I haven’t been writing because I haven’t been sleeping. I keep waking up every day at around three a.m. and then I can’t get back to sleep for about an hour.
But I wanted to share this quick thought about the news today. An AP headline today said that the IRS agent killed in this week’s attack was a “loyal family man.” I don’t want to debate that. What happened to him was tragic, but it is not necessarily more tragic because he was a family man. If he were divorced, would his life be worth less? If he were never married? If he were socially awkward? If had the kind of union that many people in this country would refuse to see as belonging in the category of family?
I’m with you on this. One cannot compare being murdered with asking for vacation time, but the “family man/woman” thing often drove me crazy during my tenure as a corporate wench. People with families would get first choice for time off and permission to leave work early for their children’s recitals, games, Cub Scout events, etc. It was just an unspoken rule that this should be so. Now, I believe that parents need to be able to put their children first in emergencies — such as leaving the office early when a kid is sick — but a baseball game is not an emergency. The message seemed to be that my needs as an employee were not as important as those who had children, and that my vacation plans and after-hours life were less valid because I was single and child-free.