Work. How do I come across ? Holidays !

[ShineBrighterxx]

Socially 4 of my 9 friendship group are pregnant, a good few already have kids. I’m surrounded by baby life.
At work I’ve booked occasional days off for events and city breaks, my supervisor made a comment about my social life to which I replied “I can’t have kids. My life revolves around my social life, not a school schedule”
Neither of us are wrong or right, I just feel like if you don’t have kids (never mind the pointless lack of empathy asking if you can even have kids first) you get all the crap shifts and expected to work around people who have kids. Does anyone else feel this ? I feel like my life and days off are constantly invalidated because it’s “social” when really it’s discrimination ?

Ah I'm sorry OP that must really sting, your supervisor shouldn't be passing judgemental comments if you have booked your time off in line with policy and given enough notice etc it's really none of their business

Holiday booking processes are usually fair. If you book days off first, then you get them.

The issue might be that people with children usually plan ahead because they have to. As soon as the school calendar is published in September, I book holiday for the year ahead. Childless people don't get that prompt so they go to book later and find that all their colleagues are already booked out.

At least you can go outside school holiday and enjoy much better prices.
Your boss' comment is out of order though.

Have you actually had holiday turned down because of other people with kids? And are you actually allocated rubbish shifts for the same reason? If so (and you are in the UK) I think you would have a fair claim for discrimination and while I don't suggest you go down that route, I think you would be perfectly entitled to challenge the decisions and push back.

If it's just the case that other people put in their holiday requests first that's obviously totally different.

Surely it's up to you how you use your leave allowance and they should appreciate that you won't want all your time off in the school holidays leaving them short staffed for weeks at a time.

Why is she even requesting a reason, just say "why does the reason matter, I'm entitled to holiday leave?"