joreth | Your Single Coworkers & Employees Aren't There To Pick Up The Slack For Married People

https://qz.com/991030/your-single-coworkers-and-employees-arent-there-to-pick-up-the-slack-for-married-people/

Not poly but an example of couple privilege, which is so deeply embedded in our culture that we bring these kinds of values with us into poly relationships unless we are consciously fighting against it.

How many unicorn hunters argue that their mythical "third" should be the one to move in with them because they have the family so it would be more of a hardship for them to move? How often do we see excuses for ignoring or dismissing or mistreating secondaries because they're "single" but the couple has a "family" to protect. How often do solo polys bear the brunt of the emotional labor, the financial strain, and various "responsibilities" because the "family" is a priority and needs to remain as such?

#RhetoricalQuestions #CouplePrivilege #IHaveMyOwnResponsibilitiesThatNeedPriorityButNoOneToHelpMeLikeThat

"In fact, single people do more to maintain their relationships with their friends, neighbors, siblings, and parents than married people. They are better at staying in touch with them, and helping and encouraging them. It is different for couples who move in together or get married. They tend to become more insular, even if they don’t have children. When aging parents need help, they get it disproportionately from their grown children who are single."

"Single people are rooted in their communities and towns in significant ways. They participate in public events more often, and take more music and art classes. They volunteer more than married people do for a wide variety of organizations."

"Ideally, only in special circumstances should employees be asked to justify their requests to take time off. Otherwise, in a culture that still celebrates married people and their families... single people may be treated unfairly. For example, employers may be tempted to take more seriously a request to take time off to care for an ailing spouse than an ailing sibling or close friend."

"When single people are caring for their parents and others who need their help, they do so at greater economic risk than married people are. If they put in fewer hours at work, or step away from their jobs, they do not have a spouse to pick up the financial slack—or keep them on their employer-sponsored health insurance. Similarly, when single people get laid off or lose their jobs, they are particularly vulnerable for the same reasons."

"Even more significantly, single people are excluded from more than 1,000 federal laws that benefit and protect only people who are legally married. ... When lifelong single people die, they cannot leave their benefits to anyone else—they go back into the system—and no one else can leave their benefits to a single person either."

"Financial disadvantages in taxation, Social Security, health spending, and housing expenses add up. By one estimate, single women, relative to married women, lose out on somewhere between a half million and a million dollars over the course of their adult lives."