Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

I have no difficulty believing single, childless women are very happy in their 20s and 30s. I wonder though if that rapidly changes past 40.

I would hypothesize the same effect happens for men as well.

I don’t understand this conclusion at all. You just described a fairly standard situation, and then said trying to apply historical understandings of gender don’t work... and yet they fit perfectly within the story you provided.

To me the issue has always been allowing other to define success for you.

If you find success is being a high powered executive who spends 90hrs a week working, then do that, and don’t let someone else tell you that having kids is the only metric of success.

If your definition of success is raising children who are normal humans and can function in society and make it a better place, then do that; and don’t let anyone tell you that success can only be found in working and being valued at ever higher dollar amounts.

Your definition of success is exactly that: YOURS not anyone else’s and you shouldn’t take anyone else’s definition and try to apply it to yourself.

I think most of society’s current problems stem from everyone using some amorphous societal understanding of success that no one has defined, but thinks everyone else knows. You be your best as you understand that to be. That’s the only path to happiness. Trying to conform to some gender philosopher’s definition is a rabbit hole that leads no where good.

The mandated retirement age is 60 over there so most of my aunts and uncles who have grandkids are primary childcare providers for my cousins. Due to the one child policy from a generation ago, each baby today has 6 adult caretakers, 2 of whom work full time (sometimes "996"), 4 of whom are retired and take shifts on childcare, household tasks, or ordering delivery / grocery shopping. Some of my cousins have opted for a second child, which means 4 60-ish caretakers for 2 kiddos. It's not too bad when there's good communication and teamwork between the adults, even though several of my cousins actually have never changed a diaper and I have no idea how they'll manage when it's their turn to be a grandparent in 20-30 years time.

Male founders also face hardships in rearing children when working demanding jobs, but less so than women, partly because of the luck of the genetic draw, and partly because as a culture we are more lenient and have less expectations of fathers. The good parent will have problems no matter their gender (but harder for women obviously, who carry the child to term), but men can get away with being more absent and less involved without as much judgement.

What if instead of taking at face value that people in these positions should have resources allocated to make it easier to raise children, we instead focus on their choices. They made a choice to go into a high risk venture for the possible payout of money and/or more control over their future. Worded in a more harsh way, what's being asked is "Why aren't more resources and attention focused on me while I attempt to play the lotto and become a millionaire, or work my high paying job?" Perhaps the answer to this should instead of providing additional support to women and men in child rearing in an industry that pays famously well and is getting less and less tethered to locale by the day, we instead decide to stigmatize fathers that focus more on their career than their children?

That's not to say I think we shouldn't as a society focus on making child rearing easier, especially for those without as many resources, but I'm not sure focusing on those that have chosen to make the trade-off already to pursue a demanding and risky career for the chance at a large payout is what we should be doing. If they benefit somewhat from societal changes, that's great, but I'm not really going to shed a tear over founders complaining how hard it is with a pregnancy or rearing a small child to raising funding for the next round, whether they be male or female. They've made very specific life choices to put themselves into that position, and I don't think it's out of bounds to say maybe taking the hard and risky path doesn't always pay off.

Note: This is probably way more harsh than I intend it to be, and it's not exactly a correct representation of my feelings on this, but I think it is a perspective worth considering. That is, to a small degree I'm playing devil's advocate here.