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Restarting my career after motherhood

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Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#91
post #63
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The majority of humans are going to be parents. Only because of the subsidies. It's hardly "natural" for all humans to reproduce. All living humans come from a long unbroken chain of natural selection and rejection of bad genes and reproduction of only the fittest to enable adaption to a changing environment. If you create subsidies so that every human can reproduce, you are going to reverse natural selection and c…

> Only because of the subsidies. It's hardly "natural" for all humans to reproduce.

This is an incredibly bold statement. Most people like having sex, and in a natural state (sans birth control, online dating, internet porn, etc) there are going to be a lot of pregnancies. The idea that tax credits, welfare or parental leave is what is driving this situation is ridiculous. This feels more like a dog whistle about the welfare state, but even if you take away those "subsidies", people ain't gonna stop having kids, that's just not how the majority of young people of child-bearing age think.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WOW I am shocked you remember! I wrote a book in parallel to the videos for science education in kindergarten. However, after almost a year of making the videos without an income o r a significant grow in my audience, I unfortunately stopped! I loved doing them, I miss them and I am happy I tried it out but reality is, that I need a way to have an income! But I am so happy you remembered the videos + experiements. Th…

Is your CV available? (Or a short version. Do you have a High School degree? An University degree? Which area? Some work experience before the children?) My regular advice in life is to read whatever patio11 wrote about your problem. I'm not sure what applies. Do we have a @patio11 signal? Perhaps * https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr... HN discussions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=317…

Thanks for the links + advice, I will be following them to read everything refering there. Interesting to see many aspects of the same issue.

I have degrees in Computer Science (BSc), and Neuroscience (MSc) with two years of being a researcher at the University at the Machine learning + Neuroscience department (hybrid). In parallel to my studies, I also started my own company for luxury wedding & events planning. My company was very successful and it was my only income stream for five years. I sold my company shortly after becoming a mother.

Career wise, I am looking for a role that utilizes my analytical and technical skills but at the same time, it connects me with people online and in-person. I love content creation (social media, blogging, video creations and more).Not sure what the suitable role is.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#93
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most would consider the implications of that to be highly immoral. I think it's already immoral how society punishes people for being childless when it's a natural thing and can be 100% caused by characteristics that you are born with and have no control over.

How does society punish you for being childless?

No post body was provided.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#94

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…

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

I think you are right. The fact is, social democratic societies deeply need children. Who will take care of you and run businesses when we are old? Tech cannot solve everything ; we need actual humans deal with the future! No, the Ipad IOS.32 with AI will not do that.

I live in an aging society with 'free' healthcare, where most of the resources are consumed by unhealthy people with chronic conditions (read : boomers with diabetes). A lot of large scale social programs (which I like) are built on the assumption that most of the people inside it are healthy and will not need serious care for a long time (read: full of young people).

I think that raising children produces a lot of social benefits, that unfair social expectations puts a lot of pressure on women, and we should put a LOT of value on the labor required to raise healthy and stable children.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#95
post #54

> So far, I got rejected from over twenty job opportunities. That's nothing. I've been continuously employed for over 20 years. I just got a job a few weeks ago after two months of unemployment. I kept a record of every application and in the end there were more than 130 of them. I ended up with several offers and got a great job but I had far more than 20 rejections for every offer I received and I consider that a v…

Exactly... I was waiting for the happy ending and then I realized she has only been at the hunt for two weeks. Her spirit is great but you can tell that the ego needs to be worked on if she thought landing the perfect fit would happen so quickly after being out of the workforce for five years. I know people with glowing resumes that still take six months or more to get recruited into a role.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#96
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of humans are going to be parents. Only because of the subsidies. It's hardly "natural" for all humans to reproduce. All living humans come from a long unbroken chain of natural selection and rejection of bad genes and reproduction of only the fittest to enable adaption to a changing environment. If you create subsidies so that every human can reproduce, you are going to reverse natural selection and c…

> Only because of the subsidies. It's hardly "natural" for all humans to reproduce. This is an incredibly bold statement. Most people like having sex, and in a natural state (sans birth control, online dating, internet porn, etc) there are going to be a lot of pregnancies. The idea that tax credits, welfare or parental leave is what is driving this situation is ridiculous. This feels more like a dog whistle about the…

No but some men would have more than two children, and some men would have zero.

We balanced this out up until recently by sending men to war and other dangerous jobs that made them die before they had a chance to reproduce.

There is an enormous asymmetry between the sexes in our biology and that's the feature that drives natural selection and evolution.

The only reason why all people are able to reproduce are subsidies, otherwise natural selection would reject a lot.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's 1 year of compensation for 18+ years of part-time labor, in countries with the most parental leave

So you’re not disagreeing that it’s compensated? What decision(s) can a non-parent make to get 1 year of compensation like parents get?

A non-parent can also raise a child for 1 year and get 1 year of compensation.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#98
post #54

> So far, I got rejected from over twenty job opportunities. That's nothing. I've been continuously employed for over 20 years. I just got a job a few weeks ago after two months of unemployment. I kept a record of every application and in the end there were more than 130 of them. I ended up with several offers and got a great job but I had far more than 20 rejections for every offer I received and I consider that a v…

Yeah, agree here. Even with a stream of continuous employment, nobody gets a job by submitting CV's to websites. You have to have a network. Best advice I would give to anyone taking a break from work is to stay in touch with your old coworkers-take them out to lunch occasionally, stop by the office and bring cookies, etc.

[deleted]

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#99

To the author: what exactly are you looking for? As in, what type of job, position, desired amount of work per week, etc? There are people here that may be able to help.

Thank you so much for reading my blog and for asking all these questions. I am very grateful for everyone's interest + support!

I do not have specific requirements. I am flexible in terms of hours/week etc.

I am looking on entering a career that utilizes my strong Computer Science + Analytical skills and a career that allows me to develop/ use my content creation skills/ passion, networking, events, communication, digital marketing etc. I am not sure what is the right role for me.

So far, I look into content creator jobs, digital marketing/sales, business advocacy, and more!

I am eager to learn and grow, so I would be incredibly happy with trainee/ internships/ apprenticeships/ return to work programs!!!

Again thank you so much for asking me, it's so supportitive!

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It doesn’t need to be like this, but that’s what her family chose. One model isn’t superior over the other. It would be great if tech companies supported both family styles, just like they tout their other family-friendly benefits.

I agree that people can do what they want. But I can't help but wish people did not do this.

I don't think anyone honestly believes that children are not better off by having more balanced input from both parents where possible. And the more people that do this (where the working parent is a workaholic) the more difficult it makes things for working parents who want to have a more balanced home life.

This is similar to the modern issue of dual income families. In the area where I live, homes are very expensive. The majority of home owners here could simply not afford a home without both parents working.

Which means if there weren't so many dual income families, homes would simply have to become cheaper here. The fact that many families here are dual income puts financial pressure on everyone else to do the same.

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