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“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.
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#1
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.
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#2
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.
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.
#3
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.
Victorya Chase 3 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.
#4
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.
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.”
#5
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.
Guy MacGregor 3 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.
#6
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.
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.
#7
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.
#8
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.
“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.”
#9
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.
#10
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.
“In the US, pregnancy and maternity falls under the FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act). This implies that pregnancy requires some type of workplace accommodation. Employees can use up to 12 weeks of time off during pregnancy (for ‘pregnancy disability’) or after to recover and care for the newborn,” he explained.
According to Professor Ng, employees need to convey this information, “including any type of workplace accommodation requests” related to schedules and the type of work, so that they can “continue to work productively.” On the flip side, the employer must accommodate these requests “to the point of undue hardship.” In short, good communication, reasonable requests, and mutual respect are what matters.
#11
You won't get any disagreements from me. I've had bosses use the "but you don't have kids" excuse on me too many times when they wanted to wring extra time out of me
#12
I’ve worked in public education (teaching) where staff with children got to arrive late, leave early, or even get scheduling priorities….to make matters worse, they were often our least prepared, most ineffective teachers (in this case).
Jing Yi Xu 3 years ago
Lazy people are always going to do things to their advantage. And their bosses are enabling them so hard
#13
I am the only one in my office with younger children. I often pick up shifts no one else wants to make up for the days I need off for my children. Because my husband does not work weekends, I will pick up weekend shifts with no problem. I have a union job for local government so we are not open on Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc but I do often need a day off to attend performances, games, conferences, etc. This arrangement works for our office.
#14
It’s the reverse at my work. They’ll promote people without kids because of the perceptions that they have little to no excuse to say no to staying back to get something done. Which is a joke. People, no matter of their family arrangements, should be dumped with late minute unimportant work demands.
#15
In the military, they give you a pay bump if you have a kid. Yuck.
Eric Steward 3 years ago
No, you absolutely don't. At least not in the US military. If you have dependents, that includes a wife, you are entitled to on-base housing or, if that's unavailable, a housing allowance for the cost of an apartment on the economy. This is because they can't have married soldiers living in the barracks with their spouses. If you're single/childless, you can get the same allowance after a certain rank. If you have one kid or a million kids or no kids and a spouse, you get paid the same. It's about dependents. Hell, if you have custody of a disabled parent, you can get the same allowance through the "Exceptional Family Member Program". And it's ONLY for housing.
#16
I agree. We always had an agreement at places I've worked with people that had kids that they didn't have to work Christmas day (I work in hospitality) but it was just that, an agreement, was never enforced by management.
Azrael Haraldssen 3 years ago
"Never enforced by management" maybe, but the societal pressure is HUGE and completely unfair. I DO have a family; I DO have children. I am a much loved auntie and I deserve to see those faces on Christmas day, too.
Some internet users expanded about the discrimination that some childfree employees face
What do you think ?
Lara Verne 3 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.
Homer Jay 3 years ago
13 is not big where i live :( sure to leave a 13 home alone?
Load More Replies...
Nicholas Kraemer 3 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
Betty Spencer 3 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!!
Lara Verne 3 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.
Homer Jay 3 years ago
13 is not big where i live :( sure to leave a 13 home alone?
Load More Replies... Nicholas Kraemer 3 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
Betty Spencer 3 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!!
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