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This whole thread makes me think that we all work too much. People are upset that those with children are given more schedule flexibility than those who do not have children. It seems like straight up jealousy. Instead of resenting parents, resent your manager and ask for ( or demand) what you want. The argument that other workers need to make up for the slack left by parents does not really make sense; you just add tasks to your backlog, and do them when you have time. You should be in control of your own schedule, and don't let your manager just extend your workday. If your manager does not respect your time and is overworking you, quit. As engineers, we are not punching a time clock. If you are, take issue with that, not the flexibility some other coworkers are getting (flexibility that they need). If you also want more schedule flexibility, push for it. Talk to your manager. Organize with your fellow employees. Organize with other engineers. Start a union (gasp!). Work-life balance is always a balance. Our jobs should take note of what we do outside of work and how that affects our ability to work. We are people, not mindless, identical worker bees. Our life outside of work is most likely more important to us than our life at work. Having children is very much unlike most other activities in that you cannot quit. You can quit a side hustle, you can quit a sport. But you can't quit being a parent. So when a parent turns to their boss and says "I need more flexibility", the manager has to give that flexibility or the worker is going to have to find a new job that does give that flexibility. Usually capitalism will extract as much time from a worker as possible, forcing the worker to give up many things in the name of work. It's impossible to give up your child though, so obviously capitalism has to yield there. But with better labor organization, capitalism will yield to other things too. If we all want schedule flexibility and more time so badly, let's unionize and get that. Not resent our working parents, who most likely have more on their plate and less free time than non-parents, even with the flexibility. |