4 ms·

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 fat

by 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.
- mmcnl 4y ago
  Thank you for your insights. I want to add some. First, let's say both parents are working 32 hours, and a child goes to daycare for 3 days. That's 24 out of 168 hours a week, in which the child also gets to play with other children. I can understand the hesitancy against outsourcing parenting, but for me this is a perfectly acceptable scenario. Second, you explain it's depressing for your wife to leave a high powered career and now to be bouncing at the bottom of the career ladder. It's difficult to put a number on this, but I think this should be an important factor in the equation used for optimizing economic outcome. Also, I strongly believe it's better for children as well to have parents who live their ambitions and chase their dreams. Happier parents = happier children? Finally, you state that earning the most money came at the expensive of her pride and self worth as a professional. Would you have made any other decisions in retrospect?
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    In America 32 hours is part time which loses all benefits, including child health care, and it’s a much more precarious position. Further there’s no career advancement possible. Also note most professional jobs 40 hours is the MINIMUM, with typical expectation being 50-60 and often includes travel - during which the parent at home has 100% responsibility. I don’t know that it was depressing per se for my wife or me, it was what we wanted. And we would make the same choices again given the same options and outcomes. The negative side effects of the choices are mostly societal consequences and I think we would prefer society not make parenting a career damaging choice. There’s no benefit to anyone in the current model. But also it’s important to note in my case I make nearly 10x what my wife would. Most couples will have a tighter decision to make - but will usually pick the man even with a smaller differential due to tradition.

by mmcnl 4y ago

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.

mmcnl 4y ago
Thank you for your insights. I want to add some. First, let's say both parents are working 32 hours, and a child goes to daycare for 3 days. That's 24 out of 168 hours a week, in which the child also gets to play with other children. I can understand the hesitancy against outsourcing parenting, but for me this is a perfectly acceptable scenario. Second, you explain it's depressing for your wife to leave a high powered career and now to be bouncing at the bottom of the career ladder. It's difficult to put a number on this, but I think this should be an important factor in the equation used for optimizing economic outcome. Also, I strongly believe it's better for children as well to have parents who live their ambitions and chase their dreams. Happier parents = happier children? Finally, you state that earning the most money came at the expensive of her pride and self worth as a professional. Would you have made any other decisions in retrospect?
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  In America 32 hours is part time which loses all benefits, including child health care, and it’s a much more precarious position. Further there’s no career advancement possible. Also note most professional jobs 40 hours is the MINIMUM, with typical expectation being 50-60 and often includes travel - during which the parent at home has 100% responsibility. I don’t know that it was depressing per se for my wife or me, it was what we wanted. And we would make the same choices again given the same options and outcomes. The negative side effects of the choices are mostly societal consequences and I think we would prefer society not make parenting a career damaging choice. There’s no benefit to anyone in the current model. But also it’s important to note in my case I make nearly 10x what my wife would. Most couples will have a tighter decision to make - but will usually pick the man even with a smaller differential due to tradition.