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Comment by xiphias2 | Hacker News Reader

,,For Ryu, she said having children is not worth sacrificing her career.

"The reality is that one of the parents has to resign from work or take a long break, but the problem is, it's almost always the female or the mom who has to take a leave," she said

This was always like that, having a kid means very serious sacrifice in other parts of life (for example for women it's selecting a less attractive partner in exchange for higher stability, for men it's stopping changing partners and putting all resources into one family).

Maybe one thing that changed is the lie that we are all special and we can have it all (I thought the same in my 20s).

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Contemporary expections for personal careers and the mode of modern work is fundamentally hostile to people/families having children. Legally mandating parental leaves aren't going to stop private sector businesses from subtly discriminating against new parents, and parents' work-life balance is tilted towards children for at least the first decade after childbirth.

Subtle discrimination is still discrimination and can be litigated against.

Furthermore, extending child leave to both parents has done a lot to help fight stigma in Scandinavian countries.

As has well funded, affordable child care for workers. Salaries in Montreal are garbage, but I'd consider working there because child care is heavily subsidized and very good. The break even tilts towards the rest of Canada at my pay-grade, but only just.

Hanging put with her coworkers as she ages out of the dating pool will surely be fulfilling.

> This was always like that, having a kid means very serious sacrifice in other parts of life (for example for women it's selecting a less attractive partner in exchange for higher stability

What in the hell did I just read? Women selecting a financially stable, less attractive partner is a "sacrifice" these days?

Same thing for men, sticking to providing just for your family is "sacrifice"?

Jesus, did the neo-cultural values really did get shoved so far down people's throats that having a normal family is considered a sacrifice/abnormal?

Modern contraception made having children a choice from the 70s and now it's the default in the world.

Many people are just waking up to the disadvantages. I know many women who stopped it, but didn't realize how much the decision of using contraceptives from age 15 changes how they think about life and how much mental and physical side effects it has. For them it was just ,,normal'', because they never had an adult life without contraceptives.

But to get to the point: yes, the decision to have children definately sacrifices other things one can do in their lives, I see it on my sister how hard her life became with the 3 beautiful children she has with her husband.

Well, as a happy father of four, I can say that it is a sacrifice. Not in the way the OP suggested, but in that kids require— no question— a lot of sacrifice. Is it worth it? Hell yes. But it’s a sacrifice.

Both you and the other reply misread what the OP was stating completely. It was more specific than just "having children".

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