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Restarting my career after motherhood

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Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#241

Post by knorker »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #150
knorker wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet society pours HUGE amounts of money on it, because obviously it has huge value and the government pays boatloads for it. Do you really mean "no value"?

there's no living wage (or any wage) provided for it. sorry for imprecise words in my OP but I think you understand anyway

Ok. But you think the government should pay a living wage for the personal choice of having a child, and just be home?

Even though people do it anyway, and think the trade is worth it?

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#242

Post by thefz »

toshk wrote: post #20
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'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).

> It's hardly personal, society kinda collapse if people stop having kids.

I hear this often and it's such an incorrect assumption. People had kids way before subsidies. Humans won't stop having kids if subsidies stop.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#243

Post by knorker »

pempem wrote: post #220
knorker wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

I'm all for equal cost for a couple who choose to have a child.

At the same time you can't mandate it. And there's no denying that statistically women choose family more, when choice is given to them.

I know several couples where the wife is essentially asking to retire (in their thirties), to be home with the children and video games, and that the man should continue working for them. Even if it jeopardizes their shared FIRE plans.

If they do that, who is actually paying the tax? Financially the wife for sure. Life quality the husband for sure.

As for replacement, the population age pyramid is not sustainable. It relies not on stability, but growth. The greying of population is inevitable (compared to the classic pyramid) thanks to medical advances and the fact that exponential growth has to stop, mathematically. We can choose starvation, war, plague, or reduced births.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#244

Post by knorker »

skrbjc wrote: post #235
knorker wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying it's "absolutely not" compensated, and then you enumerating just some of the ways it's compensated? I'm confused. I didn't say it was fully compensated. Of course it's not. But why should you have children, and expect "someone else" to pay for everything? Nothing else in life works like that. But yes, I've heard of the German child benefits, and tax rules for married couples, that are not optimal for an…

If I live in a country with public health care, and I choose to become morbidly obese, smoke cigarettes, excessively drink alcohol, develop diabetes, get limbs amputated, and go on disability because I can’t work, I’m expecting the government to foot the bill to keep me alive. There are many choices people make that they expect others to pay for.

True. But these people also die earlier.

I saw a study saying smokers are a net financial gain for society because of the huge savings on pension payments.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#245

Post by lapcat »

spoonjim wrote: post #239
lapcat wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) don’t take N years off from your career. I don't think the author is looking for life advice from you. "Being a stay-at-home mum was my choice." She doesn't appear to be kicking herself for becoming a mother. Whether she "expected" this or not, whether it was a "surprise", is not particularly relevant. That's not the issue, it's a red herring. She made her choice, willingly, and now she's looking to restart her…

Sure, treat having children as the norm, I have kids, I love it. But I expect to be leapfrogged in my career by people who passed on a family and chose the career grinding lifestyle, and that's in fact what happened. But I'm not going to make a surprised Pikachu face about it.

The article author did not expect to get her old job back. Nor did she expect to come back at the exact same level as before. "I started my career hunting by applying to many junior positions."

She's just looking for a job in her field. So you're arguing against a straw man. Or straw woman.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#246

Post by wahnfrieden »

knorker wrote: post #241
wahnfrieden wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's no living wage (or any wage) provided for it. sorry for imprecise words in my OP but I think you understand anyway

Ok. But you think the government should pay a living wage for the personal choice of having a child, and just be home? Even though people do it anyway, and think the trade is worth it?

Yes

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#247

Post by tetromino_ »

foogazi wrote: post #183
121789 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood it as both of them taking the far ends of the spectrum of work/parenting balance (one fully parenting, one fully working) rather than a "less extreme" scenario where both take more balanced roles in working/parenting. I didn't see it as an evaluation of the choice in lifestyle.

> one fully parenting, one fully working Fully working = 8-10 hours a day Still leaves a lot of time for parenting- and doesn’t seem so extreme, I’d say it’s one of the most common division of family life in the world

8-10 hours per day, plus another 1-3 hours for commute. Baby wakes up at 6:30, takes a bath and gets sleepy at 18:30 - so 12 hours of interactive time (not counting night-time feeding and crying) - and these 12 hours closely correspond to the fully-working parent's work and commute hours.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#248

Post by the_af »

travisgriggs wrote: post #83
DaveExeter wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some are replying that this sarcasm. I think not entirely. I think rather it is sarcasms cousin “satire.” It states in a blunt shocking way a truth that exists manifestly in many of our actions, but is never said in that way.

Except it reflects no truth at all. It's mocking a "startuper" way of thinking.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#249

Post by caeril »

121789 wrote: post #135
hunter-gatherer wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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: Maybe you didn't mean it like this... but I find the use of the word "extreme" here in this context somewhat discomforting. Perhaps I'm an old-fashioned 35-year old, but her reasons for wanting to stay home don't come off as extre…

I understood it as both of them taking the far ends of the spectrum of work/parenting balance (one fully parenting, one fully working) rather than a "less extreme" scenario where both take more balanced roles in working/parenting. I didn't see it as an evaluation of the choice in lifestyle.

There are MANY couples for whom a balanced approach is financially and emotionally suboptimal.

If spouse A has earning potential of $300k/yr, and spouse B has earning potential of $50k/yr, and child care costs $40k/yr, it's absolute batshit insanity to take a "balanced approach" and A. lose money on a net-of-taxes basis whilst B. seeing your children less.

Re: Restarting my career after motherhood

#250

Post by ComradePhil »

gus_massa wrote: post #141
ComradePhil wrote: post #127

During the industrial revolution, a lot of propaganda and manipulation techniques were used to get women into wage slavery. While it is a good option to have women who can help out, it is not a necessity.

Women worked also before industrial revolution. For example there is a looooong serie about cloth production by the Romans https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-t... Most of that work was done by women, and [spoiler alert] he estimates that it was like 8 hours per day. HN discussions https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Because if they didn't, their kids would starve to death because their husband was either dead or debilitated.
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