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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

#191

Post by milliondollar »

ulfw wrote: post #177
milliondollar wrote: post #160

I made the opposite choice. I left a 7 figure a year (but 70% travel) job to take a few years off with my kids. I'm under no illusion that my kids will be that much better for it, but I will be. I am consuming this time with just absolute relish. A relationship is the sum of small things. And driving them to school is part of that overall cumulative time that ... just... matters. For me. I'm sure the kids would be gr…

Nice thing to do if you can afford it Mr. Million Dollar man. Most people can't just throw a "7 figure a year" job away.

I totally agree. It's an absolute privilege. But the argument around TFA is: "Is this parent making the right choice." She's not an hourly worker. She's at the peak of her profession. She has many choices which would provide a fine living and a more reasonable balance, if she chose them.

This is absolutely the question of tradeoffs between job satisfaction vs time at home. It is not a question of putting food on the table.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#192

Post by codesternews »

te_chris wrote: post #134
codesternews wrote: post #116

Well I was watching this video of Jordson Peterson yesterday. https://youtu.be/44f3mxcsI50?t=2537 It has some great ideas and pretty much somesup every thing. Watch little bit longer as he goes from one subject to another and then come back to point.

If you’re going to link a video at least summarise the arguments so we have some idea of whether it’s worth watching.

First It's not my thoughts and secondly Jordon has very profound deep understanding and I think I am not capable of summarising his thoughts as I am also trying to decipher and get.

He is clinical physiologist and he has good depth of this kind of subject and I'm not right person to translate his views. But what I get is this

"Life is sacrifice at every level (He quotes and decipher bibles story) and you have to sacrifice the some things for your family and loved ones"

But I feel these above lines do not do justice for the video as I said it has so much to get and everyone has their own perspective to get the things.

Sure you might disagree with me or him but you have your own perspective and you should decipher the meaning by yourself.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#193

Post by p_l »

untog wrote: post #185
throwaway4378 wrote: post #164

Few days ago I saw something about “Men’s rights” movement and my first reaction was to think of it as parody and laugh it off. But then I looked at few stories and videos and it was eye opening. Many people don’t understand how badly some of the men are being exploited and even driven to suicide. Current laws in Western world are heavily tilted towards perceiving men as guilty party, someone who must always be makin…

IMO there's nothing wrong with Men's Rights as a cause, but if you look at, for example, /r/mensrights on Reddit an absolutely toxic hatred of women pervades the place. It's not healthy. But yes, suicide, custody in divorce etc are issues where men deserve recourse. That said, historically women have been on the receiving end of physical violence from men far, far more often than vice versa and were told to suffer in…

Such communities are easy pickings for exploitation, which is how they get infiltrated and made toxic to hell. See also "incel", something that started out from a woman's blog and turned from self-deprecating to a bit of mutual help, to finally a toxic hell hole.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#194

Post by dTal »

untog wrote: post #185
throwaway4378 wrote: post #164

Few days ago I saw something about “Men’s rights” movement and my first reaction was to think of it as parody and laugh it off. But then I looked at few stories and videos and it was eye opening. Many people don’t understand how badly some of the men are being exploited and even driven to suicide. Current laws in Western world are heavily tilted towards perceiving men as guilty party, someone who must always be makin…

IMO there's nothing wrong with Men's Rights as a cause, but if you look at, for example, /r/mensrights on Reddit an absolutely toxic hatred of women pervades the place. It's not healthy. But yes, suicide, custody in divorce etc are issues where men deserve recourse. That said, historically women have been on the receiving end of physical violence from men far, far more often than vice versa and were told to suffer in…

I think if you looked at the early years of feminism, you would a similar hatred of men. Only people who have been pushed to the absolute brink are prepared to break the social taboos. The sooner the world accepts that there needs to be a conversation about equality going both ways, the sooner that anger will be defused. Arguing about who has it "worse" is probably counterproductive now.

(All of this applies mainly to the western cultural context. Some places in the world are still at the stage of needing suffragettes)

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#195

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

taesko wrote: post #149
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…

> 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.

What’s so uncomfortable about it? It’s never been any different.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#196

Post by watwut »

rayiner wrote: post #64
jedberg wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think the immigrant parents that own a Chinese restaurant open seven days a week make it to any of their kids school functions or camping trips? Are they being irreparably damaged? Based on my experience going to college with a few kids like that, yes. They all resented their childhood and the fact that the only way to see their parents was to work in the restaurant.

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…

> I saw my daughter watching a Disney show (Bunk’d), where a high achieving Asian girl was telling her parents they “pushed her too hard.” No wonder China is eating our lunch.

The thing is, such a phenomenon exists. And kids pushed too hard may grow resentful or plain reject parents ideas and rebel. Not all them grow super succesfull. Plenty just grow feeling like failures.

It is possible to push children just right, of course. But there is such a thing as too much and those adults then complain (that is how I know).

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#197

Post by afiori »

codernyc16 wrote: post #184
afiori wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are in agreement. The same way both assuming that a [category X] can't do [stuff Y] and being positively surprised when they do are two faces of the same discrimination.

They could both arise from the same cause, but that says nothing about how often they occur. You seem to imply they’re equivalent, potentially in frequency as well. A real world account seems to suggest the negative experience happens more often. I’d like to hear him comment on it.

That is hard to tell anecdotally.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/02/different-worlds/

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#198

Post by zarify »

jon-wood wrote: post #153
yomly wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 se…

On the scale of months and years children are amazing, and I agree it’s fascinating to watch as they develop into their own people. However, on the scale of hours and days they can be mind-numbingly boring, as anyone who’s played hide and seek with a four year old who repeatedly goes and hides in their bedroom cupboard can probably attest. I love my boy dearly, but I am so, so, bored of playing the first hour of Mine…

I think Adventure Mode and also the stuff available in Education Edition might make Minecraft a bit more of a long-term prospect there. You can make stuff for your kids to explore or do (either on rails or unguided), and there's quite a decent body of work out there shared in the education space.

I personally love Education Edition for the coding interface, but there is some other neat stuff in there as well.

Mind you, my first daughter is coming up on 2 years old, so there's a ways off until I get there. I'm just speaking as a teacher who uses it. My daughter is fascinating though - it's really interesting watching her figure out skills like sorting, and also discovering all the little ways my wife and I have unconsciously confused her with our use of language, which she then picks up without us realising it.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#199

Post by remote_phone »

People who say men wouldn’t face the same criticism are wrong. I’m almost 50 and all my friends have been guided by the song “Cats in the cradle” by Harry Chaplin. It’s so prevalent even memes are based on it now.

I have sacrificed significant portions of my career to be there for my kids. There are some of my male peers that are less attentive than me but universally we would think they are simply bad fathers. I don’t know anyone these days that wouldn’t think that an absentee dad was also a bad dad.

If you prioritize your job over your children then by definition you are a bad parent. If you don’t have the means and are forced to work then I get it, you have to do what you do. It doesn’t sound like this is the case for the author. She has the privilege to chose her work over her kids which is different.

I hope she also didn’t selfishly choose to have joint custody with her ex-husband only to neglect the kids for her job.

Re: I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids

#200

Post by untog »

dTal wrote: post #194
untog wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO there's nothing wrong with Men's Rights as a cause, but if you look at, for example, /r/mensrights on Reddit an absolutely toxic hatred of women pervades the place. It's not healthy. But yes, suicide, custody in divorce etc are issues where men deserve recourse. That said, historically women have been on the receiving end of physical violence from men far, far more often than vice versa and were told to suffer in…

I think if you looked at the early years of feminism, you would a similar hatred of men. Only people who have been pushed to the absolute brink are prepared to break the social taboos. The sooner the world accepts that there needs to be a conversation about equality going both ways, the sooner that anger will be defused. Arguing about who has it "worse" is probably counterproductive now. (All of this applies mainly t…

> I think if you looked at the early years of feminism, you would a similar hatred of men.

I'd be fascinated to see a historical account of that. Many suffragettes (including the founder Emmeline Pankhurst) were married. Perhaps they all hated their husbands, but I'd be interested to know more.

> Arguing about who has it "worse" is probably counterproductive now.

It's kind of unavoidable, though. Encouraging women to report domestic violence, and taking action when they do, has a knock-on effect of there being more false accusations and innocent men punished. So it's a direct tradeoff. The key is to try to minimise those tradeoffs as much as possible.

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