As an alternative opinion:
https://twitter.com/almostmedia/status/1366912616770269186?s...
Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
561–570 of 770 posts
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#562Your 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…
I am not a female, but I'm a dad who quit the industry a year ago so when my wife was pregnant with our first child.
I think what you're missing is the fact raising a child is something that all human beings are biologically engineered to find overwhelmingly fulfilling, yet office environments are not designed with employee fulfillment (or even basic wellbeing) in mind.
Once you become a parent, over time your viewpoint shifts from seeing the baby as an obstacle that gets in the way of other things, to everything else getting in the way of your time with bubs.
I suspect the reason that many of your friends aren't going back to the office is that raising a child is simply more satisfying.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#563Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the proposal is that the government should pay stay at home parents to remain that way, because it is a net benefit to society.
Isn't it economically more efficient to have kids go to daycares (which benefit from economies of scale) and have both parents work and pay taxes? Of course some people prefer to raise their kids themselves, but that seems more like an expensive lifestyle choice than a necessity.
>which benefit from economies of scale
The economy of scale isn't as big as one might like. Child care staff ratios for infants and toddlers are something like 1:3 to 1:4. Between that and the cost of compliance, licensing, insurance, and the inevitable scandals when deployed at scale, (If you have 1 million caregivers, you absolutely will have some number of murders or molestations. Unfortunate when a parent does it to their own child, but A Public Scandal when a government employee does it) you have got to start wondering if it's worth the hassle.
Or you can have mothers take care of their own children. Which has been the default of every human society for tens of thousands of years.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#564Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genuine question, who should?
The society as a whole seems to be as300's idea - which, in practice, means the government. If parents give up 10% of their career in order to give their kids a better childhood, are we willing to pay to make it up to them? My money is on "no way". If not that, the only other answer is the parents. Are you as parents willing to give your kids a better childhood at the price of throwing away 10% of your career, with n…
> Are you as parents willing to give your kids a better childhood at the price of throwing away 10% of your career, with no (monetary) compensation? I suspect, very few.
Literally every single person that has children does this. That covers almost 90% of the population.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#565Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get downvoted continually because I post edgy things like "eating meat is okay" and "you should consider having a family" etc. I'm used to it, comment karma is largely meaningless, and sometimes the rate limiting helps make sure I have composed my thoughts well before responding. Very envious of your 4-day week! I do 6-7 days worth of work in 5 days and it's slowly killing me. Still finding time for the kids someho…
Been there, done that. Burned out. Twice. Eventually learned that I can't achieve everything I want on every facet of my life. I am not superhuman. The day only has 24 hours. Something had to give. I was in a position in which I could afford to work less, so that's what I did. Now I'm mediocre at a few things in my life rather than being great at one at the cost of everything else, and I couldn't be happier with that…
There's wisdom there. Maybe I will find a way to step back a little when I move on to my next gig...
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#566Earlier quoted context omitted.
James Damore went a bit further than the author did. He also didn't take care to avoid offense and misunderstanding when talking about certain topics. For example, he mentioned that women, on average, have more neuroticism. He's technically correct in terms of the psychological definition of the word (women will, on average, experience higher levels of anxiety than men when exposed to the same level of negative stimu…
> For example, he mentioned that women, on average, have more neuroticism. [..] he didn't consider the political ramifications of describing 3.5 billion people as neurotic. You're doing it too. If I say "men have, on average, more muderous tendencies than women", am I describing 3.5 billion people as murderers?
You're technically not, but don't be surprised if people react as though you are.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#567My wife and I waited too long to try IVF, and at that point, we had only one shot because we hadn't frozen more eggs sooner. (and our once chance was unsuccessful)
This may not mean much from some stranger on the internet, but I'm sorry that this happened to you. I wish you well.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#568Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For example, he mentioned that women, on average, have more neuroticism. [..] he didn't consider the political ramifications of describing 3.5 billion people as neurotic. You're doing it too. If I say "men have, on average, more muderous tendencies than women", am I describing 3.5 billion people as murderers?
You're technically not, but don't be surprised if people react as though you are.
Certainly, but I don't find the fault to be with the statement, but with people. Our inability to separate "inconvenient general fact" from "specific, personal insult to whole swathes of people" is one of the banes of modern discourse.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#569Earlier quoted context omitted.
The society as a whole seems to be as300's idea - which, in practice, means the government. If parents give up 10% of their career in order to give their kids a better childhood, are we willing to pay to make it up to them? My money is on "no way". If not that, the only other answer is the parents. Are you as parents willing to give your kids a better childhood at the price of throwing away 10% of your career, with n…
> Are you as parents willing to give your kids a better childhood at the price of throwing away 10% of your career, with no (monetary) compensation? I suspect, very few. Literally every single person that has children does this. That covers almost 90% of the population.
Every single person who has children takes 2-4 years off from work? (as300's original comment, five posts parent to this one.) No, I'm pretty sure that 90% of the population does not do that.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#570I agree completely with the premise that most people don't appreciate just how fleeting fertility can be, but I think rather than freezing eggs, the solution is for people to normalize having children at a younger age and designing work and home life around children existing and even being present in certain work contexts. Obviously freezing your eggs is something that you can do as individual without society's input…
But it's not just about work/home balance. It's also about being in a financially sound position, in a strong enough relationship with the "right" person, to be able to have a child. And that's increasingly hard for young people today, with the cost of living being higher than ever, wage growth hitting a wall, and attitudes towards relationships changing. Having a baby isn't as simple as deciding to do it. The proble…
> It's also about being in a financially sound position,
I'll completely agree with your point about finding the right person, which is absolutely true.
But honestly a lot of stable couples are less precarious than they think. Especially people in the tech industry. You're making more than 100k/year on your own, you're set. But from a bunch of conversations, they imagine sending their kids to a $200k/year college or read the worst possible stats about how much raising a kid costs, without understanding people make parenting work with so much less to no detriment of their kids. If anything, I'd argue being rich makes you more likely to mess up your kids but I should move on.
Instead, I think people should consider whether they want to raise a baby when they have a fraction of the energy they had when they were in their 20s. They should consider whether they want to raise a toddler when just stepping out of their car weird tweaks their ankle, making it hard to walk for a couple days. Or whether they want to stress about their kids while they have to start taking blood pressure meds for the simple reason of "it's genetics and you're 50, this is just how your body works now."
Obviously, if you can't pay your water bill, maybe don't have kids. But even then, if you're smart and kind, you could probably pull it off and the world would be better for it.