Hacker News Reader

> Unfortunately, that's not how this works. If it were, then the article wouldn't be citing early 30s as the age at which educated women have kids.

It is exactly how this works, which is exactly why that's the finding: more specifically, while education is the explanatory factor, the issue isn't women delaying having kids to finish school, it's certain women (well, families; while they don't discuss it in as much depth, the article points out first time fathers are getting older, too) delaying having kids to have an estsblished career, of which education is a foundation.

A mommy track for college (or, more gender neutrally, as for the population this actually helps, this actually probably applies just as much for the men in the same families, better support for parents as part-time re-entering students generally) doesn't serve that population at all; it does serve the population that's already choosing to have kids before getting a degree, but the problem it could help solve for them isn't the problem of declining fertility and increased risk of birth complications and defects that starts to kick in in the mid-to-late 30s and beyond.

Aside from possible issues of overgeneralization, I don't have much issue with the narrative you present as a path that some women go through in your post—it certainly happens just that way in some cases—but what you fail to do with it is connect it in any way to the solution you've presented.

I'd actually be quite interested in seeing an argument connecting them, but it's impossible to have a productive discussion if you choose to view any challenge to an argument you present as if it were an attack on yourself and your gender.

I read your comments with great interest, and am glad that you posted them, please don't allow the backlash from having you post your thoughts in the future. There are many people reading your comments that agree fully I'm sure, though they may not take the effort to post and say so as I am.

I read your comments with great interest

Thank you for saying so. It helps to hear such things sometimes. It's vastly better to get the occasional atta-girl than just facing a wall of negativity.

Future goal: More meaty engagement on the issues with less overall sense of dismissiveness. ;)

(Also: Waves at the guy from Georgia who went to that other Georgia school.)

The way you achieve this is not by asking women to “please don’t mind the abuse” it’s by helping police the abuse 24/7, especially when no woman is around.

I am a 27 year-old woman and I am getting to the point where I will have to choose between my career (in tech, all-male team) and having a child.

My partner and I both want children. We are not yet married and we do not yet have a house. Despite this, I really can't wait too much longer to get pregnant, or else risk fertility issues. And yet, the moment I get pregnant, my job is at risk (even though legally it shouldn't be)

Men really have no idea what it is like to have this struggle. I am both afraid for the career I will undoubtedly lose or the child I might struggle to conceive if I wait much longer. :(

My wife and I waited until our 30s to have kids, for both medical and financial reasons. We lucked out that my job at the time of our first child provided 3 months of paternity leave, and my job when we had our second child provided 4 months.

Even though we're well off, it's very expensive living in the US as a family of four on one income, and you're one job termination or healthcare emergency away from poverty. Due to very helpful HN posters, we're looking at me getting a Blue Card [1] so we can move to Germany or Belgium; I'll take a substantial pay cut, but the work culture, employment regulations, and family support services will more than make up for it. I recognize that I'm not a temporarily embarrassed millionaire. [2]

America is a terrific place to be a business owner, but a terrible place to be an employee, have kids, or raise a family. You and your partner might consider looking for greener pastures.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_(European_Union)

[2] http://www.temporarilyembarrassedmillionaires.org/

Have children.

Careers are ephemeral; when you stop working, they cease to exist or matter. Your children, though, will almost certainly outlast you. And each or your children will be a precious human life that was only possible because you brought it into existence.

This. Not having children sooner is one of my deepest regrets.

My wife and I had our first when we were 30, and luckily, another through IVF, which is far more complicated, painful, emotionally draining and expensive than you'd expect based on how people casually talk. It's unlikely that we can ever have more, even though we could easily take care of them, and we both come from big, happy families.

I was afraid to get married and start a family. It seemed so daunting and I dreaded being a bad father/husband or letting a poor innocent kid down. My parents grew up struggling in Portugal and as poor immigrants to the US and I wanted no part of that. By the time I felt ready I had a few million dollars in investments, owned a large apartment in a nice city without a mortgage and was doing well in a very competitive job (HFT).

And it ended up not mattering a bit. My industry got decimated, just as I'd feared, and I never touched a single dollar of the money I had put away. My kids never starved. My wife still had her job. I work hard and am somewhat clever. I found another that paid more than enough, not finance money, but plenty.

Kids aren't that expensive. Once you have a family you aren't going to fancy restaurants or racking up big bar tabs every few weeks. Clothes can be cheap if you look around. Your kid doesn't need a 50k preschool. As long as you're employable in a middle or upper middle class job, you can take care of a kid. Money and career success aren't even the toughest parts. Being an old dad sucks. Everything is just physically and mentally harder than when I was in my 20s. In retrospect, I wish I were waking up at 3am to change diapers instead of getting in from the club at 26.

It's a cliche but I feel more joy and personal satisfaction watching my sons grow and learn new things than anything else in the world. I've been very fortunate, had a lot of successes and cool experiences, but nothing comes close.

Make sure you preach this. It's a message that people need to hear. Our children's generation is getting decimated before they are even born. I look at my Facebook and I'm saddened to realize that half of my friends probably won't have kids. They're great people and a world with their children in it would be a better world.

Yes, it's a very complicated situation though. I see a few causes among my peers:

-College alone, except for a select few schools and/or majors, is no longer a strong signal for getting jobs. My wife went to a good state school and studied Philosophy in undergrad, but had trouble finding good work. She ended up at a top law school, starting her career at a big law firm when she was 25. More post-grad education isn't necessarily bad, but it often leads to debt and delays independent adult life milestones.

-Less loyalty from company to employee and vice-versa compared to years ago. Hiring generally bright people and training them up to work for a decade plus is unheard of today at most companies. I was lucky to get my job out of undergrad and move up the ranks. Many of my peers had to hop jobs and cities.

-Geographic bifurcation of haves vs. have nots and tech eating the world. The best jobs are concentrated at fewer companies, mostly in very expensive cities like with high housing costs. Around the smaller city where I grew up, baby boomers in middle management could earn good salaries, but there were few good entry-level jobs. People move away from home for a career. Having kids means expensive childcare or one partner giving up a job/taking less lucrative work. In the "good old days", extended family would help with the kids and it was easier to get by on one salary.

-This will sound controversial, but availability/acceptance of hedonistic pursuits: world travel, casual sex, drinking/drugs/partying, video games, porn, etc. I'm sure the Tinder era makes this even easier. On a more banal level, when I was single, I rarely cooked a meal for myself or even did laundry. Eventually this felt empty but it was a siren song at the time. There's very little social/peer judgment telling you to "grow up." I could still live like this today if I wanted to. I'm not a Ned Flanders type: It was mostly fun, but I do think extended adolescence can extend a bit too long.

Anyway I don't really like to preach to people. Raising a family is hard work, and it's a full-time 100% always-on commitment, even more than that finance, tech or big law job. It might not be for everyone. I will say for the people who want to some day, but want just this one trip to Machu Picchu on their Instagram, one more notch on the headboard, one more Michelin three-star tasting menu, one more good bonus/promotion, etc. etc. to just take the leap.

I’m also not inclined to tell people how they should live their lives, but this is the one issue that seems important enough to me. The stakes are high (human lives are in the balance) and it seems like hedonism and self involvement are the main things I see preventing people from having kids. Basically I want to shake people and say, “Forget about your vacations and highly cultivated lifestyle. None of that matters in the end, so you might as well give it up to make some new people.”

Most people know this on a visceral level. If you only live for yourself, you'll never be satisfied: There's always someone with more. I definitely had some kind of seeking feeling but couldn't put my finger on what I was missing. Nobody really told me what to do.

The decline of organized religion might play a part? These communities provide a purpose beyond the self through volunteering/charity, steer their members to start families, and provide role models/mentors for younger men & women to model.

IMO, the rise of extreme ideologies is telling. Rudderless people are so desperate for a moral code and sense of belonging that even alt-right neo-Nazis look like an attractive option instead of a sad joke. I'm not sure what type of positive community fills this need today. I'm not a religious believer, nor are most of my peers. I volunteer at a food pantry, but the volunteers are kinda transient and it doesn't feel like a cohesive group.

Do you think your friends are better people than those who are having kids? Seems sort of implied by your comment.

And what kind of kids would your friends have, given that they’re not particularly drawn to or versed in family life and values?

Not trying to be combative I just would be very interested in seeing this unpacked.

I won't comment on better/worse since I have no idea what op meant and it also makes no sense to compare. Having children is a fundamental human right. It's a shame that people who are capable of doing so, and want to do so, defer this goal until it requires medical intervention or becomes impossible, just to have a good career or fit in with their peers.

I don't think being versed in family life matters. The older I get, the more I realize that the folks in charge are just as confused as I am half the time. Everyone learns as they go. Nobody is born knowing how to raise a kid and every kid is different. If you give them a safe & nurturing place, spend time with them, and try your best, you'll do just fine.

For whatever reason, I ended up with a lot of friends who are smart, conscientious people. They’d make great parents. Well above average. Mostly it seems like they’re not having kids because they more focused on other things (career, personal growth and achievement, etc). Having kids seems to have been relegated to an afterthought among the culturally ascendant class. And certainly having lots of kids is looked down on as something only weird religious people do.

Got any statistics on declining birth rate among millennials?

You can google “total fertility rate”, but all you really need to know is that it is below replacement and declining throughout the developed world.

True wisdom.

The amount that fertility decreases with age is vastly overstated in most popular media. Much of the data for the most commonly quoted statistics about it comes from before the medical field discovered antibiotics or hand-washing. In a study of modern women, the decrease in fertility from age 28 to age 37 was determined to be about 4%[1]. There is a sharp decrease in the late 30's, but before that the drop-off is quite small.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/how-lon...

We should be incentivizing men to take a much larger stake in raising children, so that neither gender has to sacrifice their career or their ability to raise their children. Marriage is clearly not a strong enough incentive.

that will happen when women start selecting men on other criteria other than height and income

We've banned this account.

That kind of fundamental cultural shift might require moving to a new planet. There is simply no way we will be able to achieve this, and ESPECIALLY not in the US.

Some countries do much better than others.

Thanks for posting. This is a serious issue that is difficult to discuss openly and your perspective (particularly the part about a poor woman from a bad neighborhood's changing expectations) is something I hadn't seen or thought of before, but absolutely makes sense.

> How this works is that a poor woman from a bad neighborhood in her teens is happy if the guy doesn't beat her, isn't a substance abuser and has a job at all. Then she gets an education and her expectations change. Of course, he won't be a substance abuse. Of course, he won't beat her. He also should have a professional job, dress well, and have certain other appealing traits. Her expectations go way, way up.

Wait, so in your (incredibly patronizing) scenario, the ideal outcome is this hypothetical woman ends up with a man who she just really hopes doesn't abuse her? All so she can take advantage of a fertility window that won't materially change for another decade?

I will always support more flexible access to education, but arguing this is somehow the best way for everyone is a really weird take on things.

> It's an overwhelmingly male forum. The issues involved in waiting to have kids that so many women find agonizing are being trivialized. I'm being attacked and dismissed. The basis for my knowledge is being attacked as irrelevant. Etc.

> Y'all have fun as men hashing out how women ought to view this issue.

Ah yes, a male-dominated system where women are told by men what they should be thinking. I feel like there's a word for for that.