Tech companies shower their employees with perks like dry cleaning, massages and haircuts. But there is one group for whom working at a tech company can be much more difficult than working elsewhere: parents.
高科技公司给员工提供了大量福利，比如干洗、按摩和理发等等。但对有些人而言，在科技公司工作要比在其他任何地方困难很多：为人父母者。
Facebook holds all-night hackathons. Google has weekend laser tag retreats. Many startups have no parental leave policy at all, so the first employee to have a baby has to ask the company to create one.
Facebook会举办通宵达旦的编程马拉松活动。谷歌(Google)也有周末激光枪对战赛。很多初创公司完全没有育儿假政策可言，所以第一个生孩子的员工不得不向公司提出设立此类规定的要求。

Then there are the subtler messages. Yahoo's chief executive, Marissa Mayer, was vocal about returning to work two weeks after she gave birth. Later, Yahoo told employees they could no longer work from home. Workers with children say they are often the only such employees on teams of 20-somethings.
还有更微妙的讯息被传达出去。雅虎(Yahoo)首席执行官玛丽莎·梅耶尔(Marissa Mayer)大谈自己生下孩子两周后就回到了工作岗位上。后来，雅虎公司告诉员工，他们以后不能在家工作了。有孩子的员工纷纷表示，团队中往往都是二十多岁的年轻人，而他们是其中唯一有孩子的人。
The strains around these issues have burst into public view in recent weeks. In a gender discrimination trial against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a top venture capital firm, two former partners were declined board seats because they were pregnant or going on maternity leave, according to testimony. In a lawsuit against Facebook, a former technology partner said her boss had admonished her for volunteering at her child's school one day a month, which she said was allowed by company policy. Microsoft mandated sick leave among its contractors after complaints that some were not given such benefits.
围绕这些问题产生的冲突，最近几周突然闯入了公众的视野。在顶级风险投资公司凯鹏华盈(Kleiner Perkins Caufield& Byers)的性别歧视案的审理过程中，证词显示，因为怀孕或准备休产假，两名前合伙人没有得到董事会席位。在针对Facebook的一桩诉讼中，一名前技术合伙人称，因为每个月到自家孩子的学校当一天志愿者，她遭到了上司的斥责。她表示，此事本来属于公司政策允许的范畴。因为有承包商雇员抱怨没有得到休病假的福利，微软(Microsoft)不得不对此做出了强制规定。
“The culture is not necessarily friendly to families, and I think that's not really realized,” said Bret Taylor, former chief technology officer at Facebook and co-founder of a startup called Quip.
“高科技企业的文化未必对家庭友好，我认为，人们还没有真正意识到这一点，”布雷特·泰勒(Bret Taylor)说。他曾是Facebook的首席技术官，如今是初创公司Quip的联合创始人。
That Silicon Valley — known for being on the forefront not just of technology but also of workplace policy — creates so many difficulties for working parents highlights a vexing problem for the U.S. economy. The United States is arguably struggling to adjust to the realities of modern family life more than any other affluent country.
大家都知道硅谷不仅站在科技前沿，而且在职场政策上也相当前卫。然而，它给在职父母造成了诸多困难。此事突显了美国经济中一个令人头痛的问题。在努力适应当代家庭生活方面，可以说美国比其他的富裕国家面临更大的困难。
The American workplace has always prized people who place work ahead of family, and European countries have long had more generous policies for working parents. But in the last two decades, that gap has widened significantly. Other developed countries have expanded benefits like paid parental leave and child care, while the United States has not.
美国职场一向赞许那些把工作摆在家庭之前的人，而欧洲国家早已为在职父母提供了更优厚的政策。不过，在过去的20年中，这一差距在明显拉大。其他发达国家增加了带薪育儿假和儿童看护等福利，美国却没有跟上。
The absence of such policies here creates obvious advantages for companies, reducing costs and increasing production. But for workers — most of whom have children, aging parents or both, and many of whom are single parents — the downsides can be enormous, whether they work in high finance or hourly labor. Many workers today — blue-collar and white-collar alike — believe they must choose between career and family.
此类政策的缺失，给企业带来了显而易见的优势：降低了成本，提高了产量。但对员工而言——其中大多数不是有小孩，就是有年迈的父母，或者两者都有，很多人还是单亲家长——其中的不利之处是巨大的，无论他们收入丰厚，还是拿计时工资。如今很多员工觉得，自己必须得在事业和家庭中二选一，而有这种想法的并不限于蓝领或白领。
The share of women in their 30s and 40s who work, which was once higher in the U.S. than in Canada, Australia, Japan and much of Europe, has fallen behind. The widening gap in policies is a major reason for the change, said Francine Blau, an economist at Cornell University, and other researchers. And it is not a challenge just for women: 37 percent of nonworking men 25 to 54 say family responsibilities are a reason they are not working, according to a New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
以前，美国三四十岁在职女性的比例高于加拿大、澳大利亚、日本，以及欧洲的许多地区，现在却已经落在了后面。康奈尔大学(Cornell University)的经济学家弗朗辛·布劳(Francine Blau)和其他一些研究人员表示，公司政策方面日益扩大的差距是这种变化的一个重要原因。面对这一挑战的不仅仅是女性：根据《纽约时报》、CBS新闻频道(CBS News)和凯泽家族基金会(Kaiser Family Foundation)进行的一项联合调查，在未涉足职场的25至54岁的男性中，有37%表示家庭责任是自己不工作的一个原因。
More broadly, some economists say, the lack of family-focused policies reflects the power imbalance between companies and workers in the U.S. economy. The share of economic output flowing to corporate profits has surged, while employee compensation has stagnated.
更宏观地看，一些经济学家指出，家庭帮扶政策的匮乏反映了美国经济中企业和员工之间的权力不平衡。经济产出流入公司利润的份额在飙升，而员工的薪酬却停滞不前。
The technology industry is a striking example because it attracts some of the country's smartest people, many of whom have far more bargaining power than most workers. Silicon Valley also has outsize cultural significance, as the face of U.S. ingenuity and a magnet for global talent.
科技行业是一个明显的例子，因为它吸引了美国最聪慧的人才，其中不少人比大多数员工拥有强得多的议价能力。硅谷还有着巨大的文化意义，不仅代表着美国的独创精神，也是吸引全球人才的磁铁。
But it is also a place that often expects total commitment to work. That grows from the notion that in tech, unlike in other industries, companies become overnight successes, and believe their work is changing the world.
然而，硅谷也期待你全力以赴地投入工作。这来源于一个信念：不同于其他行业，科技业的公司会在一夜之间大获成功，而且这些公司相信自己的工作正在改变世界。
“People who give you millions of dollars for nothing but an idea at the very least expect your complete commitment to that idea,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, the online real estate brokerage firm. “That is why nobody, not even the most committed parent, talks about a family-friendly workplace in, say, an investor pitch.”
“只不过因为你拥有一个点子，投资者就交给你成百上千万的美元，那么，他们最起码也会期待你就此施展全力，”房地产中介网站Redfin的首席执行官格伦·凯尔曼(Glenn Kelman)说。“这就是为什么，在向投资者做推介的时候，没有人会谈论什么对家庭友好的工作环境，即便是最顾家的父母也不会这样做。”
Startups are unlikely to have parental policies because they are more focused on growing as quickly as possible. Many big tech companies try to ease the way for new parents, at least officially — but that does not necessarily filter down to company culture.
初创公司之所以不大可能拥有育儿政策，是因为他们更关注的是尽快发展壮大。许多大型科技企业试图为新近为人父母的员工提供一定的便利，至少在官方层面上如此——但这未必能渗透到公司文化的层面。
They have some of the most generous policies in corporate America for the period after a child is born, like four months of paid leave and a $4,000 baby stipend at Facebook. There are prominent examples of women with children who have climbed the corporate ladder in tech. Mayer was pregnant when she became chief executive of Yahoo, and Susan Wojcicki, chief executive of YouTube, recently had her fifth child.
它们的确拥有在慷慨程度上排在美国业界前列的产后政策，比如Facebook提供了四个月的带薪产假，外加4000美元的婴儿津贴。这里也的确有生儿育女的女性在科技业步步高升的杰出案例。梅耶尔成为雅虎首席执行官的时候怀有身孕，而YouTube的首席执行官苏珊·沃西基(Susan Wojcicki)不久前产下了第五个孩子。
But these examples exaggerate how family-friendly tech companies are, especially after the newborn phase. The executives have privileges not available to typical workers (Mayer built a nursery next to her office). Some benefits, like free meals and on-site laundry, have a flip side of discouraging people from leaving. And many parents say that office culture — which can, for example, reward people based on how many lines of code they can write per week — does not support parents.
然而，这些例子夸大了科技企业与家庭生活兼容的程度，尤其是在新生儿阶段过去之后。高管拥有普通员工没有的种种特权（梅耶尔在自己的办公室旁边修建了一个育儿室）。有些公司福利，比如免费餐和公司洗衣服务，带有鼓励员工不要离开的副作用。许多有孩子的人表示，办公室文化不支持为人父母，比方说，这种文化有时会以一周能写多少行代码来奖励员工。
“I've seen some of what I would call hero culture, where people are doing 20 hours a day to get this or that done at all costs,” said Max Schireson, the former chief executive of a database software company called MongoDB. He became the talk of Silicon Valley last summer when he wrote a blog post saying he was stepping down to spend more time with his three children. He had been flying 300,000 miles a year and was gone when his son had an emergency surgery.
“我看到的一些现象可以称之为‘英雄文化’：有人每天工作20个小时，不惜一切代价来完成这样或那样的事情，”曾在数据库软件公司MongoDB担任首席执行官的马克斯·席雷森(Max Schireson)说。去年夏天，他在博客上写了一篇文章，宣布自己离职，以便有更多的时间来与三个孩子在一起。这让他成为了硅谷街谈巷议的人物。此前，他每年在空中飞行30万英里（约合50万公里），还缺席了儿子的一次紧急手术。
“Frankly what I've seen is just forgetting the human aspect of it,” he said.
“说实话，我看到的这些无非是忘记了人性的价值，”他说。
As Silicon Valley ages, and 20-something entrepreneurs become 30-something parents, the culture is beginning to change. Offering a family-friendly workplace has become a recruiting strategy.
随着硅谷的成熟，二十来岁的创业者成为了三十来岁的父母，这里的文化也开始发生转变。提供一个有利于家庭生活的职场环境正在成为一种招募人才的策略。
The Happy Home Co., a home repair startup, specifically recruits parents. “Some of the most qualified, talented and passionate people in the valley are often overlooked by startups for not being a `cultural fit,' which is often code for `too old, too much of a parent, too female, too different,”' said Doug Ludlow, a co-founder.
家居维修领域的初创公司欢乐家庭(Happy Home Co.)会专门招聘已是父母的员工。“硅谷的一些资质最棒、才能最高、最富有激情的人往往因为“文化不合拍”而被初创企业忽视。这种不合拍的意思其实是，‘太老了，总是要照顾孩子，是女人，太不一样了，’”联合创始人道格·勒德洛(Doug Ludlow)说。
At Taylor's company, Quip, which makes workplace collaboration software, the founders tell interviewees that they have children and leave at 5:30 p.m. If he wants to work later, Taylor said, he goes home so other employees don't feel obligated to stay.
在泰勒所在的协同工作软件公司Quip，几位创始人会告诉应聘者，自己有小孩，下午5点半下班。泰勒说，如果自己想接着工作，也会回家去加班，免得其他员工觉得必须留在办公室里。
“It's not like we're visionary — we're just older,” he said. “It really helps us recruit people who were concerned about the culture at other companies.”
“并不是说我们有远见——我们就是年纪大了些，”他说。“这的确能帮助我们招募那些对其他公司的文化有所保留的人才。”
In some ways, an aging Silicon Valley is beginning to look more like the rest of corporate America, where most workers have families. The challenge is retaining the youthful optimism that they can do the impossible — while also showing their employees that working and having families is realistic.
某些方面来说，年纪渐长的硅谷开始与多数员工拥有家庭的美国其他行业趋同。硅谷面临的挑战是，在保持一切皆有可能的乐观活力的同时，也向员工展示出，工作与家庭可以兼得。