Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

Re:Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees du... by ShroudedNight on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @06:04PM (#24414067)

While giving every employee personal time may well be the right answer, I also believe that we should acknowledge that, at least up until recently, there was an on-going social contract that society had that provided parents with additional time as an on-going investment into the health of our social fabric, and that, in a sense, we have already benefited (at least in aggregate) from the dividend payed by the previous generation. I think there's a cogent argument to be made that by not paying it forward, we are breaching the duty incurred when we received the benefit as children.

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Re:Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees du... by lotsofpulp on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @06:29PM (#24414335)

I think most societies around the world didn't and don't provide parents with any additional time. It just so happened the that most people had children and elders/women could raise them while the men kept working. Not to say that women didn't work, but whatever they did allowed them to keep an eye on kids, or relatives/neighbors did.

Also, increasing the population is one of the most damaging things to the environment, so there's an argument that not having kids is paying it forward to future generations also.

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Re:Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees du... by mensetmanusman on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @11:27AM (#24422076)

Depends on the time scale.

If you care about the short term, then yes.

If you care about humanity leaving the solar system before the heat death (or asteroid, whatever), then no.

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Re:Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees du... by lotsofpulp on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @11:46AM (#24422261)

There’s still many, many years of research left before any possibility of space travel. But to make it there, the earth has to remain inhabitable. This is a decent chart showing how quickly things are changing:

https://xkcd.com/1732/

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Re:Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees du... by zo1 on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @08:08AM (#24420102)

> "Also, increasing the population is one of the most damaging things to the environment, so there's an argument that not having kids is paying it forward to future generations also. "

No, that's paying it forward for the children of those that choose not to think as conscientiously as yourself on the matter of taking care of the environment. That's not the world I want to live in.

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Re:Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees du... by newen on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @06:48PM (#24414518)

Ridiculous argument since, you know, the human race dies out if no one has kids.

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Re:Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees du... by lotsofpulp on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @06:51PM (#24414535)

Let's re-state it to a person enjoying life in a developed country, especially for many on this forum, would pay it forward by not having kids due to their level of consumption.

We know the culprit is excess consumption of fossil fuels among other resources, and we know if people have the option of consuming them, they will. Therefore, you can generalize it to mean reducing the population of people who may be in a position to consume at levels similar to the personal car, single family home with a yard family, driving 15,000 miles per year would help the planet.

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Re:Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees du... by ThrowawayR2 on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @10:20PM (#24416158)

From a biological standpoint, those individuals are simply culling their own genes from the gene pool and therefore effectively evolutionally selecting for people who want to have children, causing the exact opposite of what they want. Rather ironic.

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Re:Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees du... by Firadeoclus on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @08:15AM (#24420161)

Considering how birth rates have dropped across the globe over the last century, it clearly isn't dominated by genetic factors. Wanting to have children is far more memetic than genetic.

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