Never mind — I misread that one.

You are correct. I misread that one.

I see that my comment has, in some cases, seemingly pitted workers with children against those who don't have children, but I don't think that needed to happen. I think the struggle to balance work and family life are all part of an important conversation whether or not one has children.

Paul McCartney was awarded a Knighthood of the British Empire, not just the MBE, so Stella doesn't outrank him at all.

Thank you for your well-considered response. I see that my comment might be read as a being a bit dismissive. My intent, though, was to express something more along the lines of, "Yes, it's important for everyone to find a work/life balance and isn't it a shame that it's so difficult and requires so many…

Silly! How could you possibly forget all the tax breaks you get when you are single and don't have kids? That's where all the extra money comes from!

In my experience taking care of your parents is something that people at work think twice about. It would be great if it wasn't.

Oh, I've been in the workplace since 1987 and have already been shafted on this issue more times than I care to recall!

Okay, so we're in agreement on that. But the workplace generally is not. And you assumed after reading my first post that when I spoke about childless individual and personal lives that I was referring to dining out and walking the dog. That's the same attitude that the work place often holds when it comes to…

Thank you — you put that very well. I'm sorry you lost your mother.

Well, since you were so kind to ask, now that both of my parents have passed away from long, painful illnesses no, my personal life is no longer that demanding. However, when I was responsible for taking care of them and managing their in-home care and their doctor's appointments and the whole hospice thing twice…

If you look back at what I've written you will see that I've not blamed my colleagues one bit. HR actually guarantees some contractual benefits for parents. And let's not forget that there are many, many people in the US who work for companies far too small to have anything even close to resembling HR.

People without children have families, too.

Are the the parents and other relatives of childless employees also less important than your children?

Can we please remember that our colleagues without children are also human and have personal lives, too?

Perfect adjective for it.

They're all kind of funny. I just don't know how I feel about putting them on a baby.

You beat me to it!

Yes, it is indeed both sickening and fairly common.

Oh, T-Shirt Hell sells onesies that say "I Ate My Twin" and "Now that I'm Safe I'm Pro-Choice" and "Watch Your Fucking Language There's a Goddamn Baby in the Room" and "Fuck the Milk Where's the Whiskey Tits" and....well, you get the idea. I know this because a friend actually purchased that first one in the list.