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Comment by phyzix5761 | Hacker News Reader

This belittles men, especially those who are single fathers and have similar career struggles as single mothers. Our perceptions create our reality and if we constantly think we've been given the short end of the stick then we'll look for evidence around us to prove this perception. There's a whole other side to motherhood that comes with fulfillment, meaning, and growth.

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> This belittles men

Does it, or is is a complaint about the patriarchy? I don't see any part of the OP comment that seems misandrist or reducing the role that engaged fathers play.

The assumption that being a father is easy denies the lived experience of fathers. How would she know whether being a father is easy or not? She's never been one.

She would know that in her society there are different sets of expectations about fathers than mothers, and that seems to be what she's aiming at? Are you sure you're not over-reading into what she actually wrote?

Then she would do well to look inwards and try to understand why that is. We all have to play the hand we are dealt. The sooner one realises this, the sooner one can begin the path to happiness.

"My soul, will you ever be good, simple, individual, bare, brighter than the body that covers you? Will you ever taste the disposition to love and affection? Will you ever be complete and free of need, missing nothing, desiring nothing live or lifeless for the enjoyment of pleasure? Or time for longer enjoyment, or amenity of place, space, and climate? Or good company? No, will you not rather be satisfied with your present state and take pleasure in all that is presently yours? Will you not convince yourself that all your experience comes from the gods, that all is well and all will be well for you, all that the gods see fit to give you, now and hereafter, in the maintenance of that perfect Being which is good and just and beautiful, which generates all things, sustains and contains all things, embraces all things as they dissolve into the generation of others like them? Will you ever be such as to share the society of gods and men without any criticism of them or condemnation by them?" -- Marcus Aurelius

We are not "dealt a hand". There are many possibilities, and the idea that you have to take the simplest, most obvious, one is largely false. There are other people in this thread talking about how they did things differently.

There are many ways to play a hand in poker, just as in life. Doesn't mean you don't have one.

I'd love for everyone to start out with the same hand. But this is not a gender issue. This is a human issue. The sooner we realise we're just duking it out in the gutter while the real winning hands are laughing in the street the better.

I wonder if you understand that your comment essentially amounts to "those disadvantaged by prejudice should simply accept their place"

It is within your power to influence others and change society. It's not within your power to change your essential biology.

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