Child free people being told they deserve less yet being expected to do more!

[JenniferBooth]

Has anyone on here experienced any of this?

1. Employment..........being expected to work the Christmas shifts (because the parents want the time off) even though you did it the previous year or the last few years..
2. Family Being expected to take on the care of a child even though you have chosen not to have your own because of emotionally charged comments like " i feel sorry for the child cos none of his family members want him"
3. Housing. particularly social housing, where if you dont have children you are only entitled to a small flat or a bedsit, and God forbid if you happen to live in a bigger place you are told that it is your moral duty to downsize for families.
4. Being asked at a job interview if you have children and then being asked "why? Dont you like responsibility" when you say no. Happened to me back in 2004

And also, quite frankly, I actually do think children deserve to have their parents off work at Christmas time.

I would feel sad if I thought that there are children missing out at Christmas time because adults can't work out a way to make sure those with children can have time with them during their short childhoods.

I've covered for colleagues with children because it's hard being a parent and children only get one childhood.

I would never expect childfree people to give up all their christmases, but a bit of flexibility to make a child's Christmas more enjoyable would be nice

Why don’t my parents deserve to have me there for Christmas? Why don’t I deserve a break? Why don’t I deserve to go to church? It’s up to parents to make sure their children have an enjoyable Christmas, no up to the colleagues of those children’s parents.

Why@pimplebum .

And just because something hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it hasn't happened to someone else.

I spent years working every Christmas without complaint. The one year I wanted it off - because my family were in a different country and I couldn't travel there and back in a day - I was told no.

My Mum is dead and I never got the chance to spend a single Christmas with her as an adult. Even when it became clear that she had dementia and was forgetting who we were.

Parents can't be with their children to make it enjoyable if they have to work.

I'm sorry to hear that, @WaterIris.

It's also a wonderful reminder of the haves and have nots.

So sorry your fertility treatments didn't work, but we have kids and you don't so suck up working at Christmas.

There are lots of lots of threads discussing parenting. This isn't the right board to do this, though.

That’s the issue of parents to deal with not the issue of their childfree or childless colleagues.

You should never have been MADE to work and under those circumstances you should have been the priority.

It's about looking at the circumstances and making sure everyone's needs are considered.

Sometimes the fact that one person has children is relevant. Sometimes it's not

Precisely.

I’m so sorry, that’s awful, really heartbreaking to read 💐

Your colleagues did not sign up to co-parent with you by taking the shifts where childcare is difficult.

All of this is just a variation of #bekind, something which never gets paid back to the person doing it because there’s always another new parent of young kids who need Christmas magic.

I made my peace with it. We had other times together.

Just like I have made my peace with not having kids and choosing to view my life as childfree rather than childless.

But fuck me it rankles sometimes to be continually at the bottom of the list all the time. Overtime? You don't have kids. Unsociable hours? You don't have kids. Weekends/bank holidays? You don't have kids.

The irony is that if people asked me first, I'd be fine with it. But it's the assumption and being taken for granted, that then manifests as a full on tantrum when you say 'no'. I consider myself lucky now that I have colleagues that do ask and that feel it's only fair that everyone takes a turn.

It is every christmas though

Because when you are the parent and you want a few christmases off in a row because your child is small and still enjoying the magic of christmas you think sure, your childless colleague can suck up a few working christmases, its only a few years.

But then Sarah gets pregnant, then tina, then Gemma and then all of a sudden that childless person has covered all the christmases and funnily enough the parents aren't rushing to make sure that childless person ever gets a christmas off.

I've even been told that I should work Christmas because someone wanted to spend Christmas with her adult children. But she couldnt understand that I might want christmas off to spend with my parents.

It is every Christmas because there is always another parent.

Theres also an absolutely assumption that every parent is a delight and you are wrecking a childs christmas if they arent at home. Funnily enough Ive worked with people we knew were horrific parents, report them to social services levels, and yet still at christmas I was expected to work so that their child could experience the magic of being hit by their mum on Christmas day. Happy fucking christmas!

I just despair that we didn’t even get this board to ourselves for one week before a thread ended up like this.

It was obvious it would happen even from the original conversation on site stuff, it should’ve been created so that it didn’t appear in active/trending.

@fitzwilliamdarcy YY It was the same during Covid. those of us who were discussing the downside of restrictions in threads on the Chat board NOT on the Covid board got hassled even though they had an entire board to themselves.

I'm surprised we lasted a week.

I was hoping to get closer to christmas before we got the "magic of christmas blah blah selfish selfish bitches blah blah we did it for the 6 years before we had kids and never had to work a christmas again so you should do it for life blah blah" bollocks

I have four parents and one non parent on my team at work. One of my team casually informed me that he expected all the parents to be allowed the same time off over the summer holidays if they wanted it because the one non parent could cover all their work.

Turned out he is late organising his holiday each year and previous managers have just let him get away with it.

He is now very clear that the one non parent will not be being left to pick up all the work for weeks over the summer and may in fact choose to go away over the summer himself if he wants to. And if this parent wants particular weeks off he can organise them in advance like everyone else does.

I don't think he likes me very much right now but I don't particularly care.

It's not down to childless colleagues to make it work for you. And parents can make it enjoyable. My brother is a firefighter Christmas Day has worked round his shift so my nieces have never missed out

HOWEVER this is a section for Childfree people so don't expect us all to be falling over to accommodate parents

Don’t most work places just do ‘first come, first served’ with regards to holidays? Every place I’ve ever worked at has done that. So if the non parent gets in first, they get the time off. Doesn’t make sense to do it any other way really.

It ended up in active so people comment without realising that board it’s on. Happens all over the site.

Im pretty sure the few posters who feel the overwhelming need to tell people without children they should work Christmas would do it whether they saw it was the childfree board or not.

the kind of mentality that thinks one section of society exists to serve the other section doesn't really care whose space they trample over.