Comment of the Day 04/30
Are parents a benefit to the workplace?
"Do Single People Work More?" User daenerra thinks that's probably true. Additionally, she thinks that special concessions should not be made for parents.
Whether or not you are a parent has no bearing on what kind of work you
produce. Single people bring just as much to the table as parents.
Maybe it's the field I work in. I'm an engineer. All that talk about
"different perspectives" really don't matter in my world. It's all in
the numbers, you're either right or you're wrong. You can't have a
different "perspective" on physics.
It's a pretty interesting conversation happening over there. Care to weigh in?
Discussion
That is why I work on weekends and I hate it why because there isn't that much going in my life to a point it's going to interupt with work I usaully come up with good lies not to work I mean even on my days off I get called in imagine relaxing hanging out with friends and my manager calls me and needs me to fill in for someone who really has kids and a wife so yes single people do work more have the crazy hours the scheudule that nobody wants most single people or students and work so imagine having time to date if i deal with someone in my circumstances student and work our shedules are filled the day she is off I work the day I'm off she is taking even classes it consumes alot.
Having been childless for many years, I think it's hard to get across just how different your life is when you have kids. You never have time off.
You see parents going home and wish you could have time off. They're not having time off. They're going home to their other job. They'd like to do all the things you mention - spend time with the woman they love, play with their game system, etc. The difference is that you are getting to do those things.
Before you have kids, you have so much time you don't realize is yours. On the weekend you can have sex, read the paper for an hour, and then wander out for a bagel. You can hang out in a coffee shop watching people after work. You can spend a couple of hours cooking a nice dinner together. You can go for a walk because you feel like it whenever.
I think the most important reason to support parents is just the social contract. We're all going to need nurses and doctors to take care of us someday - and workers to pay taxes and staff the businesses that pay for our retirement. Producing kids is a valuable part of the economy that you don't get paid for.
Besides, most of us become parents someday and benefit from a system that supports parents.
I get a little half-and-half-and half again on this. Work is work. We were all hired to do a job and get paid for that job. Commonly, the single person is expected to do more because, well, we're single. We don't have a wife ready to go psycho on the kids waiting at home because her most intelligent conversational topic of the day was, "Yes dear, Barney is a dinosaur." We don't have school plays, soccer tournaments, or other parent oriented social events to take care of. I, as a single person in the workforce, don't mind covering for a buddy who wants to go spend time with his family.
But I want my free time as well. I didn't choose for them to be in a family, and I don't live to work. So I expect reciprocation. I expect to have my time off. So she is not my wife, she is my girlfriend and I adore spending time with her. Yes, they aren't my children, but my game systems can be very precious to me. Just because I'm single in the work place doesn't mean that I'm not just as entitled to my time off from work.
Parents work hard to put food on the table and their kids through college (hopefully). Singles work hard...well...for whatever reason it is that they want to. No group produces more than the other by association. Either you've always been a hard worker or you haven't.
