‘[Parents] save upwards of $18,000 a year in benefits’: Childfree employees mass quit after realizing they are unfairly compensated compared to employees with children, revealing the supervisor's ‘secret benefits club’

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Dec 14, 2024 1:00 PM EST

When u/Direct-Caterpillar77 started working for a company that prides itself on being accommodating to parents and helping out families, they were initially thrilled… until they realized the dark underbelly of "support."

Working full-time as a parent probably feels like working two full-time jobs. I'm not a parent, but the acquaintances that I know who do have kids are always dashing around, struggling to negotiate for more sick days, juggling soccer practices, and generally running around like maniacs trying to keep the wheels on their family's bus. It's a lot, but it's also a part of a working parent's lifestyle. 

While many of us are all for supportive benefits within a company that helps out the employees, when the childfree workers of this company found out that they were being sold short $1000s worth of benefits, they were initially peeved. With their coworkers who were parents leaving the office at 2 PM, they'd dump their workload on the ones who stayed behind and worked a full day. Cashing in on their kiddos and reaping the benefits at work, while the childless workers picked up the slack, the workforce's benefit chart was irrevocably tilted. 

Read all of the details of how an unfair workplace tipped the scales against child-free employees. 

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    my company secretly gives parents thousands of extra dollars in benefits I work for an organization that prides itself on being generous and flexible to parents. I fully
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    support that, despite the usual gripes among the childless employees you might imagine (e.g., we are asked to work more weekends and nights). A colleague of mine, a parent, is leaving the org and invited me to
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    coffee. I thought it was just to have a farewell chat, but it turns out they feel that the difference in parent vs. non-parent benefits is so drastic they "don't feel right” leaving without telling someone. They let me know how stark the difference is and ... it's way beyond anything I've seen before.
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    It turns out parents in my org are offered, when they are hired or become parents, are offered a special benefits package called "Family Benefits." This is not in any paperwork I have access to (including my
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    onboarding work and employee handbook) and those who partake are asked to not share information about it with non- parents, ostensibly to "avoid any tension" with childless employees. But the real reason
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    is far more clear: it's because they don't want us to know how bad the difference is: • The Family Package includes 10 extra days of PTO (three sick, two personal, five vacation).
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    • We have access to specific facilities (gym, pool, etc.). and the Family Benefits package gives free gym membership and swim lessons to you, your spouse, and your children;
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    I can only get those at a 50% discount, and my spouse gets no discount at all. Officially, we're a "one remote day a week" organization; those with children are allowed to be
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    remote any time schools are out (this includes staff members whose kids aren't school-age yet, and the entire summer). • We have several weekend/evening events
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    volunteer for, where volunteering gives you comp time; if you're a parent who volunteers and calls out day- of due to childcare, you still get your comp day (as you might imagine, every event usually has about 25-30
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    • There's an affiliate discount program that includes discounts to major businesses not offered to child-free employees - not just child- specific businesses, but movie theaters, ride-sharing apps, and chain stores.
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    • We get a card we can add pre- tax commuting funds to, but parents in this program get a bonus $100 a month. • We get retirement matching up to 2.5%, but parents get up to 5%.
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    All told, my colleague estimates that as a parent of two children, they saved upwards of $18,000 worth a year in benefits that are not available to me, in addition to the non-monetary benefits (like time saved not having to commute any time schools are out, basically free comp time).
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    I'm all for flexibility for parents but knowing that my organization is secretly (SECRETLY) giving parents this volume of bonus benefits has me feeling disgusted at my org and disappointed in
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    my colleagues who have kept it quiet. How do I approach this? Do I reach out to HR? Do I pretend it never happened and move forward? Is this even legal? I'm already planning to leave, and was
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    considering telling my fellow child-free colleagues before I left, but right now I'm just feeling so lost. Update Dec 4, 2024 (4 months later)
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    Thanks to you and everyone in the comments for, before anything else, validating my opinions that this is bananas! A few notes/answers: The child-free staff obviously noticed a lot of these things!
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    Most of them, even! We just didn't assume "our organization's supervisors are running a secret benefits club" because that would be insane, right?!? Ha. To give some examples, most
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    colleagues with kids made one weekly appearance in the office during the summer, so we attributed the extra remote days to their managers being nice, not a formal policy exemption.
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    We'd see coworkers attend events as guests (and loved when they believed in our events enough to bring their families!) but we didn't know they still got comp time. Honestly, the only people who took 100% advantage of
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    every perk offered, no questions asked, were independently known to be... asshats. My favorite example: my boss is universally loathed in the office — they're the kind of person who emails you projects on
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    Saturday night, texts you about it on Sunday morning, then yells at you if it's not done Monday morning before they hand me all their work to leave the office at 2 pm. The office has lovingly nicknamed
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    them "NWC" for "No White Clothes" because you'll never see them in the office between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Someone in the comments questioned how the child-
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    free managers felt about this and it helped me realize that every single person in the C- suite and director level had kids, as did probably two- thirds of the manager level.
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    of a single parent who didn't report to another parent. But I doubt that had anything to do with these policies (rolls eyes as high as possible). I should say, that didn't impact who did or didn't get promoted into certain roles:
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    parents and non-parents alike were deservedly hired or promoted from within; it did obviously impact which supervisor was assigned to which person.
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    Yes, apparently if you have. your first child while working there, you then get told about the "expanded benefits packages to accommodate your new family." It seems the colleagues are so pleasantly surprised at all the benefits
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    they aren't retroactively angry (or maybe they are and feel it's better to keep the secret). We do have a small, understaffed HR department. One person who is basically the liaison between us and a
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    joined as a parent and was not given a big "don't tell the others" speech, it was just suggested they have discretion around benefits so we don't "let money get in the way of teamwork." The
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    the benefits differences and were 100% prepared to publicly share with the full organization and an employment lawyer if they did not work to balance out the benefits, or at least publicize the differences so
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    non-parents can choose whether or not they want to work here. I got a response that they'd "be looking into it" and suddenly a number of directors and managers (including my boss), the C- suite, HR, and some board members were meeting for hours at a time that week.
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    That Friday, an email went out that basically said benefits would be changing to "match the changing needs of our organization." However, it didn't acknowledge previous differences. Generally it meant that non-parents got the extra time off, comp days
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    are only given if you complete a volunteer shift, and we would have a universal in- office day of Wednesday during the summers, but be remote the other four days. However, some benefits weren't changing: you were
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    still only eligible for family gym memberships if you had kids ("there is no couples membership at Organization," so non-families were just SOL), leaving early without taking PTO was only for school pickups, and no announced change to our retirement benefits.
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    If not happy with the response (we weren't!), my colleagues and I were planning to tell everyone, but we didn't even have to. Sadly I missed this while out of town for a wedding, but apparently a parent in the office got this
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    who originally spearheaded these benefits resigned, and all the non-parents have collectively agreed to refuse to go in the office until everything is more equal. Almost every benefit that was given to parents will now be
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    offered org-wide (they are even creating a couples' gym membership) but, interestingly, they have not touched the one thing that seemed to rile up the comments section the most: retirement matching!
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    having submitted my two weeks. Found an interesting new job (and used your advice on interviews and in negotiations) and submitted my notice. There was still some drama: My aforementioned boss
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    NWC responded by taking multiple projects away from my fellow non-parents, saying "they can't do it while on their remote strike" and assigning them to me (~120 hours of group work to be done alone in 10 working days). Extra
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    lucky for me, I have a family member and a college friend who are both employment lawyers; they helped me craft an email saying that because I've been assigned an unreasonable amount of work on an impossible timeline
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    after being a whistleblower for the benefits issue, I could and would sue for retaliation. An hour later I got a call from HR letting me know that my work had been reassigned and that once I'd finished editing an exit doc for my successor, I
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    could log off permanently and still be paid for the full notice period and get my vacation payouts. Currently basking in the glow of paid funemployment. (When I'm done writing this, my wife and I are going to get drinks and lunch! At 2 in the afternoon! On a Tuesday!)
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    Thanks again to the comments for the suggestions and making me feel less like a bewildered baboon, and to you for your sage advice with this question and so many others! I'm aware of my privilege in having understanding colleagues and literally being
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    able to text two employment lawyers and get good, pro bono advice within a day. Not everyone has that, so thank you for providing the resource.
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