Letters to the Editor

• Oh, geez. The childfree assholes strike again.

  [Read the article: "One sick child away from being fired"]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Look, being responsible for another human life is more important than whatever hobbies you would have gotten back to had you "gotten" to take time off early. Parents cutting out early for sick children or school plays are not having fun. They would, in fact, much rather be at work, at least in my experience (have you ever had to sit through a school play?) I spent the first ten years of my working life single and childless, the next five with children, and I can tell you that it is much, much easier to be a single worker, even when you have to cover for parents with kids, than to be a parent with a kid.

  Now, I don't think we should be privileging people with children above people who need to care for adults. I fully believe that taking a sick day to care for your elderly father is every bit as important as taking a sick day to care for your sick child. Society is not willing to pay for people to fill those roles, so they fall on people who will do them for free, which is overwhelmingly the female parents or children of the people who need care. If you have a disabled brother or a pregnant wife on bedrest or a best friend with cancer who has no one else to take care of her, I believe that society and the law should fully support all workers' ability to attend to these needs and care for these people without penalizing them, and if business does not like it I suggest we add an additional tax to businesses for in-home nursing care to be provided free to anyone whose business doesn't want to let them take the time to do it. I also believe we should be able to provide our health insurance to anyone we feel like, if we're willing to pay the additional premiums (why can I put my brother who lives with me on my car insurance but not my health insurance?), and that we should get tax benefits for having anyone financially dependent on us, not just children who live with us most of the year. (This includes the child support paid by non-custodial parents.) Hell, I'd support a limited amount of time off to care for a sick pet.

  But Jesus Christ. A desire for personal fulfillment and free time is NOT THE SAME THING as the need to care for a sick person or a child. What were you going to do with the time you saved by not having to cover for a co-worker? Watch some TV? Get on the Internet? Hang out with your boyfriend or girlfriend? Whatever it was, unless it was volunteer work for something like building homes for Habitat for Humanity or working at an abused women's shelter or some other volunteer work that has a direct benefit to other human beings, it is NOT as valuable as the time a parent -- or an adult child of a person with Alzheimer's -- puts in to caring and tending for others. (And hell, I'd support letting people take a certain amount of time off for socially valuable volunteer activities, too.)

  Again, I have been single and childless, a lot longer than I've been married with kids. I have covered for the co-workers with children. I have made significantly less money than the co-worker with children who was just hired when I had seniority, because she had a family to support and I didn't. And now having seen it from the other side, I can tell you that the parents are *not* getting the better end of that deal. Frankly, you should stop whining and suck it up. You were a child who needed care once, and someday you may be elderly or disabled and need care, and you're gonna be kind of pissed that your niece or your girlfriend or your stepson isn't allowed to take time off to help you get to the grocery store after you can't drive because *their* co-workers would rather get home in time to watch the latest episode of the new fave reality TV show. Or even write their Great American Novel.

  The problem here is that some people who don't have children look at the fact that parents chose to bear children and say "Well, it was your choice to have kids!" and assume that that exempts them personally from having to have any human concern for those children. Guess what, some of us didn't choose to create kids -- some of us chose to take care of ones that already existed, such as adoptive children or stepchildren. It wasn't our fault that that child exists and needs care, but it's our responsibility to care for them now. And many carers are taking care of people who are *not* their children, and they need support from business as well. Stop confusing your moralistic beliefs in the value of creating children with the need for society to support children, and anyone else who needs care, once they already exist, and recognize that your life is easier than *anyone* in otherwise similar circumstances to you who has to take responsibility for the life and health of another human being.

  Permalink Thursday, March 16, 2006 10:01 AM