OPINION | Childless workers are not selfish, they are being exploited | CNN

Taking care of your children or working, a dilemma of many mothers 1:30

Editor's Note:

Jill Filipovic is a New York-based journalist and author of the book "OK BOOMER, LET'S TALK: How My Generation Got Left Behind."

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(CNN) -

Six months after the covid-19 pandemic that has closed schools and daycare centers and forced millions of Americans to work from home, the stressors of our no longer new normal are only increasing.

As many of us realize that this situation is not an acute emergency but rather a protracted disaster with no end in sight, our collective patience is wearing thin.

Perhaps that is why the work tensions between people with children at home and those who do not have children seem higher than ever.

The latest example came from The New York Times last weekend, in a story about some of Big Tech's highly-paid Silicon Valley employees fighting for covid-19-related benefits and waivers for parents.

At several large tech companies, parents who take care of children received more time off, and bonuses that were once tied to performance are now awarded to everyone.

The Times reported that some childless employees complained that the new benefits based on caregiver status were unfair and that the childless were expected to take over from parents who were no longer doing their own work.

On social media, the verdict of the majority was swift: the childless were being selfish.

And indeed, it's hard to feel much sympathy for some of the nation's best-compensated workers when they complain about equally privileged colleagues who are currently struggling.

Laszlo Bock, Google's former head of Human Resources, appeared to speak on behalf of many readers when he told the Times that "people get angry enough to say that 'I feel this is unfair' shows lack of patience, lack of empathy and a sense of entitlement.

But while it is easy to accuse those without children of acting with the right to object to these changes, that reaction misses the point and, frankly, accepts some very toxic ideas about the work itself.

Work is not your family and it is not your friend;

the only way your employer shows how much they value you is how they compensate you.

Right now, a lot of parents say that workplace expectations are simply too high to meet while trying to do things like supervise a math class via Zoom or make sure their toddler doesn't drink bleach or throw away their toy. when you are on a call with a customer.

Non-parents, meanwhile, report that the assumptions about their free time and the total elimination of the boundaries between work and life mean that they are being asked to do much more at work without an increase in corresponding compensation;

However, if she complains, she is accused of a lack of empathy, even if the complaint is not about parents getting the necessary space to breathe, but about the childless being asked to carry more work indefinitely.

Nobody is happy and, as the Times article shows, many workers make fun of each other.

The answer, then, is not that childless people get mad at parents for not being superhuman, or that parents get mad when childless people express frustration at having to carry a heavier load at work.

A better solution would be to expect more from employers.

Workplaces must lower expectations across the board so parents can step back and those who are not caregivers can continue to work as usual, or workplaces must increase hiring to fill the gap.

The data seems to illustrate two things: employees who work from home work longer hours, while fathers (and especially mothers) may work less.

That certainly suggests that people with children are stretching to a breaking point between paid work and homeschooling and childcare, while people without children are taking on a much heavier paid workload.

If paid work that parents cannot manage falls into the hands of the childless, who already had a full workload, especially at large tech companies that have long blurred the distinction between work and life, then of course there will be resentment and anger.

That is not a lack of empathy or a sense of entitlement.

It is a correct assessment of the fact that your workplace is exploiting you because of your parental status and pitting non-parents against you rather than solving the problem at hand: too much work and too few people to do it.

Gender is another reason why accusations of selfishness leveled at childless objectors are wrong: a system that rewards workers who strive to work many more hours indefinitely without related compensation, which views those workers as more empathetic, with fewer rights, as better team players, and punishes those who oppose those demands is a system that is going to reward the people who can do that: men.

Women spend much more of their lives than men doing care tasks, whether with children or elderly parents.

And men are much more likely than women to rely on a partner who does most of the work at home, allowing them to spend more time working for wages.

A workplace that expects some employees to step up so that fathers, and let's face it, mostly mothers, can step back instead of imposing a culture where job expectations are reasonable, predictable, and compensated from Fairly is a workplace that will then reward those who stepped up and did more for less.

It won't just be the childless;

They will be men regardless of their parental status.

This system - obscene expectations in the workplace coupled with few protections for workers, no cultural commitment to the right to life outside of work, and an unspoken conclusion that we all make our choices and simply have to figure it out on our own - is terrible for everyone.

Parents and other caregivers absolutely need to settle in at this time.

But this emergency will go on for many more months and could last another year or more.

It should be up to the employer to figure out how to manage that sustainably, not the workers to redistribute already overwhelming workloads based on who is perceived to have the most free time.

Pushing fathers, and again mostly mothers, a whole generation of whom are at risk of irretrievable blows to their careers and earnings, to withdraw from the workforce is not the answer.

Nor are you imposing the extra work on non-parents.

And at a time when unemployment rates are high and people can work from anywhere, there is no excuse for not hiring enough people to ensure that working hours are reasonable for everyone.

Our workplaces already ask too much of us.

However, adopting a parent versus nonparent mentality overlooks the real problems: a government that has failed to meet the needs of families (let alone adequately combat this pandemic) and unfair workplaces that demand too much and give too much. little bit.