> you won't actually go volunteer with the homeless

This was in response to the parent post:

> an essential service that some people perform to ensure that society as we know it can continue to exist

If this was the reason why parents get a free pass, people who provide essential services would also get to do it on their employer's dime, at the expense of their colleagues.

My point across this entire comments section is that this privilege is arbitrary. A lot of people do hard work for all sorts of important reasons, but when they miss work, it gets mentioned in their performance review.

> If this was the reason why parents get a free pass...

You’re framing this discussion as something you flat out don’t accept as reasonable, despite the thoughtful responses in the thread.

Is there any point in actual engaging, or have you already made your mind up?

Perhaps, rather than repeatedly and blindly repeating your view over and over, like you might somehow convince parents that they’re bad humans who deserve to be punished, try considering the views of the others here...

This a pandemic, if there was ever a situation where the situation was a bit more complicated and a bit more empathy to the circumstances was required, this is it.

Systemic problems require systemic solutions. One-off problems require one-off solutions.

Parenting in the pandemic is a systemic problem. And even in non-pandemic times, we have public schools, child services, parental leave, etc. The national guard and jury duty are likewise systemic problems; we need lots of guardsmen and lots of jurors.

Homelessness is a systemic problem, but the particular way you choose to do community service (or not do it) is for you to sort out mostly on your own.

> If this was the reason why parents get a free pass, people who provide essential services would also get to do it on their employer's dime, at the expense of their colleagues.

They do. They're called government employees, and they are paid by taxes at the expense of everyone.

I guess you're advocating that parents get lower performance ratings during the pandemic if their responsibility to their family has caused them to do lower quality work for their employer. I think that's sort of absurd (for all the reasons jdm2212 has pointed out), but, as a parent of two grade-school children myself, I'd take that deal of it made all the childless people feel they were being treated fairly. I am concerned that performance reviews are generally about communicating paths for development and progress against some goal. I'm not sure how valuable that feedback will be for parents who suffer low performance because of child-rearing responsibilities. I wouldn't suddenly work more hours to improve my performance at the expense of my children's education during this period. It's a poor trade for everyone involved, except perhaps my employer, and even then, it's likely only beneficial for them in the short-term.

Tech is full of entitled low empathy technocrats. This may seem harsh, but it is very true in my experience. Especially at organizations that skew younger and have discriminatory or ageists hiring practices. It gets talked about obliquely and there are a lot of compelling and meritocratic arguments about how unfair all of this is to people without kids, but ultimately the concessions are few and far between. This mostly comes down to empathy and it is a skill many young technologists have not cultivated by choice or through a general life path to this point. Yes, I am making a lot of generalizations but I don’t think they are a reach.

I'm a low empathy technocrat because:

(1) I chose not to have children, and

(2) I find it unfair that I'm expected to work longer hours for the same compensation/work profile.

Is that it? ... No, that's not it. Your position assumes that:

(1) Child-rearing is some a-priori, guaranteed good, and

(2) That it apparently should be subsidized by employers,

(3) and (both implicitly and explicitly, from you and others) at the expense of their non-child having coworkers.

Am I getting something wrong, or missing something?

I absolutely think parents should get a break during the pandemic. I think everyone should. The work people are doing here to act like we should worship the ground parents walk is easily the most shocking thing I've witnessed.

Honestly, it's not at all a stretch to say you basically insist parents get extra compensation (in the form of extra paid vacation). Call me whatever name you want, but people are well within their rights on this, of all places, to raise an eyebrow.

---

The other generous interpretation is that there is some base assumption that we ALL (parents and non-parents) should running ourselves at 90+% capacity. And that children are an accept caveat since parents are usually at 100% capacity. What a terrifying dismal way to look at life. I hope that's not it.

> I find it unfair that I'm expected to work longer hours for the same compensation/work profile.

When you say "longer hours" do you mean "longer hours than I worked before COVID" or "the same amount of hours, but longer than parents will be working during COVID"?

If you mean the former, then you need a better employer, because agreed, you should not be required or expected to increase your work hours due to COVID, for any reason, and certainly not to pick up the slack caused by parents losing productivity.

If you mean the latter, then this just sounds like entitled whining. Your life has not changed because parents get more flexibility. It's exactly the same as it was before.

Parents don't get to stop taking care of their kids. I know quite a few working parents, and I guarantee you that they don't want to take time away from work for child care right now. But they have no choice. You are incredibly lucky that you aren't a parent right now; take that blessing as your "subsidy" and stop complaining about things that don't actually affect you.

Another argument that largely hinges on calling me a name; amusing considering I'm normally considered the annoying-bleeding-heart-softie. And you know, the part where I said parents deserve a break in my reply that you ignored.

Parents deserve extra flexibility.

So do single people working from their bedrooms, 50 hours a week, thinking about alternatives to this existence regularly because they have literally nothing else going on and don't have the vacation to take to get away.

So do people in relationships who are trapped in tiny, tiny SF apartments with no room to breathe in, when OH ALSO, your city is constantly filled with the noise of sirens because your police department keeps gassing your neighborhood.

Everyone deserves extra flexibility right now. Acting like your kid is some exception while calling me entitled is something else.

> When you say "longer hours" do you mean "longer hours than I worked before COVID" or "the same amount of hours, but longer than parents will be working during COVID"?

Reading these threads, I think the conversation has blurred COVID and non-COVID times. COVID has highlighted how much leeway parents get in general, regardless of whether people think they should/should not get it.

It feels like one could justify just about anything by pointing to a "lack of empathy" by opponents. I think HN can do better.

Come on. This whole thread was kicked off by a single person complaining how they might possibly have to help otherwise high performing colleagues out by covering for them some during an unprecedented pandemic. I can’t recall a single time in my time in HN (since it started, literally) I asked or thought this was a more appropriate thing to say.

Or "tone-deaf" when something don't get the reaction someone thinks it deserves.

So true. HN users tend to use empathy card a lot when they can't agree to disagree other side of the argument.

children are an a-priori good for society and they massively subsidized the childless in the long run. Anyhow, try the empathy thing out. Put yourself in the shoes of a hard working parent that up to this point, possible for 10+ years of child-rearing carries the same load as everyone else. Now, COVID has happened an unprecedented pandemic since the Spanish Flu. Maybe they have their hands a little full right now? Employers in general should be helping everyone out right now, not just parents, but I am sure you can see where I am going here? Some people are stuck in a 100% capacity spot for whatever reason. It’s not what I would prefer, but it’s how society is set up.

> they massively subsidised the childless in the long run

How, exactly? It feels like the glass-makers fallacy every time this point is expanded on.

> Anyhow, try the empathy thing out

empathy means "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another"; you assume this isn't the case because others draw a different conclusion to you own. What If others understand perfectly well? From my perspective the phrasing "try the empathy thing out" is pretty patronising, leading me to conclude you either lack empathy on that point, or else wanted it to be that way; it's possible to be (if not act) empathetic while acting vindictive.

Nice of you and others to ignore:

>I absolutely think parents should get a break during the pandemic. I think everyone should.

I am alone. I am completely alone. Completely socially isolated. And being expected to work 50 hours a week, as always, in my home. I get no extra time off. I get no allowances for a screaming kid in the background.

I THINK PARENTS SHOULD GET A BREAK. And I think everyone should equally.

Point-of-fact, only parents are the people in this thread demanding something and acting entitled and the fact that no one can respond to the arguments without resorting to name-calling just drives that point home.

> children are an a-priori good for society

Tell that to all the children born into poverty with parents who don't want them/are indifferent to them, and to the communities they inhabit who bear the fallout.

Many companies do give time off for charity work or public service, match charitable giving, etc. I’d have no problem with my company giving my single, childless colleagues time off or schedule flexibility to engage in some social or public good.

Did any of these companies offer to pay their single workers to work on Covid support systems or handle a shift at the grocery store?

Maybe taking care of aging parents with dementia is a better example, although it's less voluntary than children are.

Voluntary enrollment in nursing/assisted living facilities is far more accepted (for good reason) than voluntarily turning your children over to foster or other care arrangements. In that regard, I’d say that elder care is more voluntary than childcare.

That really depends on the particular assisted living facilities, and the state of your particular parents, and in support of the suggestion that a company offer "taking care of someone" time universally rather than just to those with kids, I'd prefer not to have a corporate officer determining at what exact level of deterioration my taking care of an elderly parent becomes involuntary.

Parenting is not voluntary. Yes, becoming a parent is voluntary, but once you have a child in your home you cannot put being a parent on hold while you focus on other things.

In some cultures (and countries), taking care of your elderly parents is also not voluntary.

I didn't say that parenting is voluntary.

If not, then what's the point of the comparison you're making?

That your parents might get dementia, and you might even have to quit your job to take care of them full time if you don't get sufficient leave, and unlike children, that's not even something that you likely made a plan and budget for in advance, or a lifestyle that you chose willingly despite the stress. It's just one of many possible severely challenging, non-optional commitments that can arise in life.

(This is in the context of supporting making parent leave available for non-parents).

Actually where I work you do not get "parental" leave, you get "family" leave which can also be used to care for aged parents (for a time, just like parental leave, until more permanent arrangements can be made). It is also irrelevant to the article, which is not about normal benefits that parents utilize, but the extraordinary considerations being made right now (and again, where I work, those extraordinary policies can be invoked for taking care of any family member, not just children and not just blood relatives).

Note also that parents did not choose the situation we are currently in. This is not a matter of lifestyle choice. The lifestyle we chose when we decided to have kids included the expectation of childcare during the day and that is what is failing here.

> But parents actually have to change those diapers.

Parents actually have to have kids to be in a position of caring for a dependent.

Sure. The point is, once you do, it's a commitment. You don't get to opt out when you feel like you need a break.

I don't dispute the point that children require commitment. I'm not sure how that makes employees with children less accountable for work than those who don't have children.

What if I have no children but I have a grandparent who is ill and requires care. My point is that if employees with families require support during these hard times, there are probably many who don't have children who also have changed their lives due to this pandemic. Perhaps we should relax the expectations for EVERYONE and not find one circumstance more special than others.

I think many companies are relaxing expectations for everyone. I have quite a few non-parent co-workers who have taken leave due to the mental health impact COVID has had on them, and my employer has been incredibly flexible in making sure they are able to take care of themselves.

I (also as a non-parent) have been mostly ok, but I've been taking more Fridays off than I would otherwise, just to have some more recharge time.

But I don't think there's necessarily a one-size-fits-all allowance solution. Taking care of a grandparent does not require the same time commitment, and, crucially, the same lack of control over one's schedule, as child care. Barring emergencies, you can schedule when you take care of your grandparent. With children, you are on call all day long, and kids can and will interrupt you for whatever (or no) reason. You can't just put them in a room by themselves for 8 hours and expect things to go well. Hell, with most young kids you can't even put them in a room by themselves for 30 minutes and expect things to go well.

"What if I have no children but I have a grandparent who is ill and requires care"

At least where I work you are entitled to the same leave that is being offered to parents to help anyone in your family/household/etc.

"Perhaps we should relax the expectations for EVERYONE and not find one circumstance more special than others"

Like other parents I made it clear to my boss that if I was required to work from home my productivity would be lower because there is a toddler running around my workspace. It is not that my circumstance is "more special" as much as that I am being required to work from an environment that makes work more difficult. My company operates a large system of offices for the purpose of providing employees with a workspace that improves productivity and I have been forbidden to enter any of those offices for six months.

(Just to be clear on what it means for a toddler to play in your workspace, given the opportunity my son will try to "type" on my keyboard and wreak havoc on whatever code I am writing. If I close the door, he will start banging on it and then crying if nobody opens it up. If I step into the kitchen to get some coffee he will chase after me and demand that I read him a book, and if I go back to my workspace he will start crying. My son is starting to figure out doorknobs and it is likely that by the end of this month I will not actually be able to keep him out of my workspace by closing the door.)