Hacker News Reader

Comment by dehrmann | Hacker News Reader

> wish we could live in a society where people would not have to work themselves to death and were able to... you know... enjoy life

While I do agree, this is where I draw a distinction between "job" and "career." A job is something you do to make money. A career is an end in itself. Balancing a career and parenthood is incredibly hard because they're both large time commitments. Despite what the 90's told women (though this applies equally to men), you can't have it all, and you have to decide what's important to you.

View on HN

I think the initial intent of feminism was that "have it all" meant "here is a buffet of life paths and each individual is free to pick which ones they want in order to live a meaningful life."

But somehow that's turned into, "we put all of the life paths on your plate and if you don't eat them all, you're a failure". We went from "you can" to "you must".

Maybe there's something fundamental in the nature of esteem and prestige that leads to this. We don't see to be good at building cultures that understand there can be many entirely disparate ways to live that are equally successful.

offtopic: Hey munificent! Great fan of your books. Keep up the great work!

waves and gets back to work

It's true. Telling people they can have everything does them such a disservice, because it strips them of the knowledge that these decisions exist. We all have to pick and choose where we apply our energies based on what we value most, pretending that isn't the case just means those decisions are made for them.

If I may add to your distinction between "job" and "career" -- a career can be thought of what a person ultimately decides their economic contribution to society over the course of their life is going to be. While full-time parenting is usually not counted as a career, raising the next generation certainly seems like a very critical economic contribution (among others). To this end, there are movements to recognize this contribution by paying the stay-at-home parent (usually the mother) some form of "salary" to not only fully legitimize the role of parenthood in a society that values contributions by money earned, but also to make them more independent and therefore confident by not making them fully financially dependent upon the earning spouse.

There are societies where a woman can have both, a career and a family. And that usually comes with maternity leave, parental leave, child benefits, child care, etc.

I hope I don't misunderstand you but what you said sounded to me like it's either or, and I don't think that has to be true.

> A job is something you do to make money. A career is an end in itself.

By that definition most of us don't have careers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com