In many parts of Europe, it’s common for workers to take off weeks at a time, especially during the summer. Envious Americans say it’s time for the U.S. to follow suit.
Some 66% of U.S. workers say companies should adopt extended vacation policies, like a month off in August, in their workplaces, according to a Morning Consult survey of 1,047 U.S. adults.
They should all get the same amount of benefits, though possibly differing in kind.
Having children nowadays is a choice, not something beyond people’s control (like a disability), and people shouldn’t be getting extra rewards from work for making choices which have nothing to do with work.
It would be massivelly unfair to those who made a personal choice not to have kids to be de facto discriminated against because of that.
It’s not unfair. Your benefits include bing significantly wealthier and having more free time. Flexible time off for children isn’t some unreasonable ask.
While I agree that flexible time off for children isn’t a big ask, it’s disingenuous to say that childreee people are somehow not deserving of those same accommodations because they have more money and free time. First off, you don’t know someone’s personal or financial situation. They could be helping to support their aging parents or something. And second, it’s a choice to be a parent or not. If I go out and buy a Bugatti I don’t therefore deserve to have some special treatment from my job. And while kids are obviously more important to accommodate than a lot of other things (like cars, lol) they don’t somehow make the parents extra super special because they have a FaMiLy. Everyone has a family!
Reality is everyone needs those kinds of accommodations sometimes and employers should realize that employees are human with lives outside work.