“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences

Everyone should be treated the same at work. Sounds like a simple idea that most people can get behind, right? However, when you expand on that and mention that all workers should be treated equally, whether they have children or not, the conversation can get heated.

One redditor, u/Working_Falcon5384, shared their ‘unpopular opinion’ that every employee should be treated the same, regardless of the children they (don’t) have, on the popular r/antiwork subreddit. Their post quickly went viral and inspired other Reddit users to share their experiences of how having children can grant someone privileges while being ‘childfree’ can actually harm you professionally and financially, depending on your employer’s approach.

We’ve collected these stories for you to read so you can understand how workplace inequality functions when someone high up thinks that you don’t have a family if you don’t have kids yet. If you’ve ever seen someone being treated unfairly because they don’t have munchkins or have experienced it yourself, let us know in the comments.

This post may include affiliate links.

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences I was once denied time off on Christmas Day that I requested months in advance so I could travel home to my family.

The manager looked me straight in the eyes and said “you don’t need Christmas Day off, you don’t have kids, you don’t have a real family!”

I was 25 and wanted to go home to see my parents and siblings. Not having kids doesn’t mean you don’t have a family. F**k that mindset.

KylosLeftHand , S&B Vonlanthen Report

Final score:

219points

POST

Mag Swag 2 years ago

ANYONE that you share happy memories with that you love is your family. siblings, parents, pets, best friends, weather or not tou have children shouldn’t matter

43points

View more comments

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences I am an essential employee and it's always so frustrating to here people complain about so and so taking Christmas off because they don't have kids. They still have family and regardless, if it's their turn to get Christmas off they don't need to justify it to anybody. They can sit at home by themselves if they want.

Rickyv490 Report

Final score:

173points

POST

LH25 2 years ago

I totally agree with the line about not having to justify it!

49points

View More Replies...

View more comments

Redditor u/Working_Falcon5384’s post got over 40k upvotes in just 3 days. The topic they broached was very relatable to a lot of people, as you can see from the 3.5k comments that were written in the thread.

The general sentiment among various employers seems to be that anyone with children should be prioritized; meanwhile, those who have family members they’d love to spend the holidays with but don’t actually have kids are left at the end of the queue. Unfair? Definitely, if the workplace cares about equality at all. Family is family, whatever form it takes.

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences Me - “ I need to leave right at 5pm today I have a previous engagement to get too”

Employer - “ oh yeah? Did you buy a new video game? Lol “

Me - “you let Chris leave early yesterday, I just need to be out the door right at 5pm, not even early”

Employer - “ He had to pick his kids up from school, you can wait 30 minutes...”

Every job I’ve ever worked has cut SO much slack for parents, and the single and childless staff have had to suck it up - it so bulls**t. Whenever there is a snow day every parent calls in sick, and if a single person happens to call in that day they get accused of being hungover or faking. Not cool bro.

DarkintoLeaves , NeONBRAND Report

Final score:

147points

POST

Victorya Chase 2 years ago

I was at a job where they HR people were complaining that people had put in for time off for a new game dropping and to play it. So what? They don't have to give a reason, they have the time, they follow the policy, let people enjoy their lives how they see fit.

66points

View More Replies...

View more comments

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences I was a department supervisor at a large department store and would always be scheduled the closing shift every holiday. I never had any of the major holidays off because I was the only one who didnt have kids. One year I put my foot down and demanded they give me Halloween off. I had to fight with the store manager, it helped I had kept every schedule and could show I closed every holiday for the prior three years. So they gave it to me to be off and when the schedule was posted one of the supes with kids came and asked me to take her shift. I told her no and that I had requested it off and she gave me s**t because "I'm going to miss out on taking my kids trick or treating." I still told her no and left, a bit later I saw the schedule had been changed. That person told the manager I agreed to work for her, when I went to the boss and pointed out I had argued for the day off she told me "it's just one day...." So they took my off day from me because the "parent" bitched until she got her way. I ended up turning off my phone and not going in, they wrote me up for it but oh well.

improbablynotyou , Clark Street Mercantile Report

Final score:

140points

POST

Id row 2 years ago

People that entitled shouldn't even be having kids in the first place.

68points

View more comments

This negative attitude towards people without children persists in many different forms, not just at work. In mid-November, I had an in-depth discussion with u/Raveynfyre, one of the moderators running the r/childfree subreddit, a place for discussing any and all topics related to the childfree lifestyle.

The moderator explained to Bored Panda that they have to deal with trolls, problematic comments, and disrespectful parents daily because some internet users can’t accept the fact that some individuals simply don’t want to have children. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of hate out there for anyone living life differently. The mod noted that the childfree community has “been around for a very long time, even before Reddit existed. We weren't heard of or focused on previously, but we were around.”

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences Years ago, as a childless employee I was not permitted to use a week of my earned sick leave (I had hundred of hours bc I was never sick) to go home and care for my mother who had had surgery. Yet employees with a kid were allowed to use their sick leave to take their kid to a doctor anytime it sneezed. I’m still bitter about that.

Herbalmist73 Report

Final score:

125points

POST

Guy MacGregor 2 years ago

I will never understand the concept of "sick leave" anyway. If you're sick, you're sick, and you don't go to work, that's it.

60points

View More Replies...

View more comments

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences I just say I have kids. It's no one f**kn business. You're there to do your 8 and that's it. I'm not a person who wants to be friends at work, I wanna be able to come in, not feel like I have to punch you in the face, work well as a team and punch out. Anytime I've ever disclosed I'm a childless single female I've always been stuck on later shifts or being last. F that.

Competitive-Ad6934 Report

Final score:

121points

POST

Leodavinci 2 years ago

So far this is the most reasonable post I've read.

44points

View more comments

However, it’s not just childfree employees who get the short end of the stick. Pregnant employees can also face discrimination in the workplace.

Eddy Ng, the Smith Professor of Equity & Inclusion at Queen’s University, formerly the James and Elizabeth Freeman Professor of Management at Bucknell University, told Bored Panda more about this.

“Managers and colleagues do develop prejudice of pregnant employees and view them as less competent or productive during this period. As a result, many employees hide their pregnancy from their managers,” the professor said.

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences I work in the games industry. When we were crunching, my manager (who was also sexually harassing me on the regular) would leave at his usual time because kids. Since I didn’t have a heavy workload, I went home at my usual time one day.

My manager pulled me aside the next day to tell me I couldn’t leave until the end of crunch day (11PM), even if I had no work to do, because it made morale poor. When I asked him why he was leaving early, he said, “Oh well I have kids.”

So I got to work from 9AM-11PM every day for months while my boss peaced out at the usual time every day. This was also while I was on immunosuppressants, which made me fatigued on a good day. I remember my boyfriend telling me one night, while I was crying from pain of sitting in a chair all day as well as lack of sleep, that my job was going to kill me. I think that’s about when I hit a breaking point.

Oh, and did I mention we worked for s**t salary and most salaried tech workers aren’t owed overtime pay?

I quit a few months later.

JoanOfSarcasm , Damir Kopezhanov Report

Final score:

88points

POST

iBlank 2 years ago

Good on you to get out of there. Harassment on multiple levels.

35points

View More Replies...

View more comments

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences One of my former employers granted a colleague of mine permission to work from home so they could spend time with their dog who was battling terminal cancer and undergoing chemotherapy. At that stage working from home was rarely granted.

I do think employees who make other life choices should be treated the same and should be allowed time off for their hobbies / other commitments.

The problem isn’t your co-workers with children.

I once asked my colleague to tell me when all the school holidays were and to make sure she put in her annual leave before me because I had zero intention of taking time off during that time.

She was used to fighting with her colleagues over getting school holidays off.

In my country we get 4 weeks of annual leave + 2 weeks of sick leave + 1 week (total) of public holidays. We could also purchase additional annual leave (it meant our salary was just adjusted without us permanently changing our employment status to part-time) & we could also work flex time - which meant we could take a lot of time off work if we banked additional hours & purchased annual leave.

Your problem isn’t your co-workers - it’s a system that pits you against each other.

Join a freaking union.

Intrepid-Luck2021 , Thought Catalog Report

Final score:

79points

POST

MoodyBlue 2 years ago

In my country we have very fair system. So here the only problem has been my co-workers. And the ex-boss who always gave in when the moms were complaining. They got 2 weeks off during christmas time, I got 4 days. Because "I did not need it as I have no family".

14points

View more comments

“Employees need to know they are valued before and during pregnancy while employers should provide the necessary accommodations, including making adjustments to workload, to retain them following pregnancy. There is also a need to create awareness and train managers on providing proper support to pregnant employees.”

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences At my old job, the entire team but 2 of us had kids. All of the parents got to take the last 2 weeks off as vacation and the employees without kids had to work. One of the reasons I quit.

Askew_2016 Report

Final score:

68points

POST

iBlank 2 years ago

It's amazing to me that almost all reputable businesses enforce a code of ethics, but then many punish their employees for what they do with their free time

25points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#10

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences At a former job I worked with two nurses. My supervisor was always fair about rotating who got to take the week off between Xmas and NY. Butt that didn't stop one of them complaining to me every third year when it was mine to take off. I would point out that I also had kids, but that didn't fly, because her son was in daycare, and they were closed that week. My kids weren't. I never let her browbeat me into giving it up, because I knew she would want it off every time.

HRzNightmare , iron Guillaume Report

Final score:

66points

POST

Ironass 2 years ago

like the age doesn't matter, why shouldnt the parent with the 14 year old be able to spend time with them as well? why shouldn't the childless be able to spend it with someone else?

6points

View more comments

Some internet users expanded about the discrimination that some childfree employees face

What do you think ?

Lara Verne 2 years ago

I always seen how people use their kids as excuse. We had to working saturday and my coworker said she can't come to work, because her son would be home alone, something could happen to him, blah blah. Her son was perfectly healthy 13 years old, he should be able to stay alone for few hours. Well, she didn't go to work. We later learned she went shopping to another city and didn't return home until the evening. And her son stayed at home. Of course he was alone. Whole day.

8points

Homer Jay 2 years ago

13 is not big where i live :( sure to leave a 13 home alone?

0points

Load More Replies...

Nicholas Kraemer 2 years ago

The comment from kwestwood186 is the one that illustrates how saying something is a "human right" solves nothing and shouldn't be used as a conversation ender. Oh, you have to pick up your kid so I have to be accommodated? But it isn't some robot covering that (even if you work for a big, evil corporation) it is another human being with their own needs and rights. Can people start to see how when you say "I'm entitled to this as a basic right" that what you are really saying is "people just like me owe me something". There may be some truth to that, but when you say "I have a right" to something that means you also have an obligation to make sure other people's rights are also met; people tend to forget about what they owe back to society

7points

Betty Spencer 2 years ago

This is never going to go away, I'm 57 and childless and have had years of discrimination can you believe I still get the same comments now! Many little stories to tell, but one that sticks is when a male colleague told me that "people like me" shouldn't have any leave at all because we don't need it and that people with children should have more. I live in Australia so if you earn up to a certain amount you get some social security to help with the cost of raising a family. What I pointed out to this little self righteous w**ker was that without "people like me" (I'm a tax payer by the way) you wouldn't get your little allowance from the government because we would have died from no breaks. Oh, forgot about the gang of "mums" who went to HR to try and stop me having leave one school holidays. My friend was a teacher we were young & single wanted to go on holidays. HR told them to clear off, they knew I'd win if I decided to argue it! Keep your chins up everyone!!

Load More Comments

“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences

Some internet users expanded about the discrimination that some childfree employees face

Games

Jonas Grinevičius

Jonas Grinevičius

Denis Tymulis

Denis Tymulis