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Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

femfosec.com

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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#531

Post by ramzyo »

bradleyjg wrote: post #475
ramzyo wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you’re right that doesn’t make sense, and I wouldn’t be for that. I think government should expand paid time off for family leave, especially in the US.

So if corporate attorney is taking time off to raise a child society should value, and pay, more for that then if a public defender is?

This is a loaded question. "society should value" and "pay more" are separate arguments. By agreeing to the first I'm not agreeing to the second. I think society should value taking time off to raise children, yes. However, I don't think that society should value a corporate attorney doing this more than a public defender doing it. To do so would value raising children unequally. A universal basic income with an additional stipend for child care would be one solution that captures this difference.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#532

Post by tasuki »

frongpik wrote: post #491
Consultant32452 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think these changes are likely because, in my opinion, there is a silent anti-natal movement in Western culture. We have serious issues of an aging population, not enough kids being born to fund social security, etc. and all of our solutions look like bringing people in from other countries with high fertility rates. None of the ideas being tossed around seem to have anything to do with facilitating our own f…

"pass on whiteness"? Never heard this phrase before.

Sounds very racist...

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#533

Post by collaborative »

A family needs 1 dedicated member to keep things together. You can't outsource parenthood. Society needs families that value raising children over money/careers. Being a parent is choosing to put another being's needs before yours. It's choosing sacrifice. Don't do it unless you're 100% sure about this. Having a child is not a milestone in your life. In many ways, it's the end of it. However, it will also teach you the value of patience, forgiveness, and generosity. And it will make you a kinder person as you age

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#534

Post by selimthegrim »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #420
dcow wrote: post #116

I think women have largely been presented a false promise by progressives: value and purpose is derived from work, go do what men do to be their equal. It’s not necessarily anybody’s fault, we live in a society where money is valued. But I wish we could structure society in a way such that the value of raising children, homemaking, is clearly communicated and understood. Being a mother without a snazzy career is frow…

> In order to have a society of power career couples, someone has to raise their kids. [... Y]ou have to find someone [...] to be your nanny [...]. I don't see how that’s a sustainable narrative [...]. Bomb some more countries. Make some more refugees. Problem solved. In England, when the aspiring middle classes started finding it impossible to afford servants (which was a problem, because that was a key mark of thei…

I believe some economists has this idea for the US a few years back (sponsor an immigrant) and were greeted with peals of laughter.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#535

Post by sn9 »

Vox has this explainer video on the gender pay gap that's quite good.

In it, they describe how one of the biggest ways we can minimize the gap is (1) to have generous parental leave policies for both men AND women and (2) for there to be as much of a cultural expectation for men to be caregivers as there is for women so both take advantage of it and equitably share the burdens of parenthood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP8dLUxBfsU

I'm sure the unique nature of start-ups throws further complications into this, but I feel like this is a related issue.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#536

Post by rayiner »

hycaria wrote: post #490
astan wrote: post #67

Your whole blog resonates deeply with me. All this corporate grifting and women's empowerment months will do jack shit until we figure out how to make workplaces and lives more equitable for mothers and allowing for gaps, breaks and destigmatizing time off for parents of both genders. Instead, we talk about how sexism is the biggest problem. Sure, sexism might be annoying, but in the west, it is hardly something that…

I am female too and I really don’t relate to this kind of discourse. If you’re really that into high pressure job and grinding the ladder why would you be so attracted to raising a family as a sahm ? You can’t do everything at once. No one is stopping you from raising children but yourself. Many don’t go for the business route and that’s a respectable choice but of course you can’t have it all. If in the end your fer…

> If you’re really that into high pressure job and grinding the ladder why would you be so attracted to raising a family as a sahm ? You can’t do everything at once. No one is stopping you from raising children but yourself. Many don’t go for the business route and that’s a respectable choice but of course you can’t have it all. If in the end your fertility is more important than your career then have kids without making a fuss about it. Especially if you know that for some ecologically unreasonable reason you want numerous kids then start early.

The problem with this viewpoint is that, at scale, having kids isn't just an individual "life choice." It's a basic requirement for a sustainable human society. People have to have 2.1 kids on average in order for society to keep existing. We're well below that in almost the entire developed world. That means the most liberal societies in the world, where women can choose to pursue careers and business, are also not sustainable and can't continue to exist without importing people from societies with traditional gender roles. In other words, they currently exist only due to a sort of arbitrage and aren't viable in the steady state the way they're structured now.

If you think liberal societies are a good thing, then we really need to figure out a way to allow women to have careers and also children. It's not "having it all." It's about pursuing two pillars of life that for most people are both necessary: work, and family. We should be thinking about it in the same way as we design buildings to have sufficient bathrooms for everyone--as a biological fact of life that we must accommodate.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#537

Post by rednerrus »

u678u wrote: post #178

Its interesting I had a friend who got pregnant at University. I thought it would be ruinous to their career but maybe its a better solution. When she was 40 her child was already an adult and she could fully concentrate on working.

I have 3 girls and I am going to encourage them to have their kids when they are young so my wife and I are young enough to help her raise them while they pursues their studies/careers.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#538

Post by MrGando »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #516
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four weeks vacation, and 6 months (?) parental leave. Four years is a big reach, even for Europe. But yes, Europe does much better at this than the US. Can the US culture change enough to give what Europe gives? Maybe, but I'm doubtful. But until it does, my point remains - in the world we actually live in, you can't have it all. You have to choose between various less-than-what-you-want options.

One year parental leave in the countries I am familiar with.

Chile has 6 paid months of leave for the mother (it's a law, not subject to the employer).

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#539

Post by whydoyoucare »

asoneth wrote: post #457
dcow wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I mention it to someone that I want to take time off for a couple years to have children in silicon valley, they look at me as if I'm an alien. As if wanting to be pregnant and not working at the same time as being sleep deprived and wanting to spend time with my own baby when they are at their youngest is some strange outlandish fantasy. And this happens way more than people lead on and for the exact BS reaso…

Of more than a dozen friends who moved to Silicon Valley for work/education, all but one left California around the time they started their families. The impression I get is that they're happy they had a chance to work there for a decade or so and now they're happy to live somewhere else. Silicon Valley sounds like a great place to do many things and it's OK if having a family is not one of those things. I'm not sayi…

I believe it primarily has to do with cost of living than anything else.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#540

Post by sky_rw »

tomcam wrote: post #427
andrepd wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to sound like an extremist but this is what happens when everything in life is mercantilised. Money becomes king.

Big capitalist here. I agree completely. The reason I'm a millionaire instead of a billionaire is that my first priority was always to have a stable family and marriage. I noticed all the billionaires seemed to go through a few wives before settling down. Didn't like what that did to the children, or what I imagined it might have done. This kept me out of SV (and in much more, at the time, stable and family oriented…

If becoming a billionaire or not was simply a matter of choice for you I’m surprised you couldn’t figure out a way to do it without running through wives.
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