When “family friendly” means only parents get flexibility

The useful part

the "family-friendly" companies I've worked for were only friendly to employees with kids. Almost every company I've worked for in my 15+ years in the corporate world brags about being "family friendly" or something similar, but this usually translates into childless people getting treated differently and/or poorly. – During city-wide snow days, everyone without kids had to come into the office to cover for parents who were staying at home with their kids, regardless of how safe we felt driving in the weather.

How it works

• – Employees without kids are often expected to work holidays more than parents and are sometimes asked to move our scheduled time off because someone with kids planned a family vacation for that same time.
• It's not petty to object to being held to a dramatically different set of expectations than coworkers who have kids.
• An employer that's able to offer schedule flexibility or remote work for employees with kids should be able to offer that to employees without kids, too.
• Other people have aging parents, disabled spouses, their own medical conditions, and other life situations to manage that can be significantly less stressful if they have some workplace flexibility.
• As for whether there's a way to address it … in a reasonably functional company, ideally you'd try banding together with your colleagues and pushing for a change, pointing out how inequitable these...

What to take from it

– Employees without kids who need to adjust their schedule for appointments are given the side eye, but parents can leave early for their kid's extracurriculars with no problem. It was definitely treated as no different than my colleagues who need to come in late or not at all because of snow days. (But I've found that when non-parents need flexibility, it's often for longer–you might just be out for the day with a sick kid, but a pet in the hospital or a family member cross country who needs care might knock someone out for a week.

Example or evidence

• It's absurd to say that they're the only people who need or can have any flexibility at all.
• You may also like: how can we make sure flexibility for parents isn't unfair to everyone else?
• While I don't think that is bad, you shouldn't get significantly more flexibility for having a child than everyone else.
• I've used that time this year to care for a dying pet, visit a dying uncle, and support my partner as she cared for a sick parent.

Details worth keeping

Is there a way to address this without looking petty? If it was just a flexible place, they'd call it that. Really, they are just trying to be more inclusive for parents.

Related coverage

• Moneytalksnews: These companies offer benefits that can better support families with working parents.
• Marketwatch: "They are always telling me how much harder their life is because they have kids."
• Fastcompany: By the time Katie returned to work after parental leave, her daughter had started attending a day care close to her apartment.
• Inc: The Netflix cofounder explains why he stopped calling the company a family after a brutal early layoff. Airbnb's Brian Chesky and Shopify's Tobi Lutke reached the same conclusion.
• Thecut: You're not alone in this trend. The key is to communicate empathy while setting firm boundaries.