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Comment by AnimalMuppet | Hacker News Reader

The society as a whole seems to be as300's idea - which, in practice, means the government. If parents give up 10% of their career in order to give their kids a better childhood, are we willing to pay to make it up to them? My money is on "no way".

If not that, the only other answer is the parents. Are you as parents willing to give your kids a better childhood at the price of throwing away 10% of your career, with no (monetary) compensation? I suspect, very few. (More will do so with only one parent giving up the years.)

"You can have it all" is a lie. You can't both have a wonderful career, a great marriage, and give your kids all they need from their parents. You can't. What we really need is for people to stop believing that "having it all" is possible, and therefore expecting that someone owes it to them. Instead, people need to prioritize and choose what they want out of the tradeoffs that reality imposes.

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> You can't both have a wonderful career, a great marriage, and give your kids all they need from their parents. What we really need is for people to stop believing that "having it all" is possible, and therefore expecting that someone owes it to them.

I think the brutal/ultra-competitive work culture is uniquely American - Europe seems to do OK with giving working parents generous amounts of time (and money!) to be with their kids; 4 weeks PTO per year is unthinkable in the US, but I'm sure its a multiplier for good parenting.

I do not know if it is possible to change the work-culture when money is king.

>I think the brutal/ultra-competitive work culture is uniquely American

American work culture is only moderately competitive. Many Asian work cultures are much more competitive than the US, where women taking a break to have children will basically end their career (and indeed this is how many women plan their careers), and paternity leave greater than 2-3 days have only started to show up in the past few years. Most of the drive towards more parent-friendly policies actually come from the government, as they try to stem the tide of low birthrates emptying out the countryside.

The upside for many asian countries also commonly have multi-generational households/having more than just a core-family living in one home, so grandparents/cousins/siblings can hold the fort.

Four weeks vacation, and 6 months (?) parental leave. Four years is a big reach, even for Europe.

But yes, Europe does much better at this than the US. Can the US culture change enough to give what Europe gives? Maybe, but I'm doubtful.

But until it does, my point remains - in the world we actually live in, you can't have it all. You have to choose between various less-than-what-you-want options.

One year parental leave in the countries I am familiar with.

Chile has 6 paid months of leave for the mother (it's a law, not subject to the employer).

Not to mention 35-40 hour work weeks.

> Are you as parents willing to give your kids a better childhood at the price of throwing away 10% of your career, with no (monetary) compensation? I suspect, very few.

Literally every single person that has children does this. That covers almost 90% of the population.

Every single person who has children takes 2-4 years off from work? (as300's original comment, five posts parent to this one.) No, I'm pretty sure that 90% of the population does not do that.

I just don't understand why 2-4 years off work is the ideal. Have you spent 2-4 years with a baby/toddler? The moments of delight are interspersed with poop and boredom and any human would want a break. I think the neo-American ideal of having a single adult human hover over a child non-stop for four years to give them the "best possible childhood" is really f(*&ed up. As a child certainly my parents were important but playing without them, with other kids, out in nature were all highlights! Children are not hothouse plants.

Ahh, fair. I didn't realise that's what he was talking about specifically. I thought he was referring to the (real) monetary losses that come from people shifting priorities away from career and towards family.

No, I'm not saying we compensate people for the opportunity cost for not having kids. I'm saying we compensate them according to the value to society of them having them and spending time raising them.

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