9 ms·

Why is at always the mothers who choose to be stay-at-home mothers, and very rarely fathers? In my opinion this makes things extra hard for mothers who want to

by mmcnl 4y ago

Why is at always the mothers who choose to be stay-at-home mothers, and very rarely fathers? In my opinion this makes things extra hard for mothers who want to resume their career, because men are used to working with men who don't take breaks from their career to raise their children. Taking time off to raise your children is a personal choice, but it doesn't make any sense that it's almost never the fathers who stay at home. The mother from the article writes: being a stay-at-home mum came at the cost of my career. But why doesn't the father write: not staying home for my children came at the cost of their mother's career. Children have fathers and mothers. Both fathers and mothers should carry this responsibility equally. It's not impossible. As long as raising a child is seen as a responsibility of the mother and less of the father, mothers will always face more difficulties in their career. Disclaimer: ofcourse there are exceptions where there is only one parent who is availabile to carry the responsibility, but in general when the mother stays at home it's not due to external circumstances, but rather a personal preference.

pavel_lishin 4y ago
> Why is at always the mothers who choose to be stay-at-home mothers, and very rarely fathers Because on average, fathers tend to make more than mothers. That's not the only calculation, but it's a big one.
- analog31 4y ago
  That was the case in my family. Similar backgrounds, 2x salary difference.
- mmcnl 4y ago
  Why don't the father and mother both work less? I.e. 4 days (32 hours) instead of 5 days (40 hours). As long as this is not common practice, combined with expensive or inaccessible daycare, women will always face more difficulties in their career. There's no biological justification for this, instead it's entirely the result of cultural conventions and political decisions. I think we should recognize this, because if we don't, gender equality will be out of reach in the near future.
  - pavel_lishin 4y ago
    > Why don't the father and mother both work less? Because not every employer would allow this.
    - mmcnl 4y ago
      That's the result of choices we, or our elected representatives, have made. There are other choices we can make.
  - thrwy_meta 4y ago
    >>>There's no biological justification for this Do you have children? I'm father to a 16-month old. The first few months especially, our daughter would not go to sleep unless my wife held her. No amount of compassion on my part could overcome the ingrained link a newborn has with its mother. You are basically arguing that new mothers can have their babies ripped from their arms while they get shackled to their cubicle, and that this will have no negative impacts on the child's development......all in the pursuit of "equality"? This strikes me as....misguided.
tomp 4y ago
Because biology. Mothers have to take time off work (to give birth), fathers don’t. Freedom of choice is important, but so is specialisation (so the couple can be more efficient), so it makes more sense for mother to specialise for family (sacrificing career), and father to specialise for career (sacrificing family).
- mmcnl 4y ago
  This is a very conservative view. Giving birth is something only the mother can do, but there is no biological reason why a mother should raise the child and not the father. This renders you argument about specialization mute. In almost every developed country, it's possible to work 32 hours instead of 40 hours, which means that with 3 days of daycare the mother and father can share the responsibility raising a child equally.
  - tomp 4y ago
    You misunderstood my argument. If father specialises for work, he can devote 100%. If mother specialises for work, she can only devote 90% (or whatever, to account for birth & recovery in first year). Therefore all things being equal (i.e. “controlling for other variables” in statistics) father specialising for work will be more profitable for the family than mother specialising for work. Everyone (well, every couple) is free to choose what they want, weighing tradeoffs along many dimensions (money isn’t everything, but it’s a lot) but don’t be surprised if choices are biased towards “economically sensible”. Sure, you can also do things “equally” but I estimate you’ll be getting less, on average (i.e. you will earn less per day working 3x per week than 5x (or 6x))
    - mmcnl 4y ago
      So if I understand correctly, you are saying there are two scenarios: 1. Father working full-time, mother staying-at-home for a few years 2. Father and mother working both reduced hours Your conclusion is that sum of wages accumulated over the career length of both the father and the mother is higher in scenario 1 than in scenario 2? If that's the case, then first of all I doubt that's true. And second, that means we as a society are sacrificing gender equality in return for disposable income. I think gender equality is not worth a small increase in disposable income (and I don't even think that staying at home economically is the better choice).
fnordpiglet 4y ago
Women tend to make less than men so it makes economic sense for the woman to stay at home. The problem gets worse and the disparity as the man’s career progresses and the woman’s declines, sometimes to the point that day care comes with opportunity cost relative to not working - I.e., the woman’s income doesn’t offset the increased expenses. This is a systemic and structural tragedy. That said as a hiring manager I love hiring women returning to work. They have a very clear reason to be there and their productivity is very high, and more than offsets any reduction in hours they might face due to lingering responsibilities.
- mmcnl 4y ago
  I don't think it actually makes that much sense from an economical perspective if you look at it carefully. First, the choice is not binary (i.e. mother or father stays at home). There's alternatives like working reduced hours (32 hours) and using day care. This is common practice in a lot of developed countries. Second, the cost of the wage gap resulting from suspending your career for a few years, accumulated over your entire career length is really high. My income doubled in the last 5 years. Using day care then suddenly isn't that expensive at all, at least not in my country. But you have to make the right calculations, and look at the cost of reduced future wages as well.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    The fact is a lot of parents (me included!) don’t want to outsource early childhood just to level up in our jobs. In that rationale, of someone is staying home, it is a binary choice. It’s not a fully economic choice, which makes it even MORE important you make the best economic choice for who stays home. Hence the man, given wage inequality, goes to work. There are definitely couples that both work and leverage child care of some form. That’s a reasonable choice. But it’s also comes with a large trade off from a parenting point of view. In my family I would have loved to stay home. But I made considerably more than my wife did. When she reentered the work force she faced a lot of obstacles and essentially started over again. Fortunately I work from 6am-3pm since I’m in seattle and the org I manage is based in the UK and NYC. So my wife can work a normal job and I can pick up my daughter at school without requiring child care expenses. But it’s a little depressing for my wife to have left a high powered career and now is bouncing around the bottom of the ladder. But it got us time to parent and let us earn the most money by letting my career keep growing. It just came at the cost of her pride and self worth as a professional.
truncst 4y ago
I'm a stay-at-home father. My wife stayed home for a few years for traditional reasons, and then got an offer that was too good to refuse. So I left my position to support and my family when she returned to work, as well as because I was looking for a career change. So we've taken turns. I haven't really stopped working in some ways. I still serve on many professional committees and positions and do consulting, but don't have a salary per se, and wouldn't survive financially on my own. I've found myself asking the same question you have. The linked essay really resonates with me as do many of the posts here. Society really makes so many assumptions about peoples' lives. There's a lot of lost opportunities because of impulsive, angry, or prejudiced decisions. I'd say in the last 10 years of my life a dominant theme has been a feeling of being walled in by others' prejudices and presumptions, of being typecast in a lot of ways. Not just with regard to gender (that might be the least of it really), but with regard to what I can offer, what my skillset is, what I'm interested in doing, and all sorts of other things.
scruple 4y ago
> men are used to working with men who don't take breaks from their career to raise their children. It's not limited to men. I've heard other women throw shade at pregnant and nursing mothers who need special accommodations. Sometimes even other mothers...

by mmcnl 4y ago

pavel_lishin 4y ago

> Why is at always the mothers who choose to be stay-at-home mothers, and very rarely fathers Because on average, fathers tend to make more than mothers. That's not the only calculation, but it's a big one.

analog31 4y ago
That was the case in my family. Similar backgrounds, 2x salary difference.
mmcnl 4y ago
Why don't the father and mother both work less? I.e. 4 days (32 hours) instead of 5 days (40 hours). As long as this is not common practice, combined with expensive or inaccessible daycare, women will always face more difficulties in their career. There's no biological justification for this, instead it's entirely the result of cultural conventions and political decisions. I think we should recognize this, because if we don't, gender equality will be out of reach in the near future.
- pavel_lishin 4y ago
  > Why don't the father and mother both work less? Because not every employer would allow this.
  - mmcnl 4y ago
    That's the result of choices we, or our elected representatives, have made. There are other choices we can make.
- thrwy_meta 4y ago
  >>>There's no biological justification for this Do you have children? I'm father to a 16-month old. The first few months especially, our daughter would not go to sleep unless my wife held her. No amount of compassion on my part could overcome the ingrained link a newborn has with its mother. You are basically arguing that new mothers can have their babies ripped from their arms while they get shackled to their cubicle, and that this will have no negative impacts on the child's development......all in the pursuit of "equality"? This strikes me as....misguided.

tomp 4y ago

Because biology. Mothers have to take time off work (to give birth), fathers don’t. Freedom of choice is important, but so is specialisation (so the couple can be more efficient), so it makes more sense for mother to specialise for family (sacrificing career), and father to specialise for career (sacrificing family).

mmcnl 4y ago
This is a very conservative view. Giving birth is something only the mother can do, but there is no biological reason why a mother should raise the child and not the father. This renders you argument about specialization mute. In almost every developed country, it's possible to work 32 hours instead of 40 hours, which means that with 3 days of daycare the mother and father can share the responsibility raising a child equally.
- tomp 4y ago
  You misunderstood my argument. If father specialises for work, he can devote 100%. If mother specialises for work, she can only devote 90% (or whatever, to account for birth & recovery in first year). Therefore all things being equal (i.e. “controlling for other variables” in statistics) father specialising for work will be more profitable for the family than mother specialising for work. Everyone (well, every couple) is free to choose what they want, weighing tradeoffs along many dimensions (money isn’t everything, but it’s a lot) but don’t be surprised if choices are biased towards “economically sensible”. Sure, you can also do things “equally” but I estimate you’ll be getting less, on average (i.e. you will earn less per day working 3x per week than 5x (or 6x))
  - mmcnl 4y ago
    So if I understand correctly, you are saying there are two scenarios: 1. Father working full-time, mother staying-at-home for a few years 2. Father and mother working both reduced hours Your conclusion is that sum of wages accumulated over the career length of both the father and the mother is higher in scenario 1 than in scenario 2? If that's the case, then first of all I doubt that's true. And second, that means we as a society are sacrificing gender equality in return for disposable income. I think gender equality is not worth a small increase in disposable income (and I don't even think that staying at home economically is the better choice).

fnordpiglet 4y ago

Women tend to make less than men so it makes economic sense for the woman to stay at home. The problem gets worse and the disparity as the man’s career progresses and the woman’s declines, sometimes to the point that day care comes with opportunity cost relative to not working - I.e., the woman’s income doesn’t offset the increased expenses. This is a systemic and structural tragedy. That said as a hiring manager I love hiring women returning to work. They have a very clear reason to be there and their productivity is very high, and more than offsets any reduction in hours they might face due to lingering responsibilities.

mmcnl 4y ago
I don't think it actually makes that much sense from an economical perspective if you look at it carefully. First, the choice is not binary (i.e. mother or father stays at home). There's alternatives like working reduced hours (32 hours) and using day care. This is common practice in a lot of developed countries. Second, the cost of the wage gap resulting from suspending your career for a few years, accumulated over your entire career length is really high. My income doubled in the last 5 years. Using day care then suddenly isn't that expensive at all, at least not in my country. But you have to make the right calculations, and look at the cost of reduced future wages as well.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  The fact is a lot of parents (me included!) don’t want to outsource early childhood just to level up in our jobs. In that rationale, of someone is staying home, it is a binary choice. It’s not a fully economic choice, which makes it even MORE important you make the best economic choice for who stays home. Hence the man, given wage inequality, goes to work. There are definitely couples that both work and leverage child care of some form. That’s a reasonable choice. But it’s also comes with a large trade off from a parenting point of view. In my family I would have loved to stay home. But I made considerably more than my wife did. When she reentered the work force she faced a lot of obstacles and essentially started over again. Fortunately I work from 6am-3pm since I’m in seattle and the org I manage is based in the UK and NYC. So my wife can work a normal job and I can pick up my daughter at school without requiring child care expenses. But it’s a little depressing for my wife to have left a high powered career and now is bouncing around the bottom of the ladder. But it got us time to parent and let us earn the most money by letting my career keep growing. It just came at the cost of her pride and self worth as a professional.

truncst 4y ago

I'm a stay-at-home father. My wife stayed home for a few years for traditional reasons, and then got an offer that was too good to refuse. So I left my position to support and my family when she returned to work, as well as because I was looking for a career change. So we've taken turns. I haven't really stopped working in some ways. I still serve on many professional committees and positions and do consulting, but don't have a salary per se, and wouldn't survive financially on my own. I've found myself asking the same question you have. The linked essay really resonates with me as do many of the posts here. Society really makes so many assumptions about peoples' lives. There's a lot of lost opportunities because of impulsive, angry, or prejudiced decisions. I'd say in the last 10 years of my life a dominant theme has been a feeling of being walled in by others' prejudices and presumptions, of being typecast in a lot of ways. Not just with regard to gender (that might be the least of it really), but with regard to what I can offer, what my skillset is, what I'm interested in doing, and all sorts of other things.

scruple 4y ago

> men are used to working with men who don't take breaks from their career to raise their children. It's not limited to men. I've heard other women throw shade at pregnant and nursing mothers who need special accommodations. Sometimes even other mothers...