go, being all sensible and realistic and fair and stuff again.

30

I have to agree. What kind of company do you work at which, when one person is gone (for whatEVER reason) do the other workers have to suddenly start doing his/her work as well as their own?

Don’t you and your coworkers have specific assignments, share of work, etc? Or is it just all one big work “pool” where more gets divvied (is that a word?) out amongst however many people happen to be there?

I can see where it would be annoying though, but I have to agree with porcupine, that your anger/aggravation is targeted to the wrong people.

Are there other singles/childless at your place of business?

Also, are there other people that take time off that doesn’t have to do with children, but yet still foists more of the workload onto the remaining workers?

Would it be possible to form a group of employees and address management regarding this problem?

31

Hijack.

Don’t sigh so mightily over your tax dollars being used for something at least somewhat societally useful like daycare Southern.

Maybe this will make you feel a teensy bit less resentful.

Our good ole government uses up $75,000 dollars a year to fly the flag over the capital to the tune of “Old Glory” and send it said flag, FREE of charge to whomever requests it.

$150,000 dollars a year of OUR tax money to send out free pens, safety etc etc type coloring books (like the fire safety ones) to citizens FREE of charge. (well those two figures I read way back in the 80s, in Time magazine, it’s probably more now, and those are only two of the hundreds of freebie programs our gov’t runs).

My all time favorite was the grant given to a group of scientists down in the midwest somewhere (drat my memory, this WAS the 1980s) to study a pile of petrified sloth manure that was carbon dated to be something like a billion years old (being smart alecky, don’t remember the exact age) that was located in some cave.

Somehow the stupid stuff caught on fire and of course they, the scientists who’d been given the grant, couldn’t just pour water on it, that would ruin the intrinsically historic value (that’s the words from the article, not mine), so they sealed off the cave and lots of other methods before finally extinguishing it.

The final cost to the US Taxpayers to save a pile of ancient petrified sloth shit? $1.5 million. And this was back in the 80s.

The point being, we’re forced to pay taxes by our good ole gov’t, and we usually don’t have much of a choice as to where those tax dollars go.

I think I’d rather fund daycare with my tax dollars thank you!

32

Manda JO: Very interesting tactics. However, I suspect that you already predicted the way it would go:

SBS: I’m working too many overtime hours and here’s proof.
Office: Yeah, but we all have kids. You have to take up the slack because you’re childless.
SBS: I know I’m not a mom, but I just can’t stay three nights a week, not every week.
Office: Why not? You don’t have any commitments. Not without children.
SBS: What about my husband? My night classes? My hobbies?
Office: Oh, heavens, they don’t count! If they don’t involve kids, they’re not real commitments, silly.

I have seen that sort of attitude in some of my jobs as well. At my last job, one junior estimator was allowed to leave whenever he wanted, no questions asked, because he had to pick up his kids from school or come in late when he had to drop them off. As the childless adult in the office, my hours were carefully monitored, especially toward the end of the day, in spite of the fact that I never left urgent tasks unfinished. In fact, my early days were due to going off to coach kids, but that held no weight, because the kids weren’t mine. And I was expected to catch that time up, be it by staying late or coming in on the weekend.

In my experience, management is all for creating “family-friendly” circumstances, but those circumstances are always at the expense of the workers who don’t have “families.” The cult of the child requires special consideration for those who are parents, but generally punishes those who are childless for the sin of not reproducing.

33

Well, yes, Dread Pirate Jimbo, there’s a chance that the path of reason and oderation will fail to work, but it’s hard to see how it could hurt to try. I have found that often casual ideas like “oh, she dosen’t have any kids so she won’t mind.” sometimes crumble when the person holding them is forced to admit them out loud. However, if you back them into a corner, they get defensive and those attitudes get soldified forever. She can always put her foot down or quit later.

34

No, this is incorrect.

35

I’m not begrudging a few tax dollars to pay for some necessities, or even a few more dollars to pay for flags, pens, and extinguishinghing burning shit (well, maybe I will begrduge that last one).

My semi-hijack-semi-rant is in sympathy with the OP that complained that she (and other singles) has no choice but to give up a disproportionate part her life to make up for the split priorities of people with replicates.

Same things with my day-care gripe. This “day care” is voluntary pre-K school. Voluntary. My tax dollars are going to building more schools and pay more teachers (and fund more unions) via one of the most ineffective methods of “investing” money (the government) simply because someone voted my money away from me and chose to LET those is a particular “class” have it.

It aint right.

Voting to take money from the childless to pay for luxuries for the child-burdened is no different than voting to take money away from a racial or religious minority.

36

Children. No way. I can take out my own trash, shovel my own walk, and mow my own lawn. The Mrs. and I have other things to accomplish.

37

Jesus SouthernStyle, there is no person alive who gains FULL benefit from every tax-dollar they pay. It mostly evens out though, and what we lose on the round-about, we make up for on the ferris-wheel (or however that old saying goes).

And since when is ‘education’ a ‘luxury for the child-burdened’? A well educated community is an asset for EVERYBODY. Maybe one of those pre-schoolers might grow up to find a cure for cancer or an effective way to deal with poverty and famine in the poorer regions of the world. Communities pay for education because the community benefits, NOT just the individual.

:rolleyes:

38

SBS has a valid gripe. Her company is treating her unfairly.

After reading some of the replies here, I would like to state for the goddamn record that not all parents work the system. Not all “family-friendly” policies are due to “whiners” forcing employers to cave in to their litigious demands.

Okay, now that I’ve got the snarkiness out of my system, I’d like to address a few other points.

We live in a society that works on the principle that some things that seem to benefit a few in the short run actually benefit us all in the long run. Similarly, some things are worth supporting, even if we do so with an inequitable burden.

You might disagree with spending money on highways you don’t drive on, state parks you won’t visit, firemen that will never have to put out a fire at your house, buses that help people get around even though you have a car, libraries that carry some books you may never read, prisons that hold wifebeaters that would never hit you personally. These things are in the same category as the schools and daycare and leave you mention. Yet it’s parents that get your ire for “breeding” and “taking handouts” in the form of family leave and publicly funded schools. For driving up healthcare costs with their brat’s runny noses and asthma and those stupid epidurals moms get in childbirth. You see parents as being on the giving end of a huge entitlement system while you are just fucked, fucked, fucked.

I find this an odd target. You cannot accept that children are one of those many areas that many people believe are worth directing resources towards? You think it is all about parents fucking you over and gleefully taking taking taking? I’m not saying you have to LIKE spending money on ANY of that shit. I’m just saying I’m confused about why you feel this is the thing that is most unfair to you. Why is parenting such a target?

Yes, there are inconsiderate parents out there. And it’s not just you who suffers for their actions. Their fellow parents do, too.

39

I think the word you’re looking for is “discrimination.” It may still be legal to discriminate based on parental status, but it isn’t ethical, and I’ll bet it wouldn’t hold up in court, either.

I’d keep a record for a month of all the times you had to do the extra work for parents, while making the same amount of money, and politely ask the management if it is their policy to discriminate against the single. I’d use the word, too.

Then I’d ask them how they intend to change their policies to ensure that everyone is treated fairly in regard to hours and duties.

If I didn’t care too much about the job, I’d ask to be compensated in my paycheck for doing the work of others, based on the extra hours your records show you worked. I’m a teacher- if I have to cover for the person down the hall during my planning period, I get paid extra for that time. You should, too. I doubt they’ll give it to you, but it would certainly make the point if you had a dollar amount for the work you’ve been required to do for ‘free.’

I’m sorry, but being a parent means you have occasional, real emergencies. Single people have occasional, real emergencies, too. But on an ordinary day, everyone, parent or no, does what they’re paid to do. I really can’t believe it’s that hard, and if the parents really can’t work a full-time job while caring for their children… then maybe they shouldn’t have a full-time job.

40

I don’t recall saying “everybody in the U.S.” I said “everybody.” I meant “everybody.” I was talking mega-uber stuff.