I just checked, and it turns out that babies and toddlers don't stay awake an in need of attention for 100% of every hour. They are also not awake for 100% of 9-5 work hours. This is not rocket science.
Here's the thing: if you're a decent human being and someone is in a meeting and their kid wakes up unexpectedly you can reschedule the meeting or delay it a couple of minutes. If someone is not in a meeting then who gives a damn if they spend an hour or two in the middle of the day playing with their kid?
It's super easy.
Any business has a choice. You can reward working exactly a 9 to 5, or you can reward getting the work done and doing incredible work.
You are making it absolutely crystal clear that you would rather a person who is doing a 9 to 5 and not remotely interested in doing anything else is more valuable than any amount of skill or work that isn't 100% available for BS meetings from 9-5.
It's also not lost on me that these policies universally favor people who don't have children, or who are not expected to look after children. While the deployment of child rearing would ideally be a 50/50 split, it is still split such that women are expected to do that, so a policy that says "you can have a job or you can have kids" is inherently biased against women.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Anyone who claims being a parent is "super easy" is immediately outing themselves as either someone who has never done it or someone who is really bad at it.
It is incredibly hard to deal with kids while working — for either the kind of job where you have to sit and mindlessly make widgets for 8 hours a day or the kind where you need to think and focus. Kids are not awake 100% of the time but a) when they are they demand up to and often 100% of your time, b) you don't get to decide when they are awake. As for your idea of "oh just reschedule the meeting or delay it": sure, once or twice that's fine, but if you had kids you'd know that this happens _all the time_ and feeling like a total flake who can't concentrate sucks for the parent and the employer.
(Yes, they can find a new job blah blah. I'm more concerned with your lack of empathy though.)
It seems like the only thing you're interested in is insisting that your work arrangement is the best and every other one is wrong, even when you aren't doing them or don't understand their challenges.
I don't believe you've spent extended time taking care of kids through whole days on your own while trying to get work done. It's not super easy, if it's possible at all. Seriously, either you've been in an exceptionally good situation (but the kids were a bit ignored) and you're just not aware of what those days look like for most people, or you're making things up and trolling actual parents.
I just checked, and it turns out that babies and toddlers don't stay awake an in need of attention for 100% of every hour. They are also not awake for 100% of 9-5 work hours. This is not rocket science.
Nope, just for the majority of that time. You might be able to squeeze in a couple of hours of work, but not anything remotely close to what you could do in a full work day.
Here's the thing: if you're a decent human being and someone is in a meeting and their kid wakes up unexpectedly you can reschedule the meeting or delay it a couple of minutes. If someone is not in a meeting then who gives a damn if they spend an hour or two in the middle of the day playing with their kid?
It's not an hour or two.
It's also not lost on me that these policies universally favor people who don't have children, or who are not expected to look after children. While the deployment of child rearing would ideally be a 50/50 split, it is still split such that women are expected to do that, so a policy that says "you can have a job or you can have kids" is inherently biased against women.
Whether or not you have kids is your choice, and it's on you to make the required arrangements for childcare. It's not on the employer - some of them are struggling as much as you are - to deal with your choices. In most developed countries, maternity leave (and paternity leave for those who have it) is paid for by taxes via social security, not the employer.
Here's the thing: if you're a decent human being and someone is in a meeting and their kid wakes up unexpectedly you can reschedule the meeting or delay it a couple of minutes. If someone is not in a meeting then who gives a damn if they spend an hour or two in the middle of the day playing with their kid?
It's super easy.
Any business has a choice. You can reward working exactly a 9 to 5, or you can reward getting the work done and doing incredible work.
You are making it absolutely crystal clear that you would rather a person who is doing a 9 to 5 and not remotely interested in doing anything else is more valuable than any amount of skill or work that isn't 100% available for BS meetings from 9-5.
It's also not lost on me that these policies universally favor people who don't have children, or who are not expected to look after children. While the deployment of child rearing would ideally be a 50/50 split, it is still split such that women are expected to do that, so a policy that says "you can have a job or you can have kids" is inherently biased against women.