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Chazwozel
Well as an FYI to this thread. Technically, your employer can make you work on every holiday, even Christmas. Holidays are benefits. They are not required by law.
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Chazwozel
Fine. Regardless, it's not your employers responsibility to give you the day off because your kids don't have school.
Dave
Staff member
Fine. Regardless, it's not your employers responsibility to give you the day off because your kids don't have school.[/QUOTE]
No, but they've found it's a good idea for employee morale and retention to at least make an effort to help out in some way and be flexible.
For example, here we can log in from home if need be (and they watch our productivity).
Grad students don't get the day off.
Dave
Staff member
They didn't deserve it anyway.
But, I have a dream too!
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Chazwozel
Fine. Regardless, it's not your employers responsibility to give you the day off because your kids don't have school.[/QUOTE]
No, but they've found it's a good idea for employee morale and retention to at least make an effort to help out in some way and be flexible.
For example, here we can log in from home if need be (and they watch our productivity).[/QUOTE]
And I agree with that. But isn't it funny how many hoops we've jumped through for MLK day to be a real problem?
Scenario: your kid has off from a full day of school. He is 6 years old. You have to work.
Your options:
1. Plan ahead take vacation/ personal day
2. Take off work, no pay.
3. Take off work, sick day.
4. Work and have kid watched by relative
5. Work and have kid watched by friend
6. Work and have kid go to his best friends house for the day
7. Work and hire a babysitter
8. Work and send kid to daycare for the day.
9. Work and bring kid to work (if employer allows or has daycare)
10. Take half day and have kid stay alone for 4 hours (prepare their meal prior, give them a stack of movies to watch etc..)
11. Work and leave kid under the storm drain outside your office.
See 10 viable choices there before it all really is a problem. Oh and the last resort: Don't work and explain you had no other option. No one ever 'forces' you to work in this country.
K
Kitty Sinatra
But that dream is just about sleeping in after boozing the night away!
We get nearly one statutory (legally mandated) holiday a month* up here, and that's not enough for me. This doesn't apply very well to the service industry, so Mav you might still have to work on such days but you'd get another day off or just get paid double time.
*heck, we just got a new one here in Ontario last year in February called "Family Day." It was one of my Liberal premier's election promises, but I didn't know that or else I'd have voted for him. Luckily, my party - The NDP - doesn't have a chance of winning, and my vote really doesn't matter anyway since my riding is firmly Conservative. So, like 2 days after he won, we got another day off. Sweet.
We get nearly one statutory (legally mandated) holiday a month* up here, and that's not enough for me. This doesn't apply very well to the service industry, so Mav you might still have to work on such days but you'd get another day off or just get paid double time.
*heck, we just got a new one here in Ontario last year in February called "Family Day." It was one of my Liberal premier's election promises, but I didn't know that or else I'd have voted for him. Luckily, my party - The NDP - doesn't have a chance of winning, and my vote really doesn't matter anyway since my riding is firmly Conservative. So, like 2 days after he won, we got another day off. Sweet.
North_Ranger
Staff member
Martin Luthor King? Is that the black guy who had a dream of stealing forty cakes?
I can't remember the last time I had a job where I got MLK day off. Even if the admin people are off, the lab monkeys still got shit to do.
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Chazwozel
I can't remember the last time I had a job where I got MLK day off. Even if the admin people are off, the lab monkeys still got shit to do.[/QUOTE]
This is why I thank to Lord for giving me a job smack in the middle of a city where the predominant population is black.
I don't remember ever having a babysitter beyond the age of kindergarten or grade 1 beyond having someone stay the night with me when my parents were going to be gone overnight. I of course though grew up in a very, very small town and had loads of friends that lived on my block and wouldn't be inside the house anyway for any reason after school until dinner time anyway.
Whoa, this thread hella progressed while I was mic'ing my lunch.
Whoa, this thread hella progressed while I was mic'ing my lunch.
But what if it rains? Won't you get blamed for clogging the storm drain?
D
Deschain
Why on Earth would that happen? You weren't the one blocking it. Also, I wouldn't leave my kid home for fear of something like home invasion. At least, not without years of careful instruction on how to operate firearms.
But what if it rains? Won't you get blamed for clogging the storm drain?[/QUOTE]
Chaz just has no common courtesy for the guys who'll have to do that maintenance. Always thinking of himself. Do you know how hard it is to pull out a bloated corpse?
Government workers are pretty much the only ones who'll get the day off, work-wise. Both of my parents were military when my brother and I were kids, and my retired grandparents lived within an hour of us, so being left alone (on Gov't holidays) was never an issue. Plus I wasn't a stupid kid so I knew how to look out for myself and my brother for 6-8 hours. I mean, it's not like we're talking 2 weeks alone here, really. Hell, what about latchkey kids? Coming home from school and spending hours alone because the folks were still at work? I was one of those for awhile, too.
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makare
That's why I like living in a state capital, when the states off pretty much everything closes. It's awesome.
I think leaving a kid under the age of 10 home alone is just asking for trouble, certainly if the kid is under 8. And just because there is no set age restriction on how old to leave a kid home doesn't mean there isn't a reasonableness standard that has to be met. If your kid is 8 and home alone and something happens you better be able to show that a reasonable person would have left that particular kid home alone or you are going to be held accountable for anything that happens.
I think leaving a kid under the age of 10 home alone is just asking for trouble, certainly if the kid is under 8. And just because there is no set age restriction on how old to leave a kid home doesn't mean there isn't a reasonableness standard that has to be met. If your kid is 8 and home alone and something happens you better be able to show that a reasonable person would have left that particular kid home alone or you are going to be held accountable for anything that happens.
In some offices, the boss has off today while everyone else has to work. Hrm.
As for kids staying at home, I agree with Chaz that there are a LOT of options before leaving your little kid at home alone. Don't agree about the ages, but that's area-dependent, and kid-dependent. There are kids I could see leaving alone at 8, and others the same age who might burn the house down. I certainly wouldn't leave two of them alone when the eldest is 8, because one 8 year old staying out trouble is different than one taking care of a younger sibling.
That said, I'm confused by that state list. At what point do they find the 6-year-old alone and decide the parent should be charged in a state that has no legal age limit? Is it just arbitrary "if something goes wrong?" Because it's happened in those states listing "None". Which suggests you could leave an infant alone and that's okay. I just had a case today with a mother arrested because she left her 2-year-old alone and he broke his arm.
As for kids staying at home, I agree with Chaz that there are a LOT of options before leaving your little kid at home alone. Don't agree about the ages, but that's area-dependent, and kid-dependent. There are kids I could see leaving alone at 8, and others the same age who might burn the house down. I certainly wouldn't leave two of them alone when the eldest is 8, because one 8 year old staying out trouble is different than one taking care of a younger sibling.
That said, I'm confused by that state list. At what point do they find the 6-year-old alone and decide the parent should be charged in a state that has no legal age limit? Is it just arbitrary "if something goes wrong?" Because it's happened in those states listing "None". Which suggests you could leave an infant alone and that's okay. I just had a case today with a mother arrested because she left her 2-year-old alone and he broke his arm.
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Wasabi Poptart
Go work for a casino. They don't give a shit if it's a Federal or religious holiday. It's all money to them. I worked more than one Christmas Day, New Years Eve, MLK Day, Presidents' Day, etc. If you had kids that were sick or home from school for whatever reason, you had 3 choices: ask for the day off ahead of time, make arrangements for someone to watch them, or call out sick. Out of sick time? Not past your 90-day probationary period? You'd be looking for a new job and it was perfectly legal.
Very astute!
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Chazwozel
Other than Dave, I want to know how many people interact with an 8 or 10 year old on a daily basis? Raise you hands. I'm telling you they are not as stupid and helpless as you think. It varies from kid to kid, but man oh man. When I was 8, I would walk down Jamaica Ave in Queens, take the train, walk a couple blocks to the corner Deli to pick my parents up some cigarettes. This is NYC in the 80's, it wasn't the safest place in the world, but if you're street smart you know how to avoid problems (yes, even at 8 years old). My wife's cousins are 8 and 10, actually. They stay home alone after school for 3 hours until their parents get home from work, and in situations where they have off from school they're home all day. For 2-3 years now, they've managed not to kill themselves or burn the house down.
No, I wouldn't leave my 5 year old alone all day, but he has been alone for a couple hours while I'm outside doing yard work etc... It's a simple process of teaching a kid how to be self dependent and not end up being a 40 year old virgin living in our basement bitching about having to work on MLK day. I see it happening all the time anymore. You're considered a shitty parent if, heaven forbid, you let your child out of your sight. Remember this news story: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23935873/ Good for this lady. I really despise how fear mongering our society has become through the media.
Once again I work in center city Philadelphia. People I work with are constantly worried about getting mugged etc... I tell them not to be idiots: be alert, don't walk down sections you know are bad, mind it when someone's asking you questions (as a distraction), don't flash your wallet around... It's really not that hard to stay out of trouble. I learned things like this because my parents didn't hover over my every step, trying to protect me from the big, bad world.
By age 8 most kids are smarter and more clever than their parents.
fade
Staff member
Oh man, I've felt bad for that lady. She did the right thing, and people have lambasted her for it. We've become such a mollycoddling culture to our children. To ourselves, too. I think people outside of NY or Boston think the subway looks like a scene from The Warriors or some 70's horror schlock. I mean, it's friggin' Manhattan, not [insert bad part of town here]. 9 is pretty big. I was taking care of younger siblings at 9, for crying out loud.
Cajungal
Staff member
Huh, cool story. Her main concern was mine was well when I read this--that someone would try and hurt him. Many kids that age are old and mature enough to follow simple instructions. Like many parents say, "It's not them I worry about; it's everyone else." But still. he'd be in the most danger if he isolated himself somewhere where no one could help.
People can be so nosy, and parents can be so damn smug. They think that their way is the only way, and other, probably more mellow parents have to suffer because of it.
I grew up in a different kind of town, and I don't what I would have done in her situation. We don't really have good mass transit around here.
People can be so nosy, and parents can be so damn smug. They think that their way is the only way, and other, probably more mellow parents have to suffer because of it.
I grew up in a different kind of town, and I don't what I would have done in her situation. We don't really have good mass transit around here.
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Chazwozel
Well in that situation (and it's all situational), he was fine. He was traveling during the day, during rush hour, with lots of people around. I know when I was his age, I was told to bite, kick, scream and swing if anyone ever grabbed me. No one's going to grab a kid with lots of people around.
Cajungal
Staff member
Well in that situation (and it's all situational), he was fine. He was traveling during the day, during rush hour, with lots of people around. I know when I was his age, I was told to bite, kick, scream and swing if anyone ever grabbed me. No one's going to grab a kid with lots of people around.[/QUOTE]
Heh, I was told the same, that the more noise you made and the more you fought, the less likely someone was to bother you.
ElJuski
Staff member
This is a very true statement.
Also, I wouldn't leave my 8 year old kid home alone unless I absolutely have to, but I won't harrangue anyone for it if they think their kid can handle it.
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makare
I fail to see how taking some time to think from another person's perspective, parent vs nonparent, is whining. I wonder what things are like for people in life situations not like mine all the time and someday I'll probably be paid to do it.
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