“Staff Without Children Should Be Treated Exactly The Same As Staff With Children”: 16 People Share Their Own Experiences

Redditor u/Working_Falcon5384’s post got over 40k upvotes in just 3 days. The topic they broached was very relatable to a lot of people, as you can see from the 3.5k comments that were written in the thread.

The general sentiment among various employers seems to be that anyone with children should be prioritized; meanwhile, those who have family members they’d love to spend the holidays with but don’t actually have kids are left at the end of the queue. Unfair? Definitely, if the workplace cares about equality at all. Family is family, whatever form it takes.

This negative attitude towards people without children persists in many different forms, not just at work. In mid-November, I had an in-depth discussion with u/Raveynfyre, one of the moderators running the r/childfree subreddit, a place for discussing any and all topics related to the childfree lifestyle.

The moderator explained to Bored Panda that they have to deal with trolls, problematic comments, and disrespectful parents daily because some internet users can’t accept the fact that some individuals simply don’t want to have children. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of hate out there for anyone living life differently. The mod noted that the childfree community has “been around for a very long time, even before Reddit existed. We weren't heard of or focused on previously, but we were around.”

However, it’s not just childfree employees who get the short end of the stick. Pregnant employees can also face discrimination in the workplace.

Eddy Ng, the Smith Professor of Equity & Inclusion at Queen’s University, formerly the James and Elizabeth Freeman Professor of Management at Bucknell University, told Bored Panda more about this.

“Managers and colleagues do develop prejudice of pregnant employees and view them as less competent or productive during this period. As a result, many employees hide their pregnancy from their managers,” the professor said.

“Employees need to know they are valued before and during pregnancy while employers should provide the necessary accommodations, including making adjustments to workload, to retain them following pregnancy. There is also a need to create awareness and train managers on providing proper support to pregnant employees.”

“In the US, pregnancy and maternity falls under the FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act). This implies that pregnancy requires some type of workplace accommodation. Employees can use up to 12 weeks of time off during pregnancy (for ‘pregnancy disability’) or after to recover and care for the newborn,” he explained.

According to Professor Ng, employees need to convey this information, “including any type of workplace accommodation requests” related to schedules and the type of work, so that they can “continue to work productively.” On the flip side, the employer must accommodate these requests “to the point of undue hardship.” In short, good communication, reasonable requests, and mutual respect are what matters.