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Comment by xeromal | Hacker News Reader

I know these are dangerous grounds to tread on, but I do struggle with working parents sometimes.

I understand having children does take time, but I've experienced a parent that ends up being available around 4 hours a day while they are the linchpin in a certain part of the process that prevents a job from being completed. They're slow to respond to messages, emails, and calls and sometimes async responses are just not good enough when we have contractors ready to put equipment into the ground.

Just seems like at some point, the role should be part time and not involved in some crucial aspect of the process. My complaint should probably be towards the company though and not the parent.

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I am childfree and 15 years into my career.

Over that time span almost everyone I worked with closely has had children. And for the life of me, I cannot think of one instance where it affected their overall productivity.

If anything, kids tend to be a stabilizing influence. I much prefer working with the person who is AFK every day from 3:00-4:00PM because he is picking up his kids versus the person who drops offline at 3:00PM randomly because they scored some concert ticket and the venue is 2.5 hours away.

Your org sounds different from mine though. It sounds like immediate responses to short notice requests are very important. Maybe folks are getting rewarded for heroics and not for planning and proactive communications? That is not an atmosphere that is conducive to parenting. Or anything else, really.

Your anecdotal story is kind of bullshit though. More than half the people I currently work with have children and their performance is similar to the ones who don't. I'm sure that one case was annoying for you, but your sample size is garbage.

I never claimed mine was a study. Just an observation. No need for a hostile response like yours.

You opened saying you are treading on "dangerous grounds" and then said dumb garbage. You made a sweeping generalization off of one little anecdote. As a working parent, I am upset with your mindset. Instead of supporting your fellow worker trying to get by in these precarious times, you use them as an example to drag down others? It's lazy and it's bullshit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Check out the "In Comments" section.

You should read that too, as you've broken several of those rules. In fact this very comment pointing people to the rules is itself violating several of them.

>My complaint should probably be towards the company though and not the parent.

Yes, it should. Don't put responsibility on people you know won't fulfill it. The fact people even entertain the idea of not putting the blame on bosses for this is ridiculous.

Surely all the time spent making everyone homogenous and replaceable would infer otherwise.

You write parents in plural at the beginning of your comment but your specific example is about one parent. Have you experienced this with multiple working parents?

I meant parent so I didn't imply a certain gender, but I've experienced it only twice in my 12 year career but I've only worked with newborn parents twice.

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