Female Founder Secrets: Fertility • Hacker News Board

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#431

Post by petr25102018 » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

seneca wrote: post #335

random5634 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, my mom always rebelled at the feminist push to have women do men's work as the goal (without valuing work women already did). Join the military, kill people etc. I'm 100% for that, but it's crazy that a women doesn't get paid for raising kids, perhaps the most important thing for society and with INCREDIBLE costs (if done badly) and benefits (if done well) to everyone. What's even more interesting, upvalue work…

> it's crazy that a women doesn't get paid for raising kids Why would women get paid to raise their own kids? You suggest it's because when done well, it has incredible value to society. What is that value to society? It's having functional, productive members. Women already reap the benefits of that by sharing society with other peoples' well raised children. What I mean to say is that it's a web of mutual benefit.…

Also, the world is already overpopulated as it is in my opinion. So not having a kid can be or will be seen as a benefit to society...

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#432

Post by klipt » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

i_haz_rabies wrote: post #374

klipt wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's crazy that a women doesn't get paid for raising kids Effectively they do get paid. In a marriage, mothers own half their husband's income. Outside a marriage, mothers get child support. The fact it's not taxed as "pay" is a bonus for mothers, not a downside! It's weird how the myth persists that mothers "not getting paid" a taxable wage is some kind of negative.

That's a weird contortion of logic. Your point is still that raising children isn't an economically valuable activity, unless you also think that men should be paid somewhere around 2x if they are supporting a stay-at-home mom...

The existence of daycares is proof that people are willing to pay for raising children.

What you're hitting on is that staying home to raise 1-2 kids is economically inefficient compared to working and sending the kids to a daycare, because the daycare can benefit from efficiencies of scale.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#433

Post by bennysonething » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

My wife went through the hell of a lot of failed rounds of IVF. It's way worse for a woman. It was bad for me in a different way, and not nearly as bad as what my wife had to do. However this was our choice, I don't demand that the world should change to help. She works a zero contract min wage job. We didn't demand anything of anyone else we had our own goals.

Edit: my heart goes out to anyone suffering through IVF.

Edit 2: we got lucky, she gave birth at 38. Anyone else going through this I'd recommend a book called it starts with the egg.

PS I keep saying "she" because it wouldnt be true to say "we". I didn't suffer my body getting fucked up with hormones.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#434

Post by svachalek » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

Teknoman117 wrote: post #398

As a (male) who is definitely uninformed - does female fertility begin to decrease far earlier than the biological capacity to have a successful pregnancy (post conception)? As in, if a woman was to freeze some of her eggs in say, her 20's and desire to use them for IVF in her late 30's, is it still safe for her to have a child?

As a couple who had a child in their 40s (naturally) I find a lot of people overestimate the difficulty. Yes the odds of success drop dramatically with age so it's best to start when you can but even so, IIRC, the most likely outcome is no problems at all even at age 40.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#435

Post by tomcam » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

astan wrote: post #67

Your whole blog resonates deeply with me. All this corporate grifting and women's empowerment months will do jack shit until we figure out how to make workplaces and lives more equitable for mothers and allowing for gaps, breaks and destigmatizing time off for parents of both genders. Instead, we talk about how sexism is the biggest problem. Sure, sexism might be annoying, but in the west, it is hardly something that…

Thanks. This is something dudes can't write about. My wife & I simply decided decades ago that one of us would always not work. We lived cheaply so we could accomplish that goal, but we wanted a good family life.

I would have been happy to be a househusband because she's about 50 times the programmer I am, but she doesn't love business and I do. We ended up doing great, but we had to start out assuming that a 2-career life would simply be too much stress in the high tech world. Great thing is it forced me to make creative choices, but one thing that got us both hoodwinked was this notion that a woman is as fertile at 35 as she is at 21. Um... no. So we had two severely handicapped kids. It would have been nice if the popular press had been a little more honest about the biology--but of course I should have educated myself better.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#436

Post by ZephyrBlu » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

verisimilidude wrote: post #309

david-gpu wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holding ourselves to impossibly high standards leads to dissatisfaction. Accepting that we will sometimes be mediocre at what we do and knowing that we will do better over time is a healthier alternative.

This is especially true when it comes to raising kids. Children have their own personalities. Some will be introverts and others will be party animals. Some will be quiet and others will make trouble. If a person goes into the job of parenthood with perfect preparation and explicit expectations, then failure is guaranteed. The best approach requires some level of improvisation; we learn each child’s tendencies, accep…

I have no expectations of parenthood, but I want to be able to give my children (Assuming I have any) a large portion of my attention to try and nurture them as best as I can.

That is what I mean by "doing it well" in terms of parenthood.

This is partly driven by me viewing the education system as failing children, and also me wanting to try and impart more knowledge upon my children.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#437

Post by jxramos » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #405

throwaway6734 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imo it's because there's less social resistance for women to take on the roles of men. Until men that take on the former roles of women are viewed equivalently in the dating market, it's going to be a much harder slog

Women across all income demographics desire men who make as much or more than them. It's a fundamental preference that OKCupid identified a long time ago. As a man, I don't fault this. The risk to a man of reproducing with a woman who isn't great at making money isn't as high, at a fundamental level, as it is for women. A man isn't incapacitated in any way by the act of reproducing. Nor is he prevented or blocked out…

> Biology is brutal and doesn't care about fairness or morality.

I still try to meditate on the evolutionary advances for sexual vs asexual reproduction to begin with. There's got to be a huge advantage of the separation of the sexes that is hard to fathom just because it's everywhere. Is it a springboard of genetic diversity that optimizes in ways we can't imagine otherwise? The 'compared to what' is always something I wanted to contemplate. Like why did organisms split into near copies of each other with male and female? Why had one developed that carried the womb and the other not? Was it just simple reproductive concurrency? The separation being the better evolutionary choice is so mysterious to me.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

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Post by danbolt » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

enko123 wrote: post #238

kmclean wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, single, childless women are also the happiest population demographic. ( https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/25/women-h... ) I don't disagree homemaking should be less stigmatized, but the real problem is American startup culture that expects this kind of around-the-clock all-in hustle mentality. The vast majority of businesses are actually just small firms with a few people that make a de…

Not remotely believable.

What makes you feel that way? Do you think the narrative might be more complicated than what the parent suggests?

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#439

Post by cloudier » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

_ezkx wrote: post #243

dcow wrote: post #116

I think women have largely been presented a false promise by progressives: value and purpose is derived from work, go do what men do to be their equal. It’s not necessarily anybody’s fault, we live in a society where money is valued. But I wish we could structure society in a way such that the value of raising children, homemaking, is clearly communicated and understood. Being a mother without a snazzy career is frow…

> presented a false promise by progressives I think this is a poor framing for the rest of your comment, which is essentially a feminist critique of patriarchy and capitalism, and how patriarchy/capitalism is a harmful structure to men as well. Progressives are totally on board with this.

+1000

It’s just way easier to help women achieve success in a way that helps capitalists than it is to push for better working conditions for parents. But pushing for better working conditions isn’t impossible either, and the US is an extreme outlier in how hostile it is to working parents.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#440

Post by klipt » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #400

young_unixer wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's crazy that a women doesn't get paid for raising kids Are you suggesting that the father should pay the mother a salary for raising the kids? (Or same thing with the sexes reversed if it's the father raising the kid) Isn't that just a more formal arrangement of a stay-at-home mother/father? The main difference would be: more financial independence to the stay-at-home party, which is good in my book, but I'm not…

I believe the proposal is that the government should pay stay at home parents to remain that way, because it is a net benefit to society.

Isn't it economically more efficient to have kids go to daycares (which benefit from economies of scale) and have both parents work and pay taxes?

Of course some people prefer to raise their kids themselves, but that seems more like an expensive lifestyle choice than a necessity.