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Comment by rabeener | Hacker News Reader

One way to solve this is to extend these types of benefits as a way for any employee to help care for children. If you’re an aunt or uncle and want to take time off to help care for your nieces and nephews, you should be able to. That being said, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for employees complaining about these specific policies. The entire world is in uncharted waters here and these companies, as well as individual employees, are doing the best they can with responding. As the article points out, these benefits aren’t meant to be used for vacation, they were introduced as a way to help employees respond to a sudden loss of childcare and the collapse of an education system. And to anyone who thinks this is a vacation, I recommend spending a week in a household with children who are unable to go to school while still trying to get work done.

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Alternative point of view: a better way to handle this is to reward the employees shouldering additional burden via money when parents take time off. Coworker takes a few months off for maternity leave? Fantastic - give the remaining team members a temporary raise until the person comes back. The whole "everyone has the same opportunity" argument never really made sense to me because not everyone shares the same goals or desired outcomes that align with those opportunities.

Yeah sure, all for rewarding employees who end up doing more work as a result but we need to separate the two issues. The parent flexibility was introduced almost overnight as a way to respond to systemic changes to childcare and schooling. There hasn’t been a lot of time to get things right but the need for this flexibility was clear immediately. So yes, let’s keep figuring out how to take care of all employees during this time but let’s stop framing it as a parent vs. non-parent issue. This is just one class of employees, parents, who needed immediate relief and some companies stepping up and providing that relief. Instead of complaining about a new benefit for parents, work with management to find a way to help all employees in a way that feels equitable to all. We’re all still just trying to figure out how to keep moving forward in a world that changed suddenly.

I don’t know how to respond to the opportunity comment, I’m not sure I understand your point.

EDIT: added a comma

I feel like your comment is another sidestep. Here's an example of what an equitable solution looks like that doesn't specifically favor one group: "Team, we realize how difficult the pandemic has made home life for many people, so we're implementing a new policy until care situations return to somewhat normal. Weekly hours have been reduced to 35 across the board and everyone gets every other Friday off on an A/B schedule."

To the opportunity comment, I thought it was evident, but maybe a thought experiment will be helpful. Let's pretend your company announces a new policy tomorrow - everyone who eats meat at the cafeteria next week gets Friday off. There are cheers around the office at this announcement because hey, Friday off! Except that you're vegan and don't want anything to do with meat for a variety of reasons. Your coworkers look at you and say, "Hey why aren't you happy about this?" You try to explain to them that you're vegan and so you won't get Friday off and this seems like kind of an unfair policy, but your coworkers just brush off your comments and say, "Well look, it's not like you can't eat meat. You've got the same opportunity as everyone else here - eat the meat and get Friday off, so what's the big deal? Just be a team player and support the rest of us."

Just because an opportunity exists that is technically available to everyone doesn't mean it's actually a fair opportunity or that the outcome of it is equal for everyone.

Thanks for creating the thought experiment. Let’s keep using that as an example. This is not a case where companies decided to create a benefit arbitrarily or to make employment at the company more attractive to workers. This was the world responding to an unexpected disruption to almost every area of life. As part of that, parents had an immediate need that could not wait to be met- caring for their children. This, in my mental model, is closer to someone taking leave to deal with a physical or mental health issue vs. someone taking time off voluntarily. If your colleague were to take time off to deal with a severe physical or mental health issue, would you have the same complaints about not getting an immediate increase in compensation for picking up some extra work or also not being able to take time off? I suspect that over time you might have a conversation with your manager about the increased workload but would not look at your colleague as deriving additional benefit. It can still be argued that it’s not equitable that someone who lost a limb gets to take so much paid time away from the office but I think we can all agree that this isn’t the point of the benefit. I have the same view of this time off extended to parents right now.

> If your colleague were to take time off to deal with a severe physical or mental health issue, would you have the same complaints about not getting an immediate increase in compensation for picking up some extra work or also not being able to take time off?

I don't know how it works in the US, but where I live the extended sick leave would be paid by the government, which would leave the company with funds to find a temporary replacement or increase compensation for people who pick up the slack.

Indeed, I think it would be a terrible and absurd system if the company had to continue paying the person on extended sick leave.

I’ve said this in a couple of comments but reiterating here, we’re talking about a new event that caused a failure of systems. There are no government systems or subsidies to help working parents who suddenly have no public or private school and who need to balance work with the very sudden needs of providing around the clock childcare. Longer term, yes, it will be great if there is more support similar to medical care leave but an immediate solution was needed and companies did the right thing by offering flexibility to their employees. The medical leave model was put forth because it captures the essence of a required reduction of work (which is what parents are experiencing) compared to a discretionary decision like giving vegans Fridays off. It’s not time yet to take a long view of how equitable this is, we have no idea how long parents will need this flexibility for. If this lasts a year, I don’t think we should look to the government to step in. If this lasts several years, yes, we need to come up with a model that works long term and that will likely require some sort of government action.

>Indeed, I think it would be a terrible and absurd system if the company had to continue paying the person on extended sick leave.

Yet that's typically the case in the US. Large companies typically have short-term disability and long-term disability as part of their benefits plans.

Added: From the government side, there is Social Security disability.

This wasn't a new event that affected only parents. Bit the companies rushed to provide benefits to parents because that helps them in their talent branding and being politically correct Decision makers are also most likely parents and have a blind spots to think about not parents.

I'm not saying that parents should not be given benefits but they should be applied to all employees. Singles are going through depression and would benefit from taking time off to visit their family.

Your thinking falls apart when you consider that children are a choice. And often a selfish one at that. You are not afflicted with children, you make an active decision to have them and everything that comes along with that. I would of course not begrudge a coworker for taking time off to deal with cancer, for example, but when you decide you want kids? That's a different story.

The other part of this discussion that gets left out is state vs. company responsibility. In the US, the state has generally failed when it comes to supporting parents, so people have turned to companies to fill the gap. However, it's not clear to me why companies should be the ones to do that. The state needs children and eventually benefits from them. Companies do not.

I disagree that my thinking falls apart. Maybe my message is not coming across clearly so I’ll try and restart it: We are not talking about a benefit that is systemic and a typical part of our workforce. We are talking about a reaction by companies to help their employees during an unprecedented failure of normal institutions during a moment of global crisis. To extrapolate that into an argument of choices around kids, equity of benefits, or the the role of government vs. private responsibility. We’re taking about something that started 6 months ago and has still not returned to normal, if it ever will. This will require a fundamental rethink of how we work, yes, but in the interim, parents needed help, companies stepped up and complaining about any of that seems selfish and missing the point.

I understand your message, but you keep framing it as a temporary issue and response when that doesn't matter - it's a preferential response, which is the whole issue. Rather than providing actually-equal time flexibility and time off to all employees in response to WFH challenges, companies provided those to only one class of employees.

> Your thinking falls apart when you consider that children are a choice. And often a selfish one at that.

You seem pretty hostile to people having children, why is that?

> I would of course not begrudge a coworker for taking time off to deal with cancer, for example, but when you decide you want kids? That's a different story.

And to be clear, most people, when deciding to have children, assume various things - for example, they assume that there is an education system in place to help shoulder some of the childcare burdens. This is part of what people's taxes are going towards - and many parents also privately spend money on additional/alternative day care.

No one could predict such an unprecedented and global catastrophe that makes all of that unavailable.

It may be a choice but without a younger generation growing up behind you, the whole house of cards - your life included - all comes down pretty quick. We all benefit from children.

(This is part of why we all pay for public education)

I respect that opinion, but personally disagree with it pretty strongly. 1) The earth does not need more humans on it, it needs fewer. 2) It should be the responsibility of the state to cater to the needs of parents, not the responsibility of private corporations. I am perfectly happy to pay tax dollars toward public education, childcare, maternity-related disability, etc. I am not ok with picking up the slack at work without additional compensation for people who choose to have kids. You might argue that these are equivalent in net result, but I would say that paying into a pool for the public good is quite a bit different than directly being asked to shoulder more burden for free.

Curious how the state should solve the current situation?

Overrule companies vacation policy and give all parents extra PTO?

to make the meat eater example work, shops are closed so meat eaters need friday off to hunt for food.

I'm not sure who you are arguing with regarding the whole "opportunity" thing, did anyone even mention that as something that affects this situation? That everyone technically has the opportunity to have kids?

Your metaphor is not at all similar to the real situation parents find themselves in. It's not "oh here, some people who eat meat gets Friday off". It's closer to "because of a situation outside of the company, anybody who ate meat in the last year has to do 2x as many work hours, and no longer has any time off, so in recognition of this, we're going to try and balance this out by giving them certain benefits".

That is the situation parents find themselves in, at least parents of young children.

You seem to be looking at this as a pure benefit to parents. It's not - it's a global catastrophe that has caused a massive problem for parents, and companies that are trying to at least somewhat mitigate that massive problem.

> It's not - it's a global catastrophe that has caused a massive problem for parents, and companies that are trying to at least somewhat mitigate that massive problem.

... at the cost of employees that are not parents who have to work more.

If project timelines aren't adjusted for the available resources and the tight timelines are putting pressure on those who are available, that is not the fault of the parents taking time off, it's the fault of bad project management.

If you give people who's last name starts with A a tax rebate, everybody else has to pay more taxes to fund the same things. If you cut the expenses appropriately, you can make sure they don't have to pay more, but they'll get less for what they pay. Either way, it's unfair.

Don't adjust the schedule. Increase the pay for anyone who works more.

AKA overtime pay?

If you’re an aunt or uncle and want to take time off to help care for your nieces and nephews, you should be able to.

That's a great angle. Absolutely agreed, caring for young children is basically a second job.

I don’t see why childless people are resentful of people who have more responsibility and a harder situation.

It’s selfish of them to be resentful. Kids are the ones who will be working when these people retire (whether by then they have children of not).

Society depends on new generations and so I don’t see a problem if parents get a small advantage.

> It’s selfish of them to be resentful.

Isn't it more selfish to expect preferential treatment, privileges and time off just for having kids?

> Kids are the ones who will be working when these people retire (whether by then they have children of not).

Yes and won't the retired child-free people be paying for the work these kids provide? Or are you saying these kids should work for free to provide for the retired child-free people?

> Society depends on new generations and so I don’t see a problem if parents get a small advantage.

Well then you are free to give most of your paycheck to them. But why insist or force others to sacrifice?

I am not fat, so fuck anyone that needs health help or insulin for diabetes.

I don't smoke, so fuck anyone that needs lung cancer treatment.

I don't drink so fuck anyone that comes to ER with alcohol poisoning.

I work out, so fuck anyone with back/wrist/whatever problem from being sedentary.

I have friends and go out, so fuck anyone with depression/anxiety.

I have a car, so fuck anyone that takes a bus/metro.

I have two working legs, so fuck any ramp for wheelchair users.

I have enough money so fuck all the old people (and younger ones getting there) on social security.

Fuck, I am strong and crazy enough, so fuck anyone that thinks they should be able to walk at night and not be beaten up/robbed. Fuck them right? How much do you even lift bro?

Being selfish is the number one problem in the world today, the lack of empathy, understanding of others situations, is bringing this world to a dark dark place, and unless we (or most of HN readers) understand that and be in a privilege position to try and change that, we will see everyone going even more into a dark path,

I don't have kids. Get rid of the schools.

I don't have a car. Get rid of the roads.

I'm not old. Get rid of social security.

I live in a neighborhood with a security force. Get rid of the police department.

> I don't have a car. Get rid of the roads.

So you don't have a car. Should you pay for other people's car maintenance? Should you pay for other people's gasoline and the gas tax? You do know that the gas tax pays for the roads right? If you don't have a car or drive, you don't pay to build or maintain the roads. Car owners pay for it via the gas tax.

I don't have a kid, but I have to pay for your kid? Is that the logic? How about people pay for their own kids, cars, homes, etc? Fair?

> I'm not old. Get rid of social security.

People pay for their own social security. You don't pay for my social security, I don't pay for yours.

Pretty sure no one pays for their own social security at this point.

I'd argue that its unfair for the childfree people. I don't have or want kids so let me explain it from my side.

Why should I give up my social life and free time for someone else that has kids?

Why should I do more work so they can take time off to care for their kids?

The way I see it, having kids is optional in life. They knew or should have known the added responsibilities for when they had kids.

Why do you have to give up your social life because someone on your team has kids? Can't the business adjust its productivity expectations to account for a once in a century pandemic? And kids are optional for any given individual, but in the aggregate if no one has children society will collapse.

About 20 states do not have familial status protections, so that means the boss can give me extra work while the person with kids gets extra time off.

https://www.workplacefairness.org/marital-status-state-law

https://www.abetterbalance.org/resources/family-status-and-c...

So the problem is the boss and/or the company, because they are the ones assigning the extra work, right? Just want to make sure we assign the blame appropriately.

Formally or informally, it’s generally a societal expectation that the childless will pick up the slack in the workplace.

It’s too bad society couldn’t be more realistic, and sacrifice some productivity instead of just pushing the work around. Central banks printed trillions of dollars in a matter of weeks (incinerating some currency value) to keep the economy alive, this is no different. We’re still collectively optimizing for the wrong metrics.

It is not really optional to adopt nephews and nieces when your sibling passes.

Adoption is optional, you have no legal obligations to adopt them.

It is your decision.

If your amount of work weren't dependent on your coworkers, would your feelings change?

Because not all people who have children have a harder situation.

What about people taking care of parents with Alzheimer's? Do they not deserve the leave? I assure you that a parent with Alzheimer's is WAY harder than a child. In addition, the child will eventually get easier; Alzheimer's just gets worse.

The problem is "too little leave for everybody" not "extra leave for parents".

The solution is to set the leave amounts at a fixed amount that accommodates almost everybody. If parents have to burn that to take care of children, so be it. They made that choice.

I'm a working parent but I understand the frustration. People see from their own point of view. What non parents see is that I am no longer pulling the same weight I pulled last year. Someone has to pick up the slack or the schedule has to slip. Both of these are frustrating to the hard driving employee who is bound to notice that I'm not doing as much as I used to.

I don't have a great solution. This is hard on everyone but in completely different ways. I'd be happy to compensate for my lower output with a pay cut to be given to those who are pulling the load for me. It would take away some guilt at not putting out what I'm used to. But I would need that pay cut to come with an understanding that it's an exchange for less responsibility.

This is closer to an ideal solution.

However, it still demonstrates an unsurprising failure to properly empathize with childfree people.

Implicit in this solution is the assumption that childfree people need to justify their value for equal access to personal time off to people with entirely different (and more orthodox) personal values.

The best solution would be to give everyone the option to take extra time off with partial pay redistributed to active team members.

Childfree people aren't a hegemony with the same values and problem as people with children. They have more diverse values, or lack of values, and more diverse problems intensified by a pandemic which shouldn't need to be justified to coworkers with different personal priorities.

Have you considered, for example, the daily impact of a pandemic on people who derived meaning in life from time with friends and activities they can no longer see and enjoy? You might not think these are important as children (and if those people had children they might agree). But the fact is that they don't have children and these are the most meaningful things in their life. For them, their children may as well have died in the pandemic.

You won't hear them express this because it's terribly unorthodox. But it's true. Equal access to equal benefits matters.

Some of the people in the article do strike me as just resentful whiners, but some of them have quite reasonable points that the company isn't working as hard to take care of their needs. Being at home taking care of your kids in virtual school isn't a vacation - but neither is being at home alone, unable to go hang out with a single friend or family member.

> It’s selfish of them to be resentful.

I tend to agree. The it's all about me attitude has become so ingrained in western society that the greater-good is utterly discounted.

The most prominent covid related example of this is mask wearing. An unreasonably high number of people have decided that wearing a mask as a societal benefit isn't as important as their slight inconvenience.

This "it's all about me attitude" is definitely present in western society but I disagree that it is "so ingrained ... That the greater good is utterly discounted"

It seems, based on observing reality, that the greater good is far more ingrained. That's why things like public schools, post offices, animal rescues, ambulances, and fire departments are so common and tend to function relatively well.

I see some validity to the argument that "it's all about me" is perhaps gaining ground on "greater-good" but it seems clear that "greater-good" is still the majority.

They aren't resentful of someone else for having it better. They're resentful that people who consider children the most meaningful thing in their own lives evidently "selfishly ignored* the impact of the pandemic on the lives of people who had no choice but to put meaning in things other than children. Most of which was stripped away months ago and may not be back for a long time, by the way.

We're all in this together. Failure to sympathize with childfree people is a problem. Resentment for that failing is not.

It's certainly selfish of them to be resentful but humans are selfish to some degree by nature. I do see why childless people are resentful. [note: I'm the parent of a small kid]

This same problem exists with every preferential policy (group policies, welfare, etc.) -- if society doesn't agree on the difficulties encountered by X group (or worse, sees people cheating the system in some way [1]), resentment triggers AND work productivity drops. See also problems with communism.

> would not be scoring employees on job performance for the first half of 2020 because there was “so much change in our lives and our work.”

This gets.. a bit problematic, as it is reducing the incentive for the people who did put a lot in. While the article notes everyone gets a higher bonus, it's unclear if this can result in promotions not happening for people who worked more hours during H1 -- that would trigger lots of resentment if it's the case. A more middle-ground approach might be setting a floor to ensure no one gets fired over weak productivity during covid, but still nonetheless rewarding those who put in more work time.

There's also a deeper question of whether it is the state's responsibility to cover parental leave or individual companies. Most other parents with this predicament had to rely on the state (take unpaid leave - and collect UI)

[1] Anecdotally, I have known people taking long paternity leave to use the time as much for childcare as to figure out their next start-up.

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