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Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

femfosec.com

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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#61

Post by damagednoob »

lainga wrote: post #36
Ma8ee wrote: post #21

Or get a husband that takes care of the kids. The woman will of course have carry the children in her womb, which will be some tough months. But after that the husband can do almost everything. If she feels that it is important to feed the baby breast milk the first months, excellent pumps can be bought. This is a much better option than waiting until it almost is to late. (I’m not talking out of my ass: I’m currentl…

Do you think people would receive your advice the same way if the sexes were reversed?

No, but that doesn't mean the advice is bad. Two consenting adults should be able to divide up family responsibilities however they see fit.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#62

Post by [deleted] »

lainga wrote: post #36
Ma8ee wrote: post #21

Or get a husband that takes care of the kids. The woman will of course have carry the children in her womb, which will be some tough months. But after that the husband can do almost everything. If she feels that it is important to feed the baby breast milk the first months, excellent pumps can be bought. This is a much better option than waiting until it almost is to late. (I’m not talking out of my ass: I’m currentl…

Do you think people would receive your advice the same way if the sexes were reversed?

[deleted]

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#63

Post by boatsie »

jimbob45 wrote: post #24
notRobot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a terrible answer for a website like HN where accuracy is important.

The answer is that fertility only goes down. If you want to ever get pregnant, you should begin at least taking initial steps today rather than waiting.

Yes, I think GP is noting that egg quality declines somewhat exponentially, rather than linearly.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#64

Post by em-bee »

wasn't there a study that suggested that more successful startup founders are in their 40s?

so have kids in your 20s and build your startup when the kids are old enough. use your life experience and increase your chances of success.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#65

Post by tobib »

johnzim wrote: post #51
Ma8ee wrote: post #21

Or get a husband that takes care of the kids. The woman will of course have carry the children in her womb, which will be some tough months. But after that the husband can do almost everything. If she feels that it is important to feed the baby breast milk the first months, excellent pumps can be bought. This is a much better option than waiting until it almost is to late. (I’m not talking out of my ass: I’m currentl…

This is great advice. I was in a similar position till we moved to the Bay Area, which flipped the financial calculus. Other than breast-feeding, Dads can do everything that's required and pumping works out great for everyone.

> pumping works out great for everyone

You might want to ask a few (other) women about that. My partner very much dislikes pumping. Both the physical aspect as well as the emotional/psychological side of it. But I get what you're saying and I agree with the sentiment.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#66

Post by austincheney »

_lx4l wrote: post #43
austincheney wrote: post #7

The only logical answer here is youth. The younger you are the more fertile you are. This is true for both men and women, but more true for women. If you want children at some point in life then prioritize children first and early. I know, this puts your ambitious career on hold for a while and start ups require huge ambition. Still, start up opportunities will not be hyper critically different in the future than the…

Adoption is another logical answer that can be very rewarding. All of us in the family I grew up in were adopted as infants. It's more expensive than birthing your own children but I imagine parents that left their fertile years focused on a career would be able to afford adoption.

In most places adoption is also very expensive. For some absurd reason prospective adopting parents must prove they are worthy of raising children to the state, while biological parents don't have to prove anything.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#67

Post by astan »

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 creates a genuine barrier for women.

Startups have it worst, and everday I count the number of years I have to work in the high stress places I want or do a startup if I want to have two kids before 35. No one talks about planning around fertility. When I mention it to someone that I want to take time off for a couple years to have children in silicon valley, they look at me as if I'm an alien. As if wanting to be pregnant and not working at the same time as being sleep deprived and wanting to spend time with my own baby when they are at their youngest is some strange outlandish fantasy.

All careers are built this way. PhD to tenure, startups, generally high stress professions. I wish the world wasn't so male centric, that feminists actually cared about finding structural solutions instead of forcing women to become copies of men to achieve gender parity. But they care more about power than actual equality where we acknowledge that women have different needs and desires, that those needs and desires are equally valuable and not inferior to desires men have, that the two genders have different strengths and capabilities and it is equally important to reward both. And maybe not wanting to outsource your baby to a nanny during their most vulnerable years is not a heretical thought.

I wish we had more focus in allowing people to transition back from taking a few years off to raise young kids, and it wasn't automatically assumed that you would be a worse founder or professor or software engineer just because you have 2-4 years you didn't commercially work. Hell, I want to take that time to contribute to open source, something I don't get to do much usually and I'm looking forward to it because I am willing to face the consequences. But I wish more women could be less scared of their career prospects for choosing to have children.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#68

Post by shaneprrlt »

abellerose wrote: post #41
austincheney wrote: post #7

The only logical answer here is youth. The younger you are the more fertile you are. This is true for both men and women, but more true for women. If you want children at some point in life then prioritize children first and early. I know, this puts your ambitious career on hold for a while and start ups require huge ambition. Still, start up opportunities will not be hyper critically different in the future than the…

It's completely unethical to have kids and like another commenter has said brings a great disadvantage economically. I would suggest to anyone to not follow your advice. edit: I won't be further commenting on the topic because the same people asking everyone "when are you going to have kids like me?" are just going to downvote. Yes, I rather see an end to humankind because that ends suffering. Less suffering in a uni…

The antinatalist point of view is incredibly damaging to the long term progress of our species.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#69

Post by fastball »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #53
fastball wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want fame or riches. I just want to build something nobody else has built.

You can do that as a hobby, or you can do it as a startup but treat the startup as a 9-5. (Your leisurely pace of work might hurt your chances of staying ahead of your competitors, but that's only important if you want the wealth and fame part.)

Hmm I don't think that's quite right.

In order for me to continue building something nobody has built, I need it to be generating revenue. And in order to generate revenue I need to stay ahead of the competition, which probably requires not treating it like a 9-5. So yes I'm pursuing money, but not to achieve vast personal wealth, but rather to ensure my (hopefully) novel business is long-term viable.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#70

Post by mattnewton »

poopoopeepee wrote: post #26
Miner49er wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This advice is likely economically bad though. Capital now is better than capital later. I would think money made early and saved by not having children and invested will end up being much more then what will be spent on a fertility clinic later.

Another alternative is to design your startup around a very low burn rate and change nothing else in your life. I mean, if it is going to take 5-10 years as the blogger claims, what's 8-12 years if you get to tick all the other boxes in life?

8-12 years of child rearing is very expensive. That's without even taking into compounding returns from working longer hours, seniority, experience, and investments.
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