Tweedle needle weedle

Last week’s Observer had an article called Smug Parents, complaining about similar things. Predictable storm of letters follows. Yesterday’s Observer carried a follow-up article from the original writer, complaining that parents and non-parents are polarized. Sometimes I weep for the world.

Thanks for expanding my knowledge of Irish slang (which is not difficult starting from a near-zero baseline!). A little Googling turned up http://www.corkslang.com which clued me in on what a “langer” is. Gotta love CT- learn something here every day.

In every company I’ve worked for, those with children have been given priority over those without, and it is frustrating.

Too often, I’ve been treated as if, because I did not have any kids, I had all the free time in the world, when in reality, I probably had just as many committments and obligations as my co-workers with children.

No, I shouldn’t be the one always picked to work on the weekend because I have not chosen to have half a dozen brats.

And, of course, refusing earns approbation only.

It’s a valid point — after all, you choose to have kids.

Everyone should be treated equally.

Mike, that’s interesting. Where I’m employed, everyone is treated equally — anyone can take advantage of flextime and/or telecommuting when something comes up. Ironically, the only people who do take advantage are the parents. Perhaps there’s a larger problem with the culture at your employer.

bmj: The issue of discriminatory application of flextime policies is addressed in the (perfectly decent) article being mocked by the original post.

Kieran, based on the link posted by Steve Labonne, can you verify if you meant langer(1) or langer(2)?

David

How do you know Mike isn’t a lone carer for a disabled or ill parent/spouse/partner? That takes up a lot of time and is a known health risk and is a form of work that is largely unrecognised (etc.).

“if you’re feeling gypped over all the advantages that co-workers with children enjoy…”

The word these days is ‘roma-ed’.

Sheesh dude, venemous sarcasm seems a bit over the top here.

The article isn’t a stupid one. It gives good advice. People without kids are not oppressed as a class, but there is no reason for a childless individual to be taken advantage of. The article makes the point that working late and weekends can be good for your career and that it may be better to pick up the extra work and be seen as a go-getter rather than just stew in your resentment of people with kids.

If you really are being taken advantage of it is better to speak up. The fifties version of the family friendly work enviroment was to preferentially hire and promote men on the theory that they had to support a family. Women were right to complain.

Kieran . . . the sarcasm and dismissiveness in your post is a good example of why academics have failed so miserably at winning the hearts and minds of the Middle Class.

The problem the questioner asks about may seem trivial to people who spend their days thinking about truly important issues like the “macro-sociology of economic institutions, the social basis of self-interest and altruism, and the organization of exchange in human goods”, but it is a real problem for those who spend 60-plus hours per week toiling to earn their daily bread.

Cam

Right — thank you. I’m disabled but failed to see that point, which is absurd (I probably missed it because I haven’t got a job).

In other words, if we had taken your suggestion and shut the hell up we wouldn’t have the benefit now.

Most places I’ve worked, it’s been pretty easy to just pretend such a policy exists, and go ahead and take your salsa lessons.

Although that kind of requires a smart manager with discretion, and doesn’t work well when the HR department has a strong power base and too much time on its hands.

After my co-worker “Suzy” came back from maternity leave, my boss told me I was expected to take on extra assignments that “Suzy” couldn’t finish due to her having to leave on time to pick her child up from daycare. I informed my boss that if “Suzy” couldn’t fulfill the job requirements maybe she should find other employment. Her private life was of no concern to me and that if I started working even longer hours than I already was, I would never have the opportunity of my own family life. My boss dropped the subject and didn’t make me do “Suzy” job.

How can any sane person equate salsa lessons with caring for a child?

The point isn’t to compare them, Steve. It’s that companies that have an equitable flextime policy, in which everyone has a pot of free time to draw on for whatever family or personal reasons they see fit, avoid having unhappy staff. Or we can be unhappy about different benefits! That’s all.

To endorse a point made above, if everyone either knocked off at 5pm or went on to overtime rates, a lot of these concerns (not all, but many) would be irrelevant. It’s the attempt by bosses to demand 24/7 ownership of their workers that’s the big problem here.

This is a real issue at a lot of workplaces. If leaving at five to pick up kids from daycare is acceptable and leaving at five to get ready for a date is not, your employer is implicitly ranking your off-duty activities.

Of course, the employer is the one to blame for understaffing. But if the workplace culture (meaning both parents and the, er, blissfully child free) encourage such a ranking, and if parents see childfree co-workers as a resource to be taped when their kid is sick, and complaints to be “langerous”, then the blame should be spread around more widely.

And from this post, I’m pretty glad I don’t work with Kieran Healy. What a Langer.

Kieran,

Since you’ve apologized for your snarkiness, I guess I better be gracious and apologize for mine as well.

I do want to say, however, that the point I made isn’t complete bollocks: it’s exactly the kind of attitude that the right-wing uses to “prove” that we are ivory-tower elitists. And this argument has unfortunately stuck and hurt us as we try to get our ideas across to the general public.

So you and “Suzie” are lined up for a promotion. Who gets it?

There are some advantages to being a flexible plug-in work unit with few dietary restrictions and nothing to get in the way of your ambition.

I think you could make the argument that childless people, by virtue of being able to work the longer hours, are rewarded career-wise. I know from experience in corporate America, if you’re not a team player (i.e. willing to give up just about anything for the job), you’re not going to go far. The sad thing to me was how many men with children were willing to give up time with their kids.

Man, what’s with the bitter breeders?

Caring for a child is exactly comprable to salsa lessons, in terms of what people choose to do with their lives. One person demonstrably values caring for children over salsa lessons by doing so. Ditto the reverse.

Absent other criteria, it isn’t a manager’s place to value one higher than the other for their employees.

If you disagree, then perhaps you also don’t mind your manager valuing doing volunteer work for Republicans over work for Democrats for you.

jet: the only reason you don’t think you’re exploited is that you’re rich.

And so when will you support _any_ labour law at all? First you say that you’ll wait until India has laws against overtime, then you say that you’ll want until India has high wages. What other condition are you going to set next?

And besides, I thought it’s the US who usually sets trends for other countries, not the other way round. If the US starts forcing everyone to pay overtime after 40 hours, the rest of the world will follow suit.

I’m generally against labor laws in the US since real wages are so much higher than most of the world . . .

Could it be that it is exactly those labor laws that have resulted in our higher wages?

When the rest of the world catches up with the US with wages . . .

Are they catching up with us or we catching up with them?

This is just a case of equal pay for equal work. People without children shouldn’t have to do more than people with children when they’re employed to do the same job. Kieran would never posted like that if the complaint was that men were getting a better deal than women because they have a wife and family to support.

I think some people are abandoning the idea of equal pay for equal work. The idea that men should get a better deal than women on account of family responsibilities has been abandoned, but there are plenty of people who think that people with children are entitled to a better deal than those without.

“[…] but there are plenty of people who think that people with children are entitled to a better deal than those without.”

And then people worry about a lack of future population to pay for their retirement.

DSW

Nikolai – “This is just a case of equal pay for equal work.”

In a very particular sense, yes. Most of the complaints seem to be about parents doing the forty hours a week they’re contracted to do, and then (the slack bastards) going home. What ‘some people are abandoning’ is the idea of a forty hour work week – they’re complaining that if they ‘have to’ do unpaid overtime, then everyone should.

… and then all my taxes go to give their children trust-fund bank accounts from the government (US readers: it is true), paying their kids through university, and 2/3 of my (unbelievable) council tax (paid in pounds that have already been taxed once) goes on schools — from the governance of which I am excluded, while the police (that use the rest of my council tax) spend half their time dealing with marital violence. But of course, I’ll get the benefits of these young workers’ productivity (that would be just as likely to occur without all the state spending lavished on them) and they’ll pay my pension (like, really).

charlie b.: oh, and of course, in a utopian libertarian society where there are no taxes, the forces of the free market will ensure that marital violence suddenly ceases to exist. w00t w00t w00t!

If singles are a persecuted minority, it’s not for this reason.

I don’t know Charlie Bourne so will say what I’d say, but noting that 1) not all married people have children, 2) not all people with children are married, 3) that my taxes pay for police and other action against spousal abuse and other forms of “domestic violence” is fine by me, 4) that I should really see schools I don’t use as having benign externalities in that it is in my interest that children are educated (but I do have to tell myself that sometimes!).

Single non-parents have to pay more in tax and all singles have to pay (in my pension scheme) for pensions for spouses. The single tend to pay more for housing, probably have heavier utility bills. It’s difficult if not impossible in some kinds of work for singles without children not to take up the slack for *some* people with children without being called — yes — a bad team player. Singles may or may not get adequate pension provision, if they do it may or may not be paid for by other people’s children; they most certainly will not be cared for by their children in their old age (a slightly scary thought to anyone who’s known childless people in nursing homes).

But the real problem with this thread (not with all the contributions) is an overhomogenous view of the various categorical groups involved here (a view the original post, I’d say, encouraged). Not all single child-free people are employed; not all people with children are disadvantaged, “career-wise”, relative to the child-free, because they need — as they may do — to take time out when a child’s injured; much depends on the job and the employer. That having been said

1. married people with children do tend to be socially advantaged relative to single people

2. though I don’t believe our choices are totally “free” and know no-one has perfect information, still, most married people choose to get married and most people with children chose to have children.

3. That many single people are single by choice is not an acceptable reply to 1. and 2.

Jayanne, what a great post – and not just for the degree of support for my view. Indeed, part of the problem is that the positive externalities of state-funded educational provision are often so hard to see – and specific ones that one would expect are so ostentatiously lacking. Nor is local school policy considerate of, or governorship extended to the childless. To some extent inevitable, this would be less of a problem for me if the costs had not become so high, and the waste so endemic. One way to control this escalation would be to weight the costs of education in the direction of parents, so that they had an interest in keeping costs down and avoiding waste – which would then benefit me.

To be proocative again – the costs of policing marital violence (if political society really does think the police should be intruded into this area that has nothing to do with their proper role) should be borne by those who cause it, that is substantial fines, colleced by attaching wages on those found guilty; and charges on those who call the police and then decline to assist in bringing a prosecution.

BTW –

Rothausen et al. (1998) Family-friendly backlash – fact or fiction: The case of organizations’ on-site child care centers. Personnel Psychology, 51, 685-706.

t.v. –

I had to laugh when reading your comment. I am quite familiar with the stereotyped animosities and misunderstandings toward professors and your comments are on-target.

It’s noon where I am and I just returned from a nice morning walk on the ocean shore with my dogs. I’m working at my summer ocean-side home in British Columbia after travelling from eastern Canada a couple of weeks ago. I needed a break from writing on the computer so I went outside.

After my 12 years of a 10-12 hours a day corporate life, I greatly value the flexibility I have in my schedule now. I agree, though, that colleagues with no significant non-academic work experience may not have that understanding and appreciation.

My wife likes to watch people’s reactions when she tells them that I only teach 2 classes a term. They don’t understand how I can only ‘work’ for 6 hours a week.

How can any sane person equate salsa lessons with caring for a child?

BZZT! That’s not a judgment you get to make. And any employer who offers flextime equally across the board isn’t going down the slippery slope of judging whose lifestyle choices are better or more valid than the next person’s. Having kids doesn’t make one automatically more worthy of the elusive “work-life balace” we keep hearing about.