gones00n

I respectfully disagree on the need to fund the military.

How might we use the trillions of dollars spent on the military for education, healthcare, retirement and other betterment initiatives for U.S. citizens? If hypothetically all nations agreed on world peace, then having a military becomes superfluous but the would-be soldiers can find other meaningful professions in society rather than being soldiers.

Again I'm not against supporting parents. Just when there's immarginal benefits being conferred, that are not available to non-parents.

My original response was to highlight that perhaps we shouldn't be elevating child-raising as a completely altruistic, society-benefiting endeavor. We're talking about a few tech companies, which is not representative of the U.S. (nevermind human civilization).

"Amortized value to society" seems a very one-sided portrayal. Why should I earn less than someone who has kids, when skill/experience/contribution are equal?

Being a parent is a personal choice in today's day and age, especially for highly-paid tech employees. Let's not paint it as some altruistic gift to mankind.

I'm not advocating some "Children of Men" fictional dystopia. There will always be kids, maybe just not the white collar tech worker too worried about career progression. For example, outside of my own kids, I'm agnostic on my coworker's kid or some stranger in Africa's.

Overpopulation is also a problem. As long as humans can migrate, I'm not convinced of some lasting labor shortage hypothesis.

Well said. It's a bit farcical that this discussion has degenerated into "I have kids for the better of society".

Let's stick to the simpler rationale that some people have kids because they love kids and/or want to pass down their genes.

There's risk in every major life decision, including having kids.

I hope I'm not coming off as anti-children but while parents couldn't have anticipated the pandemic and its impact, they need to react to the circumstances. If their home situation requires it, then they should switch to part-time or even quit temporarily.

I also agree with giving parents "extra slack", though again there are limits. At this rate the pandemic will remain with us for another year. The onus is probably in company leadership to make the necessary changes and not have colleagues start to resent one another.

"Benefit society as a whole" sounds good in theory but rarely works in practice because people are inherently self-interested. A simple counterargument is that someone's kids may not turn out at all to be productive members of society.

Fundamentally corporations are different to the government. So whereas government can tax and progressively tax to soften wealth inequalities, corporations ultimately need to be profitable and revenue-positive to survive. A corporation can create benefits for certain employee demographics but there are financial limits.

A dystopic result would be the separation of employees based on their parental status: most non-parents work for Company A, and most parents work for Company B. I wonder which of the 2 companies will be more successful (at least financially) in the long run.

The former. You promote objectively rather than subjectively.

Parents may just need to adjust their own expectations/career trajectories and consider 2020 a "lost year" of sorts. There's always 2021 and beyond to make up for lost time once things are back to normal. Competing against those without families feels like an unwinnable war.

I wonder why tech companies aren't allowing the option to change from full-time (100%) to part-time (60%), while retaining all the benefits especially healthcare in the U.S.

This can help ensure that everyone is being measured fairly - for example parents can opt to change to 60% and their role/responsibilities will be adjusted accordingly. Management will be able to hire to fill the gaps. Conversely if you're a parent that opts not to change to part-time and fails to deliver per the full-time expectations, then you get a "NI" rating or PIP.

Seems like this might normalize the compensation/recognition dimension at the heart of this debate. For parents that feel they can't stomach the pay cut from the switch, then there's no option but to work nights/weekends.