As one of those parents who has to leave at five to pick up her kid from day care, I am all for singles fighting back against long hours. Only when the working day is structured to allow everyone -- single, married, with or without kids -- to have a life outside of work will we be able to enjoy a truly family-friendly workplace -- or any kind of gender equality. Otherwise, it will always be that working parents are the "exception" to the rule, and, as such, constantly in danger of being told that they are not working hard enough, or being perceived as not working hard enough. Moreover, since picking up the kids and running errands and handling other aspects of domestic life falls disproportinately on women, it is most often women who are hurt when the expectations in a workplace are more than can be delivered before 6 p.m.

So go for it, all of you out there without kids: demand that the workday end when it ends; demand a life. Not only do you deserve it, but we all do.

While I too have heard co-workers (as both a corporate drone and as a fly-in consultant) use family/kids as an excuse to dump off work, I have also heard, and used myself, the phrase "I have to pick up my kids" not as an excuse to dodge work but as a guilt-laden confession.

Workers of all stripes make choices about time, priorities and effort matrixed over personal desires for career advancement. Being a hands-on parent (which doesn't mean having a child) is a choice that will mean, at times, loss of advancement. If ones "face-time" is at home rather than the office, careers will likely suffer.

So, that phrase "I have to pick up my kids" may very well be a personal admission/struggle with an internal choice (also factor in career advancement may very well mean a better life for said child...and it gets internally messy).

Ms. Harris should not make the situation so black-and-white.

The broader perspective Ms. Harris could have employed is to advocate a more employee-empowered workplace...one that benefits all employees (better access to information, more flexible work times and spaces, etc.).

I was 31 before I had kids, so I have seen both sides of this argument. Here's the problem: as much as singles might resent privileges being granted to working parents, these parents are, in most cases, struggling a lot more than people without childcare/eldercare responsibilities can possibly imagine. Being a working parent--especially a single working parent--is not just about juggling; it's about trying to juggle, dropping balls, and scrambling to collect them, all while on the brink of exhaustion most of the time. Maybe these single people who are just dying to try that new restaurant rather than stay late in the office should follow a working parent around for a week before deciding family-friendly policies constitute unfair privileges. It's a bit like an able-bodied person resenting handicapped parking spaces.

Another point that is seldom mentioned in these dicussions: working parents, especially working women, don't have the same opportunities to get ahead that people without those responsibilities have. Childless people may think they are losing out by having to stay late or take on more work, but, in fact, they are more likely to be in line for the next promotion because of their "commitment" to their jobs. Commitment that I, as a single mother of young children who is unwilling to work until 9 or 10 at night, have been accused by my managers of lacking. My career has stalled since I had children, even though I still work full-time. So who, in reality, is privileged? Do we really need affirmative action for those who are already enjoying relatively charmed lives?

I agree, instead of family-friendly or singles-friendly workplaces, let's have human-friendly workplaces!

This "family-friendly" versus "single-friendly" debate smells strongly to me like the equally manufactured conflict between "working" and "stay-at-home" mothers. In a workplace that acknowledges and honors workers' non-work roles as friends, family members, creative people, etc., this kind of absurd conflict would never come up. We're part of a community. We all have lives. Sometimes one of us will need to take up the slack for another, for many reasons, and we hope that others will do likewise for us. A simple application of the golden rule would resolve this so-called problem. It's the insane expectations of the American workplace that are at fault here, not families or singles. How about some coverage of that issue?

What has the world come to, when 6:00 is "early" to leave work?

Thank goodness, at last and it's about fucking time! I've nearly chopped off my tongue biting it every time I watched a parent skip out with a kid excuse. Guess who does their work? Guess who gets stuck with weekend and night duty? The singles, of course. The worst offenders are the men with stay-at-home wives and kids in school who still use the kid excuse. Just last night I went to a political fundraiser that charged $25 per "family." I paid $25 for myself, the exact same amount one man paid for himself, his wife, his three children and his four grandchildren. No question that domestic partner benefits should be next in line for acceptance in the workplace, but I push hard for those in large part because singles are next, and I'm sick and tired of being taken advantage of.

As a single person, who tends to work in demanding (ie 40 hours is the beginning of the work week) jobs, I've found the trick is to be direct. If someone says, eg, I need to leave to pick up my kids, the proper answer is so? You get your work done, I'll get my work done, and if you don't like the first part of the equation, take it up with the boss.

If I choose to work longer in hopes of getting a promotion or a larger bonus, that's OK, but to give in to guilt trips is to encourage more of the same.