Comment by anon9001 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anon9001 | Hacker News Reader

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I'll take the bait. I feel bad about maternity leave.

You can choose to have a baby or not, and I don't see why you should get special treatment at work because of that decision.

I understand meritocracy is an illusion at best, but it's an important illusion to maintain. If someone is pulling less weight, they should receive less compensation. They certainly shouldn't be rewarded for taking weeks or months off to work on on side projects, which is essentially what a baby is.

But maybe I'm just being harsh by thinking of children as side projects, and I should be more sensitive. Fine, let's say that having a baby is a medical condition. For any other medical condition, your options are burn all your PTO or go on short-term disability. Why should having a baby be any different?

> But maybe I'm just being harsh by thinking of children as side projects

yup, you definitely are. a lot, too.

> Why should having a baby be any different?

maybe because the society literally can't go forward without babies?

> maybe because the society literally can't go forward without babies?

Technically true, but practically nonsense. We're at no danger of under-population. And if we were, it would be the government's job to subsidize having children, not Facebook's.

People who work in tech and choose to have babies are doing it as a luxury, not to push society forward.

> People who work in tech and choose to have babies are doing it as a luxury, not to push society forward.

So now having babies is a luxury. Jesus christ this is so wrong on so many levels.

You don't think wealthy professionals choosing to have 1 or 2 kids is a luxury? Saying FB employees need to have babies to keep society going makes as much sense as saying the family shih tzu is necessary as a guard dog.

Sure, maybe technically in some way, but absolutely not in any meaningful sense.

One or two kids is not luxury. Having 16 kids, that's luxury.

I'm not saying that FB employees need to have babies to keep society going, I said that everybody needs to have babies to keep society going.

and governments do their job by taxing people and businesses to pay for it. requiring companies to offer maternity leave is a "tax" on companies.

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