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Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

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Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#381

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I have attended meetings with people who had to remain muted the entire time due to their kid screaming at the top of their lungs constantly. Its not great

Well of course it's not ideal. Employees are people and people come with imperfections. I've worked with employees distracted by kids. Distracted by substance abuse. Distracted by mental illness. Distracted by video games, TV, something on their phone, or even just a basic disinterest in the job. When we talk about the job market as a whole -- such as in the article above -- it doesn't help to focus on a hyper-select…

You are right, we shouldn’t focus on whether or not someone is a parent. We should focus on whether they can effectively do their work.

I would react similarly if somebody was playing a video game during a meeting.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#382
post #374
post #350

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> I think we've really fucked up as a society when "women can have kids and be with them" is considered strange or a luxury It has always been a luxury. Unless they were wealthy enough to hire domestic servants or happened to participate in the postwar economic boom in the West that reduced the intensity of household domestic labor via household appliances, women of the past also got limited time with their children.…

"Do no work and be with your kid" is probably a rarity, but the impression I have is that in traditional indigenous cultures you could do work around your home or village, in a rich social environment of other women and mothers, while being with your baby. People living this way of life are not working themeslves to the bone; they spend lots of time just hanging out and socializing. I think the gruling overwork that…

> I think the gruling overwork that most of us experience is more a feature of fuedal and then industrial culture, than a natural state of existence.

Sure, but so are a lot of other features like modern medicine, communications, transportation, that come with industrial culture.

Assuming that you are talking about making the privilege of being a stay-at-home parent universal (independent of one's financial means), then I agree with the goal, but that is only realizable via industrial culture coupled with an income and wealth distribution that makes it possible for only 1 parent in the house to work.

It would also probably require people to live with less. When mothers were staying at home in the 1950s, the median home size was 983 square feet. Today it's about 2700 square feet.

All that extra space and the stuff it is filled with costs a lot, which is another reason that both parents need to work.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#383

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> women have stepped up for their families often to the detriment of their own careers Forcing 2 household incomes was/is awful for a healthy society. Women are the only humans that can produce children and they have to do it during a relatively short time window - especially if we want to reproduce at replacement level. Raising children should be regarded as one of the most important things a woman can do because th…

> Raising children should be regarded as one of the most important things a woman can do because they’re the only ones that can do it. This seems pretty reductionist to me. Men can absolutely raise children. Husbands in heterosexual couples should absolutely be raising their children and not leaving the entire task of raising them to their wives. Gay men can also raise children. I don't think you meant to be disrespe…

That doesn't change the parent poster stance. If men were to raise kids, this will come at a cost of their careers. Someone is going to suffer because of it (or both if they choose to handle the load equally).

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#384
post #283

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The evidence for the benefits of breast milk is overwhelming at this point, and vastly outweighs the evidence for specifically breastfeeding-induced bonding as a factor in a child's early life. So no, there is no reason to advocate for formula and several reasons not to. We should be adovcating for more parent-child bonding, however that happens; for more opportunities for parents to make whatever choices they wish t…

No disagreement about any of those things. I would just add: It should be easy for women who wish to be with their babies and breast-feed them to do so. It should also be easy for dads! BTW, I'm about two weeks out from becoming a father. I only get 2 months paternity leave, but if I were the mother, I'd get 4! This seems unfair to me, but it's certainly better than if the policy were reversed . It seems like there's…

Congrats!

I have 2-month old and before he was born lot of people said to me that "dads can't do much in the first 6 months". I was like ok, we'll see how it goes.

After he was born, I quickly realize dads can absolutely do everything except feed the baby directly from the breast. Breastfeeding itself, depends on the baby and mom, is fairly quick, maybe like takes 15mins every few hours. That leaves about ~22 hours each dad can be part of the activities, like changing diapers, bathing, soothing, having the baby sleep on you, putting the baby to sleep, reading, changing clothes, singing etc.

This "dads can't do much", "there is just this bond with the mom" and "it's biology" seems like bullshit or an easy out from taking responsibility. The bond happens if you just spend time with the baby.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#385

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There is a lot of self delusion in tech. I’ve known women in their late 30s who were unmarried and “may have kids some day”. Basic human biology is not taught in schools.

It's apparently not because it's entirely possible to have children well into your 30s. Sure risk factors can do things like "increase 10x" but it increases from like 0.02% to 0.2%.

Risks are much, much, much higher. Chromosome disorder in 40 year old mothers is 1 in 30. For 25 year olds it is 1 in 1250. So from .08% to 3.33%. Chance of miscarriage is 80% for a 40 year old mother. For a 35 year old, it is 20%.

https://www.webmd.com/baby/over-35-pregnant

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#386
post #183

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> A SAH spouse is not an equal partner with a 50% contribution. More of an oldest child with extra responsibilities and a higher allowance. This is a really depressing way of looking at things.

Spend any amount of time among ( let's be honest ) men and you see this attitude over and over again. They "let" their spouse stay at home. The SAH spouse spends all "their" money. The working spouse "supports" the family. There's a constant stream of posts on reddit about how how a working spouse should be able to come home and play video games for hours - they work so hard and deserve a break. Does the SAH spouse w…

Now spend time with career women and realize that a stay at home dad is not even considered a man worth talking. Women want their vake and eat it too but the one baking it should always be the man.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#387
post #336

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Unless there's value in it to me, I generally dress down for anything where I'm paying money. My thinking? If I'm polite and verbally confirm that I'm good for the amount and the salesperson treats me poorly? Not someone I'd want to do business with anyway. Actions >> appearance

I'm from California where ignoring someone for the way they dress doesn't really happen often. And honestly, any car salesman that's been in it for more than a month has seen a blue collar worker come buy a $80k diesel pickup or escalade for their wife. What we do screen for a bit is basically time wasters. It is possible to be accidentally picked up in this net, and then say "they sure missed out, I bought a car at…

Fair enough. I have another anecdote about this. Another friend went into a Ford dealer to buy a truck with all cash. The salesmen just ignored him, chatting around the coffee machine. He came up to them, and pulled out the roll of cash, saying he came there to buy a truck and "I'm going to the other Ford dealer." The salesmen rushed him, but he said "too late".

He walked out, went to the other Ford dealer, and drove out with a new truck.

I can see not wasting time if there are many customers in the place, of course you triage them. But if you're chatting around the coffee machine because there are no customers in the showroom ... !

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#388

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I understand that clerical errors and miscommunication happen. I make those mistakes myself. But when they always err in favor of the dealer, I get suspicious. > I still wonder how you made it to the paperwork stage without seeing the car and noticing it wasn't exactly 'new new' I foolishly had not checked the odometer. I assumed that if the salesman said it was new, that it was new. Anyhow, on noticing the mileage o…

4. You said final paperwork previously. I'm not going to bother responding to the rest as it's clear there's some misremembering or exaggeration going on here. In my experience, the things you are describing are very rare, and even more rarely intentional. Why they keep happening to you, idk.

Good catch, you're right. It happened with both a non-final sheet and the final one. The final one added in another line item that had not been agreed on.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#389
post #295
post #290

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Exclusive breastfeeding is for 6 months maximum. That is all there is to it. Any older then that, baby eats solids. Also, the stay at home moms are at risk demographic for alcoholism and mental heath issues like depression - cause the situation causes it.

> stay at home moms are at risk demographic for alcoholism and mental heath issues like depression - cause the situation causes it. Is this true in all societies, or just societies like USA where most people live in car-centric suburbs isolated from any sense of community? In Africa there are women who go back to work selling things in the town market shortly after their babies are born - with the baby strapped to th…

I dont think it is just car centric thing. The society I am from is not car centric and you actually do have public parks etc. It is super normal to use them. And also, American families tend to own 2 cars, so being car centric does not leave them locked at home.

> In Africa there are women who go back to work selling things in the town market shortly after their babies are born - with the baby strapped to their back and breast fed on demand. No need for daycare but mom can still work!

I genuinely know much less about social structure in Africa. But I do know that 1 month old being strapped to back in the town market is more likely to get seriously sick - their immune systems are not strong yet. Meaning, this situation happens in places that have much bigger and serious social and health problems. And also, one other question is whether this mom would not picked daycare if she had that option. Moreover, while you can strap baby, you wont strap 4-5 years old and that means they spend a lot of time without supervision too.

Which is by the way origin of kindergarten - many 4 years old being unsupervised in German streets as both parents worked 12 hours a day in a factory. Which is default state whenever place is not rich, moms having a lot to do while kids do what they do (and it gets them into problems).

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9 hours a day, 7:30am till 4:30pm. It's a flat £200 a week.

So 40 lbs a day, or a bit over four lbs an hour. Could work out how much they can pay based on number of kids.

...did you just use pounds(the unit of weight) to calculate pounds(the unit of currency) per hour?
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