Parents know best
Close the thread, that’s all we need to know.

jfletch – Member

That is what is implied in the statement made which basically boils down to “you had ’em so they’re your problem”.

You can’t extrapolate from this that “having kids can only be a lifestyle choice for the well off”, that’s just nonsense.

but it’s literally their only chance.

They could choose to take their kids on holiday in term time. 😉

They could choose to take their kids on holiday in term time

You seen the fine you get for that ?

They could choose to take their kids on holiday in term time.

Naughty man!

You seen the fine you get for that ?

Is it more than the money you’d save by getting cheaper flights etc? 🙂

Bloody oversensitive bed-wetting breeders.

Choosing to be a parent isn’t necessarily a selfish choice – it’s a more often selfless choice that requires a lot of sacrifice

No it isn’t.

Volunteering to work in an old folks home yourself would be selfless.
Breeding your own little Mini Me, as part of some global Ponzi scheme of ever increasing population, is not.

Someone has daddy issues.

People without children might want to consider that without parents and children the economic and social systems would grind to a halt. Choosing to be a parent isn’t necessarily a selfish choice – it’s a more often selfless choice that requires a lot of sacrifice. Every time you use a service you are being served by someones offspring. Without these future adults who will look after you when you are in your dotage…?

ok I’ll admit it. I’m not a parent. not by choice, shit happens sometimes.

But the people I know who are parents (including my own, strangely enough), in the most have not had children to provide for the rest of society, hoping that the rest of society will provide for them, in their later years, but simply because they wanted to have children. For no other reason than that.

(And in some cases, the children are happy accidents for people that hadn’t planned on having any, but that’s another story)

back to the OP as we’ve all gone way off topic here, I don’t think it’s fair of an employer to give first dibs on holidays to either parents OR non-parents. It’s up to you and your colleagues to be fair to each other first, before putting in any holiday requests.

some people seem to think taking your offspring on holiday is some kind of right. it isn’t it’s a privilege that you either earn or can afford. your progeny will be no worse off for not going away for a weeks jolly
suck it up, quit moaning and skewing the argument towards some kind of favour to society when it’s your own selfish desires you are worried about not the greater good of humanity. if you were that worried about humanity you wouldn’t have more than 1 child and would be training them for palliative care from an early age not telling them to ‘express themselves’.
parenthood seems to flick a selfish switch and addle some peoples brains.

No it isn’t.
Volunteering to work in an old folks home yourself would be selfless.
Breeding your own little Mini Me, as part of some global Ponzi scheme of ever increasing population, is not.

Firstly, I’m not breeding a ‘Mini Me”. I don’t need any copies of me for vanity purposes. I am hoping that my children will add value to the world rather than just taking it away.

Secondly, study the effect of population crashes. A controlled reduction in population is preferential.

Thirdly, please don’t pretend that being childless is a just a selfless decision – which is what the logical outgrowth of your argument would be.

Forthly, I have done exactly that in the past and I do spend time working for less fortunate people on a voluntary basis. Do you?

I have noticed your cynicism before MTG but not everyone is operating to the lowest common denominator.

But the people I know who are parents (including my own, strangely enough), in the most have not had children to provide for the rest of society, hoping that the rest of society will provide for them, in their later years, but simply because they wanted to have children. For no other reason than that.

Exactly.

Parents playing the martyr routine is the kind of thing that’s going to make me less sympathetic when you want to book your holidays.

MrSmith – Member

some people seem to think taking your offspring on holiday is some kind of right. it isn’t it’s a privilege that you either earn or can afford. your progeny will be no worse off for not going away for a weeks jolly
suck it up, quit moaning and skewing the argument towards some kind of favour to society when it’s your own selfish desires you are worried about not the greater good of humanity. if you were that worried about humanity you wouldn’t have more than 1 child and would be training them for palliative care from an early age not telling them to ‘express themselves’.
parenthood seems to flick a selfish switch and addle some peoples brains.

More holes in this that a Tom and Jerry cheese.

A controlled reduction in population is preferential.

😯

what, like a good old fashioned mechanised global war?

But the people I know who are parents (including my own, strangely enough), in the most have not had children to provide for the rest of society, hoping that the rest of society will provide for them, in their later years, but simply because they wanted to have children. For no other reason than that.

Thats fair enough – your experience I guess.

Some people here won’t believe it but there are worse things in life than wanting to have a child. It’s not some unnatural or perverse urge…

It may well depend on the make up of the workplace too

Adaptations that make a workplace more friendly to, for example, women, in a predominantly male environment, and to allow them to continue their careers may often be a perfectly reasonable and well thought out business move (the policy might be open to all, but experience may show its predominantly taken advantage of by women). In a company that has problems retaining highly trained and experienced staff that they have invested time and money in, policies like this could be a no brainer, a really smart business move.

But the people I know who are parents (including my own, strangely enough), in the most have not had children to provide for the rest of society, hoping that the rest of society will provide for them, in their later years, but simply because they wanted to have children. For no other reason than that.
Exactly.

Parents playing the martyr routine is the kind of thing that’s going to make me less sympathetic when you want to book your holidays.

Why play the martyr? Just give and take is most peoples suggestion to resolving the OP’s situation. I’m certainly not a martyr for having children. The fact is that society needs reproduction to continue to exist.

A controlled reduction in population is preferential.

what, like a good old fashioned mechanised global war?

Was thinking more of trying to promote a level of reproduction less than the replacement value. Over-population is a real threat and more education on this fact is important.

Some people here won’t believe it but there are worse things in life than wanting to have a child. It’s not some unnatural or perverse urge…

What about giving birth to straw men?

Thats fair enough – your experience I guess.

It’s everyone’s experience – people have kids because there are strong biological urges making them want to. That’s it. Anyone claiming they had kids for altruistic reasons is a liar, frankly.

Why play the martyr? I dunno – this sounds like my definition of playing the martyr though.

Choosing to be a parent isn’t necessarily a selfish choice – it’s a more often selfless choice that requires a lot of sacrifice.

some people seem to think taking your offspring on holiday is some kind of right. it isn’t it’s a privilege that you either earn or can afford. your progeny will be no worse off for not going away for a weeks jolly

As I said earlier (and others have also pointed out) the need for parents to take leave from work when their kids aren’t in school does NOT necessarily mean that they will be “going on holiday” with them.

I don’t need any copies of me for vanity purposes

This is the bit I struggle with.
If you think you are capable of indoctrinating a child to conform to your idea of adding value to the world, why breed, thereby both increasing the world’s overpopulation problem and taking away one more kids opportunity to get out of the orphanage?

Someone has daddy issues.

More like bullshit issues.
If you want to have kids without bothering about overpopulation, then have kids, same as if I want to drive a Land Rover that does 12mpg without bothering about peak oil production, that’s what I’ll do.
Just don’t try and pretend you’re making a sacrifice for the benefit of all mankind.

A controlled reduction in population is preferential.

You’d best get to Africa and start giving out condoms then matey.

You’d best get to Africa and start giving out condoms then matey.

Well aware of where the challenge is…! 🙂

If you want to have kids without bothering about overpopulation,

I’m not. Mainly due to the fact that I’m not such a **** that I’d try and tell people that they shouldn’t have kids.

What would you suggest? Stop medicine research? A bit more ebola and AIDS perhaps? Enforced sterilisation in developing countries?

I don’t need any copies of me for vanity purposes

This is the bit I struggle with.
If you think you are capable of indoctrinating a child to conform to your idea of adding value to the world, why breed, thereby both increasing the world’s overpopulation problem and taking away one more kids opportunity to get out of the orphanage?

**** me you have some serious degree of negativity going on… Perhaps other people bring more positivity and less baggage to the world than you clearly do. You don’t hold some kind of high ground here – you have made a choice others make different choices. Yours is not morally superior or more selfless as you imply. I’m not saying mine is either – just suggesting that being a parent is not necessarily selfish as others including you are saying.

Why play the martyr? I dunno – this sounds like my definition of playing the martyr though.

Choosing to be a parent isn’t necessarily a selfish choice – it’s a more often selfless choice that requires a lot of sacrifice.

Taken totally out of context. I make sacrifices for my children. Don’t need you to make any and certainly don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me as a result. Having children involves sacrifices made for other benefits too.

(Apart from going to events) I can’t understand why anyone would choose to have days off work when half the rest of the population is off aswell, When I was child free there was no way I was having my hols at the same time as the majority of the unwashed – everywhere is busier and prices sky rocket.

I generally disagree with parents being given priority, however they are kinda forced to take time off during school holidays – whether that’s to actually take a holiday or just to look after the sprogs – so if all the kid free people get their hols booked first and parents can’t get time off during school hols to look after their kids what happens then? (seeing as how short term childcare availability is somewhat mixed across the country IME)

parenthood seems to flick a selfish switch and addle some peoples brains.

The best trolls are the ones who really believe the BS they come out with.

Go back to alphabetising your designer jeans sunshine, I’m sure they’ll keep you happy in your old age.

BTW the people moaning about parents having none holiday time off for their kids might wanna consider the fact that it’s dependants leave you may be unfortunate enough to have a loved one who needs your support in the future, isn’t it comforting to know you would be able to help them without losing your job (I guess some jobs may not have this cover but this isn’t a race to the bottom) Yeah parents are probably the main beneficiaries of this but it works both ways, a lot of our none work time is taken up with this stuff too.

booking the year out on day 1 before anyone else gets a shot at the calendar is out of order too.

Can’t have it both ways dear. Someone has to be first to come first to be served, wasn’t that the phrase?

<brassneck, currently rifling through the newly released 2015 holiday calendar on the GHR intranet>

Some sort of AV holiday system

(I can’t remember where it was- my brother worked for a while at a company that had a brilliantly democratic and fair, and absolutely batshit-crazy-complicated holiday allocation system, you submitted your holiday request and how much you wanted it, and then if there was a tie there was a lottery to see who got what, but the winner of that round then was eliminated from the next round til everyone had their first (or failing that second or third) holidays approved, then it started again with the second choices… You could specify a particular holiday to have extra weighting but then you got disadvantaged for everything else, or you could keep it balanced and that way you maybe didn’t get the exact holiday you wanted but you got more of what you asked for on balance… It’d been going for decades, I imagine it used to work on a computer the size of a building. Maybe that’s what stonehenge is for.

In this job, I check with the person who covers me (and who I cover) and then we emotionally blackmail each other for a bit and eventually we have an agreement. And then, if she wants a holiday off that I’ve booked, she just takes it anyway and says “Oh I thought I had that one booked, sorry…” It’s all very healthy

i sort the holiday for my dept on first come first served, generally try to accommodate people, but generally leave it to sort between themselves if there’s a double booking.

Long and short of it is get your holidays in early.

We do need a good plague, natural disaster, war, comet etc etc

Can’t have it both ways dear. Someone has to be first to come first to be served, wasn’t that the phrase?

This

Half terms, a week at easter, the middle two weeks of summer hols and xmas eve next year are already booked off by me.

But then I work in a team of 4 and 2 fellas that don’t have kids understand.

We do need a good plague, natural disaster, war, comet etc etc

Or to be accurate and with reference to an earlier graph, the Developing World needs “a good plague, natural disaster, war, comet etc etc”.

You lot should think yourselves lucky.

I have a shit-storm a-brewin’ in my office thanks to a genius in my dept who has tried to book every other Wednesday off for the entire year, thus preventing anybody else from having 2 weeks away in a single block.

I did work for a short while for a company where you could sell or buy additional holidays at your usual pay rate (as long as you took your 28, IIRC that meant you had 4 days either way to play with, more if you had been there longer). That was rather clever.

In another job I had a very big row over the regular use of half days during school holidays (ie. taking the afternoons off) with a boss telling me that they didn’t allow half days, despite having used them before (provided an interesting discussion at HR and went a long way towards a later sizeable settlement agreement)

I used to manage a team of about 14 people of a variety of backgrounds. I had to step in a few times as the same people each year would attempt to refuse to cover on-call at Christmas/Easter etc. because they were parents.

In the end I had to rota it. If X got last christmas off then s/he was doing this christmas. It isn’t fair on the others who wanted to celebrate/do their own thing and not have their life dictated to by someone else in the team. If someone put their hand up for it then fine, but I refused to give any one person or group of people preferential treatment and treated them all equally.

During half-term it was usually OK as people who didn’t have kids didn’t bother, but at Easter and Christmas there was usually a fight!

ninfan – Member

I did work for a short while for a company where you could sell or buy additional holidays at your usual pay rate (as long as you took your 28, IIRC that meant you had 4 days either way to play with, more if you had been there longer). That was rather clever.

Yeah, in my old job you could buy extra holidays (you could sell them too but not at full perceived rate so nobody did). Nice addition.

But then, it was declared that only one person was allowed to be off at a time. I did the numbers and it turned out we’d need something like a 90 week year for that to be mathematically possible 😆 So that did offset some of the goodwill.

I have a shit-storm a-brewin’ in my office thanks to a genius in my dept who has tried to book every other Wednesday off for the entire year, thus preventing anybody else from having 2 weeks away in a single block.

Hahahaha. That’s a classic.