Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 358 posts

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#141

Post by nitrogen »

wolco wrote: post #102
rayiner wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is lot of room between “slave like conditions” and the modern American trend of decadent children and adolescents that live in a state of extended infancy well into their 20s. From 1948 to 2000, the teenage labor force participation rate was 45-55%. Since 2000 it has dropped dramatically, to just 35% last year.

10% drop in the teenage smoking.. not needing to save for buying music / movies. Kids need less money these days and are more focused on education vs work experience.

The jobs kids used to work are also more and more essential for adults to make a living.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#142

Post by m0zg »

ido wrote: post #131
m0zg wrote: post #35

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…

When given the opportunity, some kids will do what you did & others will watch TV all day long.

It's much easier to waste time nowadays, I agree (my son is a perfect example; left to his own devices he'd do pretty much what you said). My father got rid of our TV when I was 10 years old and haven't bought one since. Internet also wasn't a thing back then.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#143

Post by meheleventyone »

radicalbyte wrote: post #100
EdwardDiego wrote: post #36

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 i…

Daycare is not only great fun for the kids - playing with their peers is fun - it's also fantastic for their development. We have an excellent daycare. My daughter spends three days a week crafting, playing outside with kids, baking, doing make-up etc. The carers have skills that I don't have and my kids get to enjoy that. We both work four days a week so the kids get lots of parent time and we get a bit of a rest fr…

I’m fortunate enough to live in Iceland so both my kids got a place in a state kindergarten (leikskoli) from 18 months. Having seen the care and attention they pay to the development of kids I honestly don’t know why this isn’t more common outside of Nordic countries. Particularly with modern societal expectations on parents and the future of society being entirely dependent on the effort it put into its future citizens.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#144

Post by pmyteh »

dudul wrote: post #59
jumelles wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also remind myself that if I were a dad, I would be getting accolades for all the times I scheduled a doctor’s appointment or arranged a play date. > My experience as a dad is that people simply don't trust my parenting skills or assume I'm simply helping the mum out. It's incredibly sexist and somewhat hurtful. You and the author are talking about the exact same pervasive sexism from opposite perspectives.

The difference being one is talking about "how they think things would be if they were a dad", while the other is talking about the actual experience they had while being a dad. Somehow I feel like one of the two takes precedence in terms of credibility.

They're both true, though. Expectations of decent parenting are lower: just taking both my children to the park gets 'wow, that must be a handful' comments that my wife doesn't get. At the same time, I'm not assumed to be a competent caregiver, and am excluded from some of the social/mutual support side of parenting as it's in practice mums only.

GP is correct; these are in many ways two sides of the same sexist coin.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#146

Post by yomly »

MRD85 wrote: post #14

I made the opposite choice. I'm a single father and I've prioritised my children over my career. I'm not going to pretend it's an amazing lifestyle. If you're intellectually driven then looking after two young children isn't fascinating. However, I love them and they rely on me. I made a choice to bring them into the world and I'm not going to neglect them. I have the kids more than their mother does, and I also pay…

>If you're intellectually driven then looking after two young children isn't fascinating.

I've never understood this viewpoint - children are simply the most fascinating things!

They're born with next to no inborn knowledge and yet have the potential to learn about quantum mechanics. Someone with the same potential would only have learned about fire some hundred thousands of years ago.

In the early days you get to see a baby slowly mentally program the things we take so for granted we forget that you actually have to learn them - how to walk, how to speak, language.

YMMV but for me to see the world indirectly through the eyes of children is like rediscovering everything there is to the world we live in!

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#147

Post by Dayshine »

dang wrote: post #89
Dayshine wrote: post #51

> 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. The article refers to things like: > But there is always another client to defend, story to write or struggling student who just can’t wait. Here are things I have missed: my daughter’s seventh birthday, my so…

" Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20315373 )

Huh, a flagged comment, that's a first, sorry.

I was really responding to what I saw as the GP breaking other guidelines by not responding to the article, so I quoted the only relevant part of their comment and the appropriate part of the article.

I suppose I should have flagged their comment instead if I thought it was bordering on off-topic?

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#148

Post by BasDirks »

pergadad wrote: post #129
barry-cotter wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived in China for seven years I see no sign that the Chinese have eaten, are eating, or are going to eat America’s lunch. Growth at the technological frontier is about what the best are doing and diffuses from there. I am unaware of any academic field or major industry where the US is not in the top three, hardly surprising given its 5% of global population and 25% of global economic activity. As long as the…

Decline doesn't have to be rapid.

What signs of a slow decline do you identify?

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#149

Post by taesko »

barry-cotter wrote: post #86
rayiner wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet they’re in college. Their parents having prioritized work over their kids undoubtedly will allow those kids to live an immensely better life than they would have otherwise. There’s millions of people in the world that would trade places with them in a heartbeat. One of my fears is that my kids will learn these bad American ideas from media. I saw my daughter watching a Disney show (Bunk’d), where a high achieving…

Having lived in China for seven years I see no sign that the Chinese have eaten, are eating, or are going to eat America’s lunch. Growth at the technological frontier is about what the best are doing and diffuses from there. I am unaware of any academic field or major industry where the US is not in the top three, hardly surprising given its 5% of global population and 25% of global economic activity. As long as the…

> As long as the US has enough strivers and hard workers it can afford plenty of slackers.

That's an uncomfortable idea - growth of a nation being dependent on a few people working their ass off. Like sacrificial lambs. Though almost all of these people probably do it willingly.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#150

Post by eertami »

dmje wrote: post #126

We've made our lives around a "kids first" policy since they were born. We run our own business (together) and consistently and deliberately put this second to our children. We know it's going to hurt in a financial sense later - we are very much living for now, knowing that the eldest who is 14 may be leaving home in 4 years and the youngest who is 12 will be off in 6. We're in a fortunate situation, in that the wor…

Even without kids I work like this. Just because I'm not a parent doesn't mean I'm going to take on work that could potentially stress me out eat into vacation time...

It seems like more of a work-life balance philosophy thing than parenting thing, I simply couldn't imagine working more than 50% of the year but others are content doing 60hr weeks with 2 week vacation.

If that's what makes them happy then power to them.

Post reply on HN