The upside to working late

Childfree employees may not appreciate the way their coworkers with kids breeze out of the offices at 5 each day, leaving them behind to pick up the slack, but there are advantages to those late nights, as this article from Australia highlights:

DESPITE employers becoming more flexible, government attention on childcare and ongoing equal opportunities for mums and dads, many Australians still believe those with no kids are more likely to be successful in their career.

According to a survey by career building and networking site Link Me 48 per cent of 681 people surveyed from across the country believe those that are childfree are more likely to have a better career.

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Family-friendly work policies stir up resentment

In the U.K. a proposed law that would extend the same benefits parents get to those without kids isn't doing much to ease tensions around the worplace, as this article in the Daily Mail reports:

In most modern offices today, a division exists between those who have children and those who don't.

Offices, factories, surgeries, shops and studios are having to cope with increasing incidents of job jealousy — between those who insist on more time with their children and those who are forced to take up the slack which their colleagues with families leave behind.

So one might imagine that this week's news that Beverley Hughes, the Minister for Children, wants to introduce flexible working rights for all employees — not just those with children under six — would have signalled a rapprochement between the two warring factions.

I very much doubt it.

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Prove you can bear children or no wedding license?

According to an article published in 247Gay.com, The Washington Defense of Marriage wants to try to push "a state ballot measure that would limit marriage only to couples who prove they can bear children within three years." To their credit, they seem to recognize that this is idiotic and won't stand up in court, however:

The Associated Press reports that The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance acknowledged on its Web site that the initiative was "absurd" but hoped the idea prompts "discussion about the many misguided assumptions" underlying a state Supreme Court ruling that upheld a ban on same-sex marriage. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) limits marriage to a union of one man and one woman.

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According to a Campbell's Soup Co. survey, "89 percent of young, childless couples handle the basics or consider themselves pretty good cooks. " Meaning we won't be eating much canned soup, because we have time to cook a good dinner. Right?
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In Korea, familes of two are choosing to remain as they are instead of having children. This article says economic reasons and lack of government support are partly to blame.
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Want a career in politics? Don't have kids.

A candidate for Australian prime minister is boasting her lack of children as a political asset. Now there's a change!

Political aspirants everywhere have traditionally presented themselves to their electorates as "normal" people. Wives and husbands, daughters and sons, even pets, have been trotted out as tokens of the ordinariness that makes for acceptability with voters.

But Gillard (46) has turned the convention on its head. She says that, for women but not men, children are a hindrance and a distraction from the biggest prizes in politics. She said all the country's 25 prime ministers would have struggled to make it to the top job if they had been born female.

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Lastly, I enjoyed this letter to the editor from an 81-year-old Arizona man who sympathizes with people who choose not to have kids. He writes, "One would have to give some very serious thought to bringing children into this world, a world that is quickly going down the tube."
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