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What I've seen is the complaints are largely coming from couples that want to raise kids while both parents work full time jobs. Asking for fewer hours so you c

by ng12 6y ago

What I've seen is the complaints are largely coming from couples that want to raise kids while both parents work full time jobs. Asking for fewer hours so you can continue that lifestyle is asking your employer and fellow employees to subsidize your second income, not your ability to have and raise children. My coworkers with SAH spouses aren't feeling the burn anywhere near as badly -- it's just an extended summer for them. I feel a lot of empathy for single parents but those seem to be relatively rare in the field.

puszczyk 6y ago
I think school and day care are a reasonable assumption. It’s a bit unfair to say — _keep your spouse at home because there maybe once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and the schools will be closed_.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  It's more fair to say "save some money for a rainy day" or "you will have to sacrifice some of your quality of life and savings due to the pandemic".
  - christinamltn 6y ago
    But right now you very often can’t apply money to fix these problems.
mc32 6y ago
I would definitely agree the ones hit hardest would be the single parents and would deserve the most flexibility. That would be tough. With regard to dual income parents. I’d give them some slack, but as always, abuse of good intentions is why we end up not having good things. I’d hope they’d be able to trade roles during their respective busy times. As I’ve said before... it’s very rare anyone performs above 50% of their time “working”. So it’s not like WFH (or office) is like hamsters in a hamster wheel all day long. If they can coördinate switching on and off they should be able to pull it off with exceptions.
- coffeemaniac 6y ago
  > I’d give them some slack, but as always, abuse of good intentions is why we end up not having good things Taking marital status into account of how much "slack" you grant an employee is forbidden by law.
CydeWeys 6y ago
In modern society it's basically required that both parents work full-time jobs. It's not the 50s anymore; you can't support an entire household with children on one income. So you can't have the expectation that one of the parents give up a large chunk of their salary just to have kids. If you do structure society in this way then you get rapidly declining birth rates and very bad long-term population demographic problems (which many countries are already dealing with). Personally I think the best solution would be to have universal child care going down to age 0 (rather than just age 5 as it is now), which is common in many other countries. Because of efficiencies of scale, that's cheaper than subsidizing all the foregone salary required by parents all individually giving up one of their two household jobs to devote to child-rearing.
- rayiner 6y ago
  It’s not just the cost of childcare. Since divorce became acceptable, it became a huge liability for women to exit the workforce and permanently give up earning power to raise children. I’ve seen this first hand in my family and it’s really difficult.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    > Since divorce became acceptable, it became a huge liability for women to exit the workforce and permanently give up earning power to raise children. Where are these anecdotes from? Of the divorced men I know in California - they're on the hook for a lot of money. Their wives chose to not work (first few years to do childcare - remaining years because they didn't want to). The women didn't want to be in the relationship anymore and got a divorce. The men end up owing their spouses alimony for decades plus child support (regardless of where the kids spend the most time). As a straight man, I've decided to not marry based on their horror stories alone. I see marrying someone who wants to be a SAHM as a huge financial liability not in just temporary loss of earning potential but in near permanent levels of loss due to potential divorce.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      My mother in law gave up a job as an executive (where she was earning more than her surgeon husband) to be a stay at home mom. Coming back into the workforce 20 years later when the marriage deteriorated was nearly impossible. I don’t know what horror stories you’ve seen. But for most ordinary men, alimony and child support add up to very little. If you make $75,000, maintenance for a 15 year marriage in which the other spouse earned nothing adds up to $22,000 a year. And it ends in about 11 years. A significant hit, no doubt, but if the other spouse had similar earning potential (which is typical these days—people tend to match up with people of similar education) it won’t come close to covering the lifetime loss in post-divorce earnings. It can be different if a high earning person marries someone who has limited earning power, but that’s the exception these days.
satyrnein 6y ago
This is a fair point that I had not considered. The more positive spin is that it's a sacrifice to move toward an egalitarian society where women have the same career options as men.
sulam 6y ago
Just keep in mind, those people working two full time jobs might be barely making ends meeting in Silicon Valley. Maybe one is a tech writer earning 5-figures and the other is a nurse with a schedule they don't control and that doesn't give them real benefits (this is all too common). They can't afford to quit and now they have to juggle kids, too. Everything worked fine when the kids were in school and they could pay for after school care, but now both of those options have been removed. On top of everything else they also have to figure out how to organize their 3 bedroom place into two classrooms and an office. Oh and for the cherry on top, now you can't even be outside safely without a high quality mask on. And yes, I'm thinking of a specific couple -- this is not a made up situation.
- umvi 6y ago
  I hate to say "move", but if dual income is super hard to make ends meet in SV, it's time to move out of SV. The US is huge, there are tons of places with decent tech scene, but affordable housing on a 5-figure salary without needing dual income (Texas, Utah, etc.).
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    It's easy to say move, but much harder to actually do it. A lot of people flat out cannot afford to move half-way across the country, period, full stop, nor can they afford the added risk of getting new jobs. Plus, odds are good their salary where they're moving to is less, so it's not clear that they'll easily now be able to survive on a single salary anyway. Plus, this solution isn't highly scalable; only so many people can do it.
    - ryanobjc 6y ago
      Plus when you land there, you won't be getting help or support. So toss all your support network for more space. For some that's reasonable, but for many it is not, and presuming that it's their own 'fault' for not moving is not charitable.
      - 6y ago
jtsiskin 6y ago
I’m not sure I buy this argument due to the disruptions of COVID. Pre-COVID, both parents working full time may have made total sense. With daycare, nannies, and/or school it’s perfectly reasonable both parents can have full time jobs. One parent may have even delayed their career during the youngest years and only recently resumed work. The issue now is COVID makes these childcare options impossible, so it isn’t the parents fault for both working, and they have a momentary huge increase in childcare responsibility. This is not something they could have planned for and suggesting one parent quits their job and stays at home is unfair.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Privatized the gains, socialize the losses?
MaximumYComb 6y ago
I'm a single parent working full time from home in addition to some university that's online too. My children are young, right at the beginning of their school experience (7 and 5). It's not too bad. I spent years working my arse off after I became a single parent so I could have a career that also lets me be an involved parent. This year was meant to be my first relaxing year. It hasn't worked out that way but it's still an easier year for me than 2019 and 2018. I would go two months straight with 100-110 hours per week of time commitments. Maybe I have an advantage because I'm used to not having free time. Home schooling is at most 30 hours per week but in reality far less unless your child has special needs. My 7 year old is mostly autonomous. Let's assume 40 hours per week of work. That's still only 70 hours per week. People might need to just manage their hours better each week. I do a lot of homeschooling on weekends, the work we missed during the week when my kids needed help but I was busy. I don't see any reason schooling on weekends would be an issue?
zem 6y ago
it's not "your" second income, it's your spouse's first income! one person, one income.

by ng12 6y ago

puszczyk 6y ago

I think school and day care are a reasonable assumption. It’s a bit unfair to say — _keep your spouse at home because there maybe once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and the schools will be closed_.

alisonkisk 6y ago
It's more fair to say "save some money for a rainy day" or "you will have to sacrifice some of your quality of life and savings due to the pandemic".
- christinamltn 6y ago
  But right now you very often can’t apply money to fix these problems.

mc32 6y ago

I would definitely agree the ones hit hardest would be the single parents and would deserve the most flexibility. That would be tough. With regard to dual income parents. I’d give them some slack, but as always, abuse of good intentions is why we end up not having good things. I’d hope they’d be able to trade roles during their respective busy times. As I’ve said before... it’s very rare anyone performs above 50% of their time “working”. So it’s not like WFH (or office) is like hamsters in a hamster wheel all day long. If they can coördinate switching on and off they should be able to pull it off with exceptions.

coffeemaniac 6y ago
> I’d give them some slack, but as always, abuse of good intentions is why we end up not having good things Taking marital status into account of how much "slack" you grant an employee is forbidden by law.

CydeWeys 6y ago

In modern society it's basically required that both parents work full-time jobs. It's not the 50s anymore; you can't support an entire household with children on one income. So you can't have the expectation that one of the parents give up a large chunk of their salary just to have kids. If you do structure society in this way then you get rapidly declining birth rates and very bad long-term population demographic problems (which many countries are already dealing with). Personally I think the best solution would be to have universal child care going down to age 0 (rather than just age 5 as it is now), which is common in many other countries. Because of efficiencies of scale, that's cheaper than subsidizing all the foregone salary required by parents all individually giving up one of their two household jobs to devote to child-rearing.

rayiner 6y ago
It’s not just the cost of childcare. Since divorce became acceptable, it became a huge liability for women to exit the workforce and permanently give up earning power to raise children. I’ve seen this first hand in my family and it’s really difficult.
- bradlys 6y ago
  > Since divorce became acceptable, it became a huge liability for women to exit the workforce and permanently give up earning power to raise children. Where are these anecdotes from? Of the divorced men I know in California - they're on the hook for a lot of money. Their wives chose to not work (first few years to do childcare - remaining years because they didn't want to). The women didn't want to be in the relationship anymore and got a divorce. The men end up owing their spouses alimony for decades plus child support (regardless of where the kids spend the most time). As a straight man, I've decided to not marry based on their horror stories alone. I see marrying someone who wants to be a SAHM as a huge financial liability not in just temporary loss of earning potential but in near permanent levels of loss due to potential divorce.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    My mother in law gave up a job as an executive (where she was earning more than her surgeon husband) to be a stay at home mom. Coming back into the workforce 20 years later when the marriage deteriorated was nearly impossible. I don’t know what horror stories you’ve seen. But for most ordinary men, alimony and child support add up to very little. If you make $75,000, maintenance for a 15 year marriage in which the other spouse earned nothing adds up to $22,000 a year. And it ends in about 11 years. A significant hit, no doubt, but if the other spouse had similar earning potential (which is typical these days—people tend to match up with people of similar education) it won’t come close to covering the lifetime loss in post-divorce earnings. It can be different if a high earning person marries someone who has limited earning power, but that’s the exception these days.

satyrnein 6y ago

This is a fair point that I had not considered. The more positive spin is that it's a sacrifice to move toward an egalitarian society where women have the same career options as men.

sulam 6y ago

Just keep in mind, those people working two full time jobs might be barely making ends meeting in Silicon Valley. Maybe one is a tech writer earning 5-figures and the other is a nurse with a schedule they don't control and that doesn't give them real benefits (this is all too common). They can't afford to quit and now they have to juggle kids, too. Everything worked fine when the kids were in school and they could pay for after school care, but now both of those options have been removed. On top of everything else they also have to figure out how to organize their 3 bedroom place into two classrooms and an office. Oh and for the cherry on top, now you can't even be outside safely without a high quality mask on. And yes, I'm thinking of a specific couple -- this is not a made up situation.

umvi 6y ago
I hate to say "move", but if dual income is super hard to make ends meet in SV, it's time to move out of SV. The US is huge, there are tons of places with decent tech scene, but affordable housing on a 5-figure salary without needing dual income (Texas, Utah, etc.).
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  It's easy to say move, but much harder to actually do it. A lot of people flat out cannot afford to move half-way across the country, period, full stop, nor can they afford the added risk of getting new jobs. Plus, odds are good their salary where they're moving to is less, so it's not clear that they'll easily now be able to survive on a single salary anyway. Plus, this solution isn't highly scalable; only so many people can do it.
  - ryanobjc 6y ago
    Plus when you land there, you won't be getting help or support. So toss all your support network for more space. For some that's reasonable, but for many it is not, and presuming that it's their own 'fault' for not moving is not charitable.
    - 6y ago

jtsiskin 6y ago

I’m not sure I buy this argument due to the disruptions of COVID. Pre-COVID, both parents working full time may have made total sense. With daycare, nannies, and/or school it’s perfectly reasonable both parents can have full time jobs. One parent may have even delayed their career during the youngest years and only recently resumed work. The issue now is COVID makes these childcare options impossible, so it isn’t the parents fault for both working, and they have a momentary huge increase in childcare responsibility. This is not something they could have planned for and suggesting one parent quits their job and stays at home is unfair.

alisonkisk 6y ago
Privatized the gains, socialize the losses?

MaximumYComb 6y ago

I'm a single parent working full time from home in addition to some university that's online too. My children are young, right at the beginning of their school experience (7 and 5). It's not too bad. I spent years working my arse off after I became a single parent so I could have a career that also lets me be an involved parent. This year was meant to be my first relaxing year. It hasn't worked out that way but it's still an easier year for me than 2019 and 2018. I would go two months straight with 100-110 hours per week of time commitments. Maybe I have an advantage because I'm used to not having free time. Home schooling is at most 30 hours per week but in reality far less unless your child has special needs. My 7 year old is mostly autonomous. Let's assume 40 hours per week of work. That's still only 70 hours per week. People might need to just manage their hours better each week. I do a lot of homeschooling on weekends, the work we missed during the week when my kids needed help but I was busy. I don't see any reason schooling on weekends would be an issue?

zem 6y ago

it's not "your" second income, it's your spouse's first income! one person, one income.