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Restarting my career after motherhood

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Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#211

Post by knorker »

sz4kerto wrote: post #18
knorker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 really not compensated if you look at the financial side. The cost of raising a child plus the lost income because of parenting plus the fact that 'you remain flat' is way higher than months or even a year extra pay. It is worth it though for most people (because of the extra happiness) so I'm not saying that we should necessarily compensate it further, just that financially it's not compensated for.

You're right that it's not the case that "someone else" pays the whole bill. But why should they?

It's a personal choice to have children, and it's impossible to be a parent X hours a day and also spend those same X hours "in the lab".

Just like it's not possible to spend all your time in the lab and also be a (present) parent.

The limited time for everything that can be done in a lifetime is not about "fairness", and nobody owes you to be able to do all things in life, even if it were possible, which it isn't.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#212

Post by BadCookie »

mmcnl wrote: post #175
tomp wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because biology. Mothers have to take time off work (to give birth), fathers don’t. Freedom of choice is important, but so is specialisation (so the couple can be more efficient), so it makes more sense for mother to specialise for family (sacrificing career), and father to specialise for career (sacrificing family).

This is a very conservative view. Giving birth is something only the mother can do, but there is no biological reason why a mother should raise the child and not the father. This renders you argument about specialization mute. In almost every developed country, it's possible to work 32 hours instead of 40 hours, which means that with 3 days of daycare the mother and father can share the responsibility raising a child…

> there is no biological reason why a mother should raise the child and not the father.

Breastfeeding in the early year(s) is a defensible reason I think.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#213

Post by knorker »

el_jay wrote: post #139
cowpig wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I suppose if we followed OP’s logic to its conclusion, we’d find that when it comes to parenthood: you must be this net worthy to ride.

Not at all. Poor people successfully raise kids every day. And I want schools to get more of my tax money, if for no other reason than that I want to be in a world of smarter people.

(And there are other reasons, that are more important)

But it is a life choice. Other ones are to become an artist. But barely anyone says that anyone who chooses to be an artist (bad or not) deserves for "someone else" to foot the bill for their life.

Or maybe you'd be happier we me saying that yes, in the same way that you must be this net worthy to collect fancy cars. Makes it easier, sure. But nobody owes paying for your choices.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#214

Post by AzzieElbab »

mschuster91 wrote: post #154
epx wrote: post #128

Never understood this employer fixation on unbroken careers. A career break may happen to anyone by infinite reasons beyond motherhood. Most people have such career-pausing or career-delaying events (health issues, depression, fatherhood , taking care of an elderly relative), most conceal it, motherhood just happens not to be concealable. And things don't change as fast. Not even in IT. And even if changed, legacy is…

> What people should understand, is that the economy turns because there are mothers, fathers, and kids. The problem is that capitalism by nature cannot and will not account for this, at least not for publicly traded companies. Capitalism always ends up optimizing for the maximum amount of profit allowed by the law - and simple maths explain what is going on. When you have 10.000 employees, a turnover rate of 5% annu…

This type of “optimisations” is not unique to capitalism. In fact, in USSR some positions were simply semi-officially unavailable to young married women due to assumption that if you hire one she’d be away on maternity leave within weeks.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#215

Post by paulcole »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #200
paulcole wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Said another way, the compensation is pitiful. The whole point is that being a parent is compensated in a way that no other choice is. Parents take on a significant burden. They are compensated for it. There is no choice I can make as a non-parent that will provide me with similar compensation.

Can you define what compensation you see as so exclusive to parenting? If just this financial support provided by some governments then consider you could take on a very low pay job with a nonprofit and get similar 'compensation'. Albeit spread across the length of that career instead of front loaded as paternity leave/credits.

Parental leave is exclusive to parenting. See the original comment:

> Some countries give more than a year paid parental leave

You yourself are making my point by saying “similar compensation” “albeit spread across the length of a career.” There is nothing for non-parents that is equivalent to parental leave.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#216

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jseban wrote: post #131
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s natural only in the sense of a selection bias: we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t so. Men aren’t the limiting resource here, but if women start having less than 2.1 kids on average, we eventually just disappear. This is just math, not related to economics, morality, or ideology.

> Men aren’t the limiting resource here Yeah that's the point, so there really is no need for every man to have children, should it be the norm I'm wondering. Can we get rid of this natural selection, and should we? I don't know. Why is it so self-evident that every person should have children? Clearly it's not natural. It's just another artificial "equality" of a social welfare state.

If monogamy is valuable, and I think it is, then most men should be parents as well. I can’t imagine a world with a few guys fathering most of the kids, that seems like it would cause lots of problems.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#217

Post by marvin »

knorker wrote: post #147
toshk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hardly personal, society kinda collapse if people stop having kids. And it's also not personal in the sense that the government often takes an active role in raising and educating kids (wether you like it or not).

I do like it. I just wish parents stop acting as victims of their own choices, and that they should bare no consequences. And people won't stop having kids, subsidies or no subsidies. So that's a non-issue.

Weeeeeeeeell.....

Birth rates are below replacement levels in most Western countries.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#218

Post by truncst »

mmcnl wrote: post #162

Why is at always the mothers who choose to be stay-at-home mothers, and very rarely fathers? In my opinion this makes things extra hard for mothers who want to resume their career, because men are used to working with men who don't take breaks from their career to raise their children. Taking time off to raise your children is a personal choice, but it doesn't make any sense that it's almost never the fathers who sta…

I'm a stay-at-home father.

My wife stayed home for a few years for traditional reasons, and then got an offer that was too good to refuse. So I left my position to support and my family when she returned to work, as well as because I was looking for a career change.

So we've taken turns.

I haven't really stopped working in some ways. I still serve on many professional committees and positions and do consulting, but don't have a salary per se, and wouldn't survive financially on my own.

I've found myself asking the same question you have. The linked essay really resonates with me as do many of the posts here.

Society really makes so many assumptions about peoples' lives. There's a lot of lost opportunities because of impulsive, angry, or prejudiced decisions. I'd say in the last 10 years of my life a dominant theme has been a feeling of being walled in by others' prejudices and presumptions, of being typecast in a lot of ways. Not just with regard to gender (that might be the least of it really), but with regard to what I can offer, what my skillset is, what I'm interested in doing, and all sorts of other things.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#219

Post by scruple »

mmcnl wrote: post #162

Why is at always the mothers who choose to be stay-at-home mothers, and very rarely fathers? In my opinion this makes things extra hard for mothers who want to resume their career, because men are used to working with men who don't take breaks from their career to raise their children. Taking time off to raise your children is a personal choice, but it doesn't make any sense that it's almost never the fathers who sta…

> men are used to working with men who don't take breaks from their career to raise their children.

It's not limited to men. I've heard other women throw shade at pregnant and nursing mothers who need special accommodations. Sometimes even other mothers...

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#220

Post by pempem »

knorker wrote: post #147
toshk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hardly personal, society kinda collapse if people stop having kids. And it's also not personal in the sense that the government often takes an active role in raising and educating kids (wether you like it or not).

I do like it. I just wish parents stop acting as victims of their own choices, and that they should bare no consequences. And people won't stop having kids, subsidies or no subsidies. So that's a non-issue.

People are slowing having kids. To the point of societal wide concern. Its possible that there is a frustration obscuring your view on the topic.

Multiple countries in GDP leadership positions are incentivizing having and raising children because women who are able to - exercise bodily autonomy - pursue an education - and generally have rights, though in no country are they equal choose to have less kids.

IMHO they choose to have less kids because its clear the current set-up is a raw deal for women at best. Not having enough kids to replace the current working generation is an issue in: the US, the UK, Italy, Spain, and a number of other countries. This greying of a population is a massive concern and also one of the reasons that some have pushed and bet on robotics. To replace human workers.

Separately, its mostly women, if not exclusively women, bearing the consequences of the action of you know. propagating the species. Its absolutely mind-boggling when you think about the fact that propagation is a requirement of our continued existence and only half the species pays a massive tax

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