
Parents Ready for Some Love from Silicon Valley Companies - vkb
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/us/parents-ready-for-some-love-from-silicon-valley-companies.html
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outside1234
This is great. That said, is it also time for child-less employees to get some
love as well?

For example, its very difficult (aka impossible) to get equivalent leave as a
child-less employee to pursue our passions for a month or two.

Note: I am not talking about taking a vacation. I am talking about taking
leave to go volunteer in a literacy program (in my case).

Said another way, why is leave tied to having kids?

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Qworg
Leave is tied to having children because having children means you can't walk
away or take a break. The time off with your child isn't time you get to
choose - instead, you're at the beck and call of a helpless human who relies
on you for everything.

In your example, if you were sick or didn't feel like it for the day, you
could just choose not to go in. You simply don't get that choice with kids.

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aianus
> The time off with your child isn't time you get to choose - instead, you're
> at the beck and call of a helpless human who relies on you for everything.

You chose to have a child. Why should our employer subsidize that choice any
more than my choice to go to India for a few months to 'find myself' or
whatever.

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Shog9
A co-worker explained it thusly: if you want to attract folks who have (or
plan to have) children, you have to offer them a way to do so while working
for you... Or they'll go with a different employer who does. Of course, in the
past it's been common for NO ONE to offer such benefits, which also works. If
you simply don't care about attracting parents, you can not offer these
benefits (though nowdays you'll be limited in how much you can cut them by
various employment laws).

If you want a job that gives you a few months off every year or so to go on a
spiritual journey, then your best bet is to negotiate that up-front, keeping
in mind that - like parents - you'll be reducing the number of places willing
to hire you by doing so.

Don't like it? I don't blame you. But I can tell you about plenty of folks who
lost their jobs when they had kids and didn't like it either.

~~~
username223
> if you want to attract folks who have (or plan to have) children, you have
> to offer them a way to do so while working for you...

Thanks to modern science and moral bankruptcy, you can do this for a small
fee. See
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30Surrogate-t.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30Surrogate-t.html)

