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Restarting my career after motherhood

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Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#31

Post by Zababa »

knorker wrote: post #14
spyremeown wrote: post #9

I strongly disagree with "I remained flat" statement. I mean, you were taking care of your children, weren't you? If you do it right (imho, if you even just try to do it right), it's the biggest accomplishment one can do. I understand how frustrating it must be to stay professionally flat compared to your peers. We absolutely should celebrate people taking their time off to literally raise the next humans, instead we…

Parenthood is by far the most subsidized personal choice in the universe. Let's not pretend it's not. Some countries give more than a year paid parental leave, in what can only be described as vote purchasing. Parenthood is compensated.

I don't really think it's fair to call parenthood a "personal choice". It's not a complete necessity like food and water, but it's also not a complete personal choice like getting a tattoo. The majority of humans are going to be parents. All living humans come from a long unbroken line of parents. It's more fundamental than a simple personal choice.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#32

Post by razemio »

knorker wrote: post #14
spyremeown wrote: post #9

I strongly disagree with "I remained flat" statement. I mean, you were taking care of your children, weren't you? If you do it right (imho, if you even just try to do it right), it's the biggest accomplishment one can do. I understand how frustrating it must be to stay professionally flat compared to your peers. We absolutely should celebrate people taking their time off to literally raise the next humans, instead we…

Parenthood is by far the most subsidized personal choice in the universe. Let's not pretend it's not. Some countries give more than a year paid parental leave, in what can only be described as vote purchasing. Parenthood is compensated.

It is absolutely not! We live in Germany which has good options compared to other countries and it is still not enough. My wife earns 5000€+ in her job. Guess what, you can earn a maximum of 1800€ during parental leave. It gets even better, now that she takes a few hours less because somebody needs to take care of our child, kid number 2 will even be compensated with less (1400€). How is this fair? This is without the missed opportunities to get a higher position. Women are less likely to be employed because of the fear that they might leave for a year or 2. What needs to happen is that the compensation is higher AND that men are forced to take an equal time of. If the woman takes a year the man has todo the same. Otherwise equality will be very difficult to archive.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#33

Post by cowpig »

knorker wrote: post #14
spyremeown wrote: post #9

I strongly disagree with "I remained flat" statement. I mean, you were taking care of your children, weren't you? If you do it right (imho, if you even just try to do it right), it's the biggest accomplishment one can do. I understand how frustrating it must be to stay professionally flat compared to your peers. We absolutely should celebrate people taking their time off to literally raise the next humans, instead we…

Parenthood is by far the most subsidized personal choice in the universe. Let's not pretend it's not. Some countries give more than a year paid parental leave, in what can only be described as vote purchasing. Parenthood is compensated.

What a strange perspective to take. A "subsidized personal choice," as if there is some higher economic power that we are in service of, and those who decide to dedicate a third of our adult existence to the next generation are making some luxurious lifestyle choice.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#34

Post by FollowingTheDao »

hitpointdrew wrote: post #4

You might have a better chance at short term contract positions that could get a bit of recent experience, or a contract-to-hire type of position. Anyway best of luck to you. I admire your grit and determination.

No post body was provided.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#35

Post by the__alchemist »

Beltalowda wrote: post #25
bunbunbun wrote: post #17

Mothers returning to work should get the same ‘service’ considerations that military veterans get

What kind of things do military veterans get? I'm dimly aware something exists in the US, but I'm not from the US so not sure what that is exactly.

Fast-track into (US) Federal Gov jobs and contracts.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#36

Post by pizza234 »

spyremeown wrote: post #9

I strongly disagree with "I remained flat" statement. I mean, you were taking care of your children, weren't you? If you do it right (imho, if you even just try to do it right), it's the biggest accomplishment one can do. I understand how frustrating it must be to stay professionally flat compared to your peers. We absolutely should celebrate people taking their time off to literally raise the next humans, instead we…

> If you do it right (imho, if you even just try to do it right), it's the biggest accomplishment one can do.

Family ambitions and personal ambitions are two separate things (although for some people, typically women, they do match).

Personally speaking, I do have parental and professional goals, and I don't think of any of the two as neither superior nor compensating respect to the other.

> they spent 5~6 years off the industry

It doesn't need to be like this (I have firsthand experience as parent). In a balanced family, two parents can be have full professional and familiar lives at the same time (although it's challenging). Of course on the first year or so there's a physical need for the child(ren) to stay with the mother.

Based on the description of the article, the wife and the husband deliberately chose extreme positions - the wife as fully involved stay at home mother, and the father as all-time worker:

> I took care of everything, so my husband could focus on work, which was super important as we were a one-income family

I sympathize with the difficulty of finding a job, but there are more balanced (in terms of gender roles) structures that benefit all the parties. Most importantly:

> I wanted to devote a few years of my life to raising them. I wanted to see their first smile, their first step, their first fall, and I was privileged and lucky enough to be able to do it.

One definitely doesn't need to stay 24/7 with the children to be a fully present parent, and

> my husband could focus on work, which was super important as we were a one-income family.

one doesn't need to offload the children to the partner, in order to achieve professional success, unless there's some workaholism involved; this is also not a great way to start the relationship with the children.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#37

Post by UncleMeat »

DaveExeter wrote: post #27
wahnfrieden wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of capitalism’s exploited externalities (no economic value placed on the labor of raising children)

I know. Why should anyone have kids! The ROI of children is vastly lower than most other endeavors in life. Start a company, not a family.

A lot of people judge their life with metrics other than their bank account.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#38

Post by [deleted] »

knorker wrote: post #14
spyremeown wrote: post #9

I strongly disagree with "I remained flat" statement. I mean, you were taking care of your children, weren't you? If you do it right (imho, if you even just try to do it right), it's the biggest accomplishment one can do. I understand how frustrating it must be to stay professionally flat compared to your peers. We absolutely should celebrate people taking their time off to literally raise the next humans, instead we…

Parenthood is by far the most subsidized personal choice in the universe. Let's not pretend it's not. Some countries give more than a year paid parental leave, in what can only be described as vote purchasing. Parenthood is compensated.

[deleted]

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#39

Post by dragonwriter »

Beltalowda wrote: post #25
bunbunbun wrote: post #17

Mothers returning to work should get the same ‘service’ considerations that military veterans get

What kind of things do military veterans get? I'm dimly aware something exists in the US, but I'm not from the US so not sure what that is exactly.

> What kind of things do military veterans get?

Preference for all public-sector jobs (not just federal, but I think all fifty states give some forms of veterans preference, and a handful give “absolute preference” where a minimally-qualified veteran must be hired over a non-veteran regardless of qualifications.) But even where its not absolute preference, it often is a very strong preference (e.g., California on open civil service exams typically limits hiring to the top 3 ranks on the resulting hiring list, with each rank being 5 points of exam score on a 100-point, before preference points, scale. Veterans get 10 extra points, or 15 if they have a qualifying degree of disability.)

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#40

Post by ushakov »

the reason you’re rejected is because you can’t dedicate all your life to work because you also have to focus on raising a child

you are not at fault of course, but many companies think of you as their resource and won’t allow that (ever wondered why the department is called “Human Resources”?)

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