I’m certain that if I had children, I would be failing at my job.
I’ve hit my 30s, a period when it seems as if all of my friends suddenly have kids. That’s a priority shift completely incompatible with my goals. Startups require that you give it all or go home, routinely requiring long nights, longer weekends, and blood and toil. If you aren’t willing to put in the hours, eager replacements are standing behind you. If I fail, the women I work with will be out of their jobs.
It's this fearful attitude, lurking in the minds of bosses and employees, that is the problem facing women in the workplace who want to have children, more than anything else. (For example, I put it at the root of poor leave policies.) It's called sexism when it comes from a man, but here (from a female boss) it's clear it's just culture (American culture?).
I just had my first kid, and my wife had to go back to work at six weeks. I'm a software engineer, and she's a medical device rep in trauma. Unlike me, she can't work from home, she carries a pager, and she can't choose her work hours or reduce them. She wasn't itching to go back to work either; she loved being at home with the new baby. However, you do what you have to do. Some new moms do quit their jobs, especially if they weren't making much more than they'd save on childcare by staying at home, or if it was a crappy work environment or an unfulfilling role anyway. However, for many, it's not an option not to work, and being a software developer is actually a pretty cushy gig that I would wish on moms everywhere.
If you're afraid for yourself or someone else of having kids, go out and talk to some power moms.
As a man, I feel like if I took on kids, I wouldn't have the time to work on what I value and still do a good job of raising them. And that's with a stable, 9 to 5 job at a big company along with side projects.
If I were working at a startup, where every deadline slip significantly affects the viability of the company, I would probably feel like I didn't have time for children and my startup.
It doesn't have to be about sexism. Children are hugely expensive, and take a large chunk out of your life. Not everyone is willing or able to pay that price.
It may be easier for you to convince other people of that as a father than it would be if you were a mother, unfortunately. I've seen complaints before (admittedly, in other industries and academia) about fatherhood being seen as something that enhances men's ability to do their job and motherhood a thing that distracts women from theirs.
Children aren't as expensive as they say, but yes, they do take a huge chunk out of your life. It would be hard to imagine looking at a spreadsheet of the positives and negatives of breeding and deciding it was a good investment. But if you suddenly found yourself with a child, you'd find a way to take care of it and it'd end up being not so bad. Though I would not recommend having both parents keep full time jobs until free babysitting (public school) kicks in. Somebody should at least drop to part-time. The money saved on daycare nearly makes up for the lost income and you'll actually get to experience being a parent. Though you may need a smaller home and used cars. I know that's not very cool but if you are a parent you aren't going to be cool anymore anyhow so you may was well save the money.
I thought that it was known that eternal crunch time in software dev is counter-productive anyhow?
Children are only expensive in the same way any investment is: there is a cost with an expectation of higher returns. And boy, do kids have high returns and low failure rates!
Everythings fine: Do hot stuff before and/or after having children. Slow down during family-time (and with that I mean having children from 0 to lets say 10 (after that they get more independent anyway)). Who wants to crush it from their 20ies to their 60ies? Still... a ... trade (I am/was willing to make)
coming from a woman doesn't preclude it being sexism - sexism is a structural rather than individual problem, and women are just as immersed in the overall sexist culture as men are.
I personally think capitalism isn't inherently sexist: it can exist in a world without gender.
However, it reinforces a society's underlying sexism, racism, etc. So you often have to work against capitalism to fight other oppressions. And vice-versa.
If anything capitalism provides a safety valve against irrational sexism and racism. See eg the case of gender arbitrate in Korea, http://www.economist.com/node/17311877
good question! i'd say that at the very least capitalism as implemented today is, because it doesn't take the disproportionate impact of parenthood on women into account, and acts to exacerbate rather than to reduce that impact.
I wish that more people would join you in distinguishing "Capitalism" as an economic interface (to use the programming definition) from particular instantiations of it.
The replier in question was likely talking about the implementation of capitalism in the United States, with it's associated labor laws, taxes, regulations, etc. Compared to, say, China where it's a more natural extension of global trade creating a capitalist system. Or many European countries with better maternity leave.
Some forms of trade will always exist, but there's a fine line between trade, monetary systems, free markets, mercantile capitalism and modern (AKA industrial) capitalism. Which too many people seem to confuse as one.
And to answer your original question, of course capitalism isn't sexist, it's a broad economic system. However a capitalist system can suffer from sexist tendencies when the rules (laws, regulations, culture, society, etc.) governing it push it that way, the same any economic system can.
Ahhh. See, I think of capitalism as a global phenomenon with mercantilist states being one set of players and corporations the other. Taxes, regulations etc. are merely tools states use to wage economic war against competing states on behalf of their constituent corporations.
In this sense no nation has any real power over capitalism itself. If they enact regulations to try and reduce sexism within their borders they run the risk of reducing their constituent corporations' ability to compete on the global stage.
> Taxes, regulations etc. are merely tools states use to wage economic war against competing states on behalf of their constituent corporations.
It's not that easy. States are not coherent actors. People are watching out for themselves first, for their corporations and states etc second or third.
Somewhat more optimistic, different countries have different rules. The power of arbitrate to even force the same level of taxation seems pretty low. (And forcing the same level of sexism seems even harder.)
If I understand your question, then yes. Take for example the former US embassador to Haiti who warned against "resurgent populist and anti-market economy political forces—reversing gains of the last two years." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Bertrand_Aristide#Return_t...)
Capitalist economies are carefully implemented by states; refusal to implement these artificial things puts your country at risk of terrorism by militant capitalist states. You may like Graeber's _Debt: The First 5000 Years_ for a useful perspective.
Free will is one of my foma. I don't actually believe it exists in a meaningful sense, but I live my life as though it does. Pretending that it exists makes my life simpler and happier.
I don't think we will understand free will until we have more of a handle on time and causality. I think free will exists, however I don't think we understand what it is and are maybe just looking at the whole thing in the wrong way. Also, on the face of it, it would seem slightly odd for a completely clockwork universe to contain beings that worry about if they have free will.
I wouldn't say that the universe is clockwork; quantum mechanics throws a wrench in that. However, unlike Penrose, I do not believe that quantum mechanics plays a crucial role in the human mind. I believe that the human mind could be (and probably is) clockwork.
I find that it is difficult to get shit done with that mindset though, so I live my life as though I did not believe it.
Quantum mechanics is actually way better than clockworks. If you ignore the infamous collapse of the wave function, quantum mechanics is fully linear and does NOT allow for chaos.
A classic world of colliding billiard balls is much harder to predict.
What I satisfy myself is: "People are responsible for their own actions".
That relies on some emotionally intuitive notion of "responsible" which I cannot bootstrap from what I know of the universe. That is why "free will" is foma to me. Rationally I do not believe it to exist because I cannot define it rationally (not only do I find myself unable to do it, I believe that it is not possible).
> If you're afraid for yourself or someone else of having kids, go out and talk to some power moms.
Ideally you ask the power moms and their adult children (from the future.) I bet the kids would mention other factors than their moms working during the early years.
"However, for many, it's not an option not to work", even when all the other factors mentioned are met. They want to be socially included (by doing a job).
>> software developer is actually a pretty cushy gig
> it can be
If it's not, you are either doing something wrong in the current climate, or you are more ambitious by choice. Pulling six figure salaries is laughably easy, if you are willing to move.
I don't know any. Do you?
The woman working in IT that I know are: Scrum Master, (Project/Assistant-)Manager, Team- & Department-Leads, QA and Testing.
Could just pls one of the hacking moms reply with their experience? Preferably ones that manage it with 3 or more kids? Please leave you technology stack in the comment.
My wife (currently asleep) and I have 3 children, and she's a .Net developer. I'm a Java dev. Every now and then we'll have discussions about various tech. We juggle care of the children between us.
I have a young female coworker who has just had her first child. She a Java dev, and she has the respect of her fellow devs and management.
Work life is balanced and family oriented here in the Midwest. Women are just as productive as men (and many are more so) and can serve in the same roles.
The engineering department manager where I happily work was formerly my team lead, and prior to that, a team member, and for the prior decade, a programmer in a variety of industries. She knows her shit. Off the top of my head, I believe she has worked with oo and async perl and python, C, C++, some lisp, actionscript, javascript, and was about to pick up go prior to filling the manager role. Single mother of two. Our DBA is also a mom and a former python webdev.
My wife has a successful career in federal court and I'm a CTO/Co-founder of a startup that became a medium-sized company. The impact of having a baby in our careers was insignificant.
Yes we split the responsibilities, but being really honest, if you fail in whatever you are doing because of a baby, you would fail without it either. I would even say that a baby might even make you a bit more ruthless when it comes to making money and doing things in general.
Yes, you won't have time for yourself, you will sleep less and will look miserable for a while. But I'm pretty sure raising a baby is the greatest thing I'll ever do in my life.
That said, to be a power mom you just need a power partner.
It's really great that it works out for you, but PLEASE,
> if you fail in whatever you are doing because of a baby, you would fail without it either.
For most people, it's literally like saying "If you fail in whatever you are doing because you don't get enough sleep, you would fail with enough sleep anyway."
> The impact of having a baby in our careers was insignificant.
That depends entirely upon your minimum standards of parental involvement. Many would argue that the wet nurse/live-in nanny set qualify more as custodians than parents, per se.
To each his and her own, but you're being a bit myopic.
> That said, to be a power mom you just need a power partner.
We did hire a nanny, we both work 7 and 8 hours a day the rest is spent with the baby. As our baby sleep almost half of the time we aren't home, we lose just 4 or 5 hours of parenting time on weekdays.
Not sarcastic at all, What I was trying to say is that most power moms are really moms that have support of their partners.
You are talking to a guy who moved to the US from Denmark for nine months before my wife and son came over here so not casting any judgement here just a heads up.
Your baby wont continue being a baby and before you know it they are awake most of the time when you are not around and asleep when you are.
I see many parents who end up seeing their kid for maybe 1 hour a day after they reach the age of 3.
In almost every household, at least one parent works 40 hours/week. Is that person not parenting? Are you aware how many hours are in a week? That children go to school?
I’ve hit my 30s, a period when it seems as if all of my friends suddenly have kids. That’s a priority shift completely incompatible with my goals. Startups require that you give it all or go home, routinely requiring long nights, longer weekends, and blood and toil. If you aren’t willing to put in the hours, eager replacements are standing behind you. If I fail, the women I work with will be out of their jobs.
It's this fearful attitude, lurking in the minds of bosses and employees, that is the problem facing women in the workplace who want to have children, more than anything else. (For example, I put it at the root of poor leave policies.) It's called sexism when it comes from a man, but here (from a female boss) it's clear it's just culture (American culture?).
I just had my first kid, and my wife had to go back to work at six weeks. I'm a software engineer, and she's a medical device rep in trauma. Unlike me, she can't work from home, she carries a pager, and she can't choose her work hours or reduce them. She wasn't itching to go back to work either; she loved being at home with the new baby. However, you do what you have to do. Some new moms do quit their jobs, especially if they weren't making much more than they'd save on childcare by staying at home, or if it was a crappy work environment or an unfulfilling role anyway. However, for many, it's not an option not to work, and being a software developer is actually a pretty cushy gig that I would wish on moms everywhere.
If you're afraid for yourself or someone else of having kids, go out and talk to some power moms.