I don't disagree that many companies show less than admirable...or even appropriate support and loyalty. You can work to change that with varying degress of success.

All of us here have a problem - if we don't update our skills we reduce the chance of making more money, decrease our employability if we get laid of, decrease our value at our current job if a layoff ever happens. We can choose to take whatever time our employers give us - from zero hours to a lot of dollars/time - and leave it at that, or we can seek to do more. Depends on how comfortable you are with skills, how close to retirement or career change, etc, how effective that strategy is.

We all think it's in our employers interest to update our skills, not all our employers agree. Even if you convince this employer/manager, you may well fight the same fight with the next one. It absolutely is worth trying to show them the value, but we can't put our careers in their hands. I know that I need to spend a minimum of 100 hours a year to stay current and expand my skills some. If I can get my employer to support some or all of those hours while I'm at work that's a big plus, but if not - I know what I need to do to advance my career and I'm going to get that done.

While usually a good bit of that 100 hours a year does come out of "family time" in some sense - depending on when I use the hours, I do it for family, not because it's good for my employer. Family is where my #1 loyalty is, and I have a responsibility to stay employed, stay employable, and to increase my value in the market to the extent I can. Everyone can decide how much time to trade for how much increased value, again, from zero to a lot.

Take ownership of your career in all respects. If you work for a manager/employer that doesn't invest in training isn't it worth your time to try to educate them - by making a sound business proposal which might well include benefits they've reaped already through your own private efforts?

I look forward to your continued comments - I hope by the time I'm done I'll be able to coach both sides of this conversation on the training issue.