Political Memes

I could really go for a 6 months hiatus and the same for my girlfriend. We both never had kids.

I know that having kids isn't a vacation though. It's a lot of work. So it's not quite the same.

In my country, a parent must be at home when their children arrive home. If both parents work, that means one has to come to an arrangement with their workplace to be home at 3.

If a non-parent has an important reason to be home at 3, they should also be allowed to leave early, but preventing kids from electrocuting themselves is a pretty important reason.

What kind of a stupid fucking question is this

Option C, watch the comments degenerate into warfare while eating popcorn.

Based on the tone and language of the discussion, this is very USA things.

And for that I've a song.

Same treatment - yes. Same flexibility? No. Children do tend to provide legitimate emergencies from time to time.

I'm not saying a non-parent should have their months-ahead approved PTO cancelled because a parent suddenly decides they want to take their kid to some event on that same day. But if a parent needs to leave early because they got a phone call that their kid got wounded at school - that should be arranged even when non-parents are not offered flexibility of the same level.

I’m all for it, but at the end of the day, humanity needs to reproduce. So if there was only room for flexibility for the parents then that’s what makes sense to put first.

This question is what you ask when you want to get your employees fighting against each other and not against the boss who is stealing all of their money.

The first step would be to fix wage theft and then the second step might be to get rid of the ultra rich, or maybe those could be done in the reverse order. At some point long after those things are accomplished we could talk about how people get jealous when they see someone else who apparently gets privileges that they wish they had. And sometimes there are small changes that can be made that will alleviate those situations.

Fairness shouldn’t depend on your personal life—flexibility should be about people, not categories.

Everyone should have the freedom to take care of their lives when they need to.

This includes being paid a salary that doesn't keep you on the edge of poverty and ruin.

This should be the lowest bar legally. The fact that minimum wage isn't tied to inflation was inconvenient decades ago, now it is actively harming everyone in the US.

There are more labor protections that we need (see: EU countries with functioning democracies) but pay and leave minimums are the most impactful to the most people's quality of life.

Once you make the workplace adjustments and accommodations for parents, there's no good reason not to do the same for everyone. It's like cutting curbs or making wide doors for wheelchair access. Once you've convinced the company to do it for new premeses, why would they ever decide to make some without that access? Shits and giggles?

If you're talking about mat/pat leave then that's a separate thing (which everyone should definitely get)

I am one of 2 people in my department and we service the entire continent. He has been on paternity leave THREE TIMES in the years i've been here and each time he gets 5 weeks off.

I swear every time he takes off, it's a busy part of the year and i'm absolutely slammed doing everything by myself and customers don't understand.

Then he also gets like 4 weeks of vacation, so it feels really unfair for me with my dog and no kids. But then again, i hate kids and want nothing to do with them, so i guess he needs those 5 weeks.

No? Definitely no. First of all child leave for extended times should be mandatory to provide. Also the flexibility that people with children are for the child.

Ideally with should always be flexible. However if it's not there should be a good reason for exceptions and having to care for a young child is often a good reason in my opinion.

I believe people without children can have good reasons as well and some people with children need less flexibility.

E.g. a single parent usually struggles more than one with a partner stays home to focus on the children or one who lives in the same house as the grandparents.

If you're speaking about vacations it's usually due to fixed school vacations so if the person with a child wants to be able e.g. wants to travel with their family they have to do it during the official school vacations.

At least here school is mandatory otherwise and not sending your child to school is a crime.

people with children dont get flexibility in alot of jobs either. depending on which job, most jobs have an "approval system, and in advance" when you can use PTO/vacation time, and they can be nitpicky if they want to change hours or schedules. Also i notice they start 'targeting you" if even ask them to do it.

I think this shows up in various ways. Watching a salaried worker come in late, stay home cause kids are sick, take off early because kids have dental appt, etc versus watching the low paid hourly worker under them go without pay to take care of all the same things because they aren't salaried, have no wfh ability, and are out of leave from using it so often sucks.