Ya I think thats a calculation many families have to make. I strongly agree with the other comment in terms of opportunity cost years down the road. I really se

Ya I think thats a calculation many families have to make. I strongly agree with the other comment in terms of opportunity cost years down the road. I really see this with a lot of our friends. The wife often quits her job and stays home because our society really makes it hard to work as the mom of an infant and biologically that is typically easier (don’t even get me started on the cost of formula vs breastmilk). But they do miss out on those critical career years. Luckily we are both software engineers at well paying jobs and so the daycare isn’t as much as an issue for us. But it is hard to see others have to make these really hard decisions, so I guess I am outraged on their behalf. It is especially brutal because of most of the women leaving their careers haven’t finished paying off student loans. In this era of gender equality we have constructed a financial system where it doesn’t make fiscal sense for many women to get a college degree if they want kids. Anecdotally, teachers can’t afford to work and have a kid and nurses just barely can. These are by no means bad careers and its really just a very tough situation, not all of of us can be software engineers making Facebook/Twitter apps.