Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

I agree and disagree. During my PhD, I had several women friends have kids. It was a great time to have kids other than the poverty thing, if you had a supportive advisor. But what was not great was the lack of structure around it, by which I mean clear and equitable maternity leave policies for people in this sort-of-employee, sort-of-student position which many PhD students in STEM inhabit. But I gotta say I don't see non-feminists advocating for maternity leave for grad students, so part of your post puzzles me.

I was breast-feeding while a professor and needed to pump at work. The nearest lactation space was in a different building, which was somewhat inconvenient, and I had a sometimes-shared office during the day so that wasn't perfect. But it worked out -- mostly because a bunch of, uh, I guess feminists had advocated for lactation spaces to be officially made available across campus (they did a great job, taking a very data-driven approach wrt geography and student/staff density). Before those spaces were available, I know a woman who pumped in a dirty janitorial closet. One day the janitor walked in on her accidentally and everyone was quite embarrassed. But there were no other places available; even the bathrooms didn't have electrical outlets close enough to space to sit to pump.

Heartily agree that destigmatizing gaps and breaks would be great, and there are lots of people working to do that. Maybe it's different where you live compared to where I live. I guess I live in a low-cost-of-living part of the Midwest where we aren't so high-stress about everything. Don't know what it would take to change SV.

For me, I sure as heck outsourced my baby to a nanny 15 hours a week after she was 3 months old. Do you know how nice it is to shower alone and have conversations with adults? Also, it was wonderful for my kid to get some love from someone else; I don't why she should be restricted to only two adult contacts for 16 months of her life. I was very lucky that I was able to teach evening classes and my husband took FMLA one day a week for the first year, so that we both had time to devote to the careers we love as well as the kid we love. I fully support the stay at home moms I know, and I am also thrilled that I did not do that, thanks.

But my message to you is don't be scared of your career prospects w/children. Seriously, don't worry about it. F*&^ anyone who says having kids will derail your career. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Maybe a TBI you sustain during a competitive road biking event or your weekend at Tahoe will derail your career instead. And the higher-paid you are before you have kids, the easier it will be to advance afterward. Life is long. Babyhood and toddlerhood is short. You'll be fine.

I don't want to blame this on 'toxic masculinity', but I think there are a lot of men who would make allies for this sort of work if they would stop for a moment and think about what's good for them instead of toeing the party line.

I am deeply convinced that I would be as productive at 32 hours a week as I am at 40, ±5%. And the +5% in particular interests me, because it would say a lot about how we are mishandling creative roles. 32 hours a week not only opens up more diversity in hiring, it also shifts the balance in co-parenting. Yes, I can take Billie to his eye appointment/drop him off at school/buy groceries for dinner on the way home.

Another downside is smaller multi-generational families.

Children birthed to older parents are unlikely to have grandparents.

I'm pretty biased, but it would depend on the role.

Thinking that parenting is not "experience", or that it has no commercial relevance is (in my opinion) a mistake.

Many roles, I suspect a candidate with 4 years of SWE and 4 years of parenting could be a more valuable team member than a candidate with 8 years of just SWE. Parenting does not universally develop emotional maturity and wider perspectives, but I believe there's a correlation.

Disclaimer: Of course, individual differences swamp any other factor, so always take each person as they come.

I've done the math with my Midwestern salary and I still come out ahead in the Midwest on average. Yes, you're looking at it all economically, disregarding culture, quality of life, access to nature, family, etc, but even economically, good schools are cheaper here, cultural events are cheaper here, college is cheaper here, day care is cheaper here. That's why a lot of people do move away from the Bay when they've got kids to raise.