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I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

nytimes.com

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Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#31

Post by aidenn0 »

zanny wrote: post #26

If you have children and then choose to work over doing the legitimately full time job of being a parent (full time being at least 40 hours a week, not that you can't do anything else ever) you need to provide them at least a parent to do that job or else you are neglecting them. Psychology is pretty uniform in the observation that children need parents, preferably both, but just one is a massive developmental influe…

From TFA:

> They were lovingly cared for by their father, their grandmother, my son’s preschool teacher and my daughter’s babysitter.

Sounds like there were at least two family members watching the kids on a regular basis.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#33

Post by macspoofing »

arkitaip wrote: post #25
mychael wrote: post #23

[flagged]

Get real, the mother isn't a sociopath. She just made the same choices that many dads do.

>She just made the same choices that many dads do.

There is one difference: she boasted about it on a NYTimes editorial page. I would argue that suggests she may be on the spectrum. Her kids will read this. Their friends and classmates will read this. Terrible.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#35

Post by m0zg »

Prioritizing clients over kids seems misguided if there's a conscious choice being made, but in my childhood I think I benefited a lot from benign neglect: not having everything micromanaged by my parents who let me figure things out on my own, just because they didn't feel like they had to help me the moment I have the slightest hint of a problem. Thanks to this I could pursue things that _I_ (rather than my parents) wanted to pursue, and I had vast stretches of free time to do it. I joined a volleyball team on my own, I learned electronics and programming on my own, I've read basically all of "golden age" science fiction worth reading, I got our math teacher at school to give a few of us extra lessons to prepare for the college entrance exam, etc.

This autonomy had two interesting effects. On the one hand it definitely benefited me later in life, because I felt like I had a built-in direction. On the other I don't like it when people tell me what to do, particularly if they have an unearned position of power and don't really know what to do themselves, but have to "lead", by hook or by crook.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#36

Post by EdwardDiego »

I'm a single father of five who obtained full-time custody last year, and trying to balance work and parenting is a never-ending challenge.

Some of my observations:

1) Kids have a great time with other kids, so don't feel bad about daycare. Having them at home full-time past the age of 2 is, I think, more about the parent than the child.

2) Sometimes kids just suck, and work can be a glorious escape.

3) School life in my culture (NZ) is still modelled like there's always one stay at home parent, which means you'll never be able to be there for every certificate, every kapa haka performance, and kids are okay about it so long as you communicate, and do get to the occasional one.

4) You can fit a lot of effective parenting into dinner table discussions and bedtime discussions

5) I'm really glad I'm a single Dad and not a single Mum because there are very few cultural expectations of me beyond working, and everyone acts like I'm amazing for just raising my kids. It's kinda insulting to both genders.

6) It's impossible to perfectly balance a 40 hour working week and family. Best you can aim for is a kind of homeostasis where work suffers for family one week and then family suffers a bit for work the next.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#37

Post by rayiner »

Dayshine wrote: post #20

If you don't want to prioritise your kids over your job... don't have kids . Contraception is pretty damn effective, and people often have children for entirely selfish reasons. A dog isn't for christmas, and your kids aren't just cute toys until you get bored of raising them. There are plenty of people who are willing, enough that we won't have population problems.

That’s terrible advice. Kids are great (they’re also not, at societal scale, really optional). According to a Pew study, about 7% of people who had kids would, if they did it over again, have had no kids. By contrast, more than half of those who didn’t have kids would’ve chosen to not have kids again: https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.asp.... Indeed, out of people who didn’t have kids, a greater proportion wish they would’ve had 3+ kids than people who had kids who wish they had no kids.

If you impose artificially high hurdles for parenting, you’re encouraging people to possible forgo a fulfilling life choice, because they fear they can’t live up to artificially inflated expectations for parenting. And that’s damaging.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#38

Post by TheOperator »

So has most of western society. Thus the birthrate cratering. Since this woman has two kids she's picking kids over job more than most people. She's simply more honest than most about the whole thing.

I find the western disinterest in raising their own children (and having them) fascinating. There seems to be a widespread ideal of trying to leave a legacy through deeds rather than through your own children. Much of the right wing is agitated at the whole thing because this is gradually reducing the population of an ethnic group they're quite fond of.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#39

Post by saagarjha »

zcid wrote: post #30

I don't want to be too harsh, but I can't respect her decision. It's selfish, and not properly caring for the next generation is a dead giveaway of a sick society.

It looks like there were multiple people in the children's life that cared for them, FWIW.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#40

Post by hrktb »

Dayshine wrote: post #20

If you don't want to prioritise your kids over your job... don't have kids . Contraception is pretty damn effective, and people often have children for entirely selfish reasons. A dog isn't for christmas, and your kids aren't just cute toys until you get bored of raising them. There are plenty of people who are willing, enough that we won't have population problems.

Following this advice I feel more than half of our generation wouldn’t be. Perhaps there’s already too many people on earth, but it’s something I’d think about.
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