Hacker News Reader

Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

I found her attitude sort of annoying. She tells women to ask for accommodation rather than suggesting what companies can do to be supportive of pregnant employees and why they should be more supportive.

We currently kind of ask women to choose one or the other: Serious career or motherhood. And it dooms lots of women to poverty for having reproduced and it means a lot of women who do have careers and are successful never have kids. And I feel like that's just a really, really terrible societal policy. It seems to me that it means our next generation is strongly skewed towards coming from the bottom of society. And we wonder why we have problems that seem unresolvable.

View on HN

This is exactly why gender roles are so important. Even if a company had a generous 1 year maternal leave, then what? The kid still grows up without a mother for a significant part of the crucial years of growing up.

There is no way to balance the two, you either raise a kid right or you half ass it. You can't half ass a career if you intend to go anywhere and you sure as hell can't half ass raising a kid.

Are you suggesting that my mother did a half assed job raising me because she had a career?

You are at a disadvantage relating to and working with someone of the opposite gender compared to someone who had their mother around more often then not.

I don't see how that answers my question, nor do I see a citation.

Edit: I'd like to point out that my father also had a career. Does that put me at any disadvantage? Did he also do a half assed job raising me?

I didn't answer your question because I already answered your question in my original comment. Your response was your own cognitive dissonance.

As for the citations -- http://lmgtfy.com/?q=effects+of+growing+up+without+a+mother

I didn't grow up without a mother. I have an amazing mother who also happened to have a career. She raised me well enough to not turn out like you, and I can only hope to accomplish as much when raising my own children.

Holy cow. So if I understand you right, you're saying not only that a parent who keeps a steady job is effectively absent, but that for that reason it's important to assign people to one category or the other at birth?

If you're going to make me defend my point of view the least bit of courtesy you can do is read my comment properly.

Sorry, I'm struggling to come up with another reading of "This is exactly why gender roles are so important." I'd love for you to clarify.

If you believe in evolution, you believe that different genders have different traits that make them better suited for different aspects of life.

When you have a child, you make a choice that you will help raise it. You are responsible for another life and that IS your job. When you decide that you want to be responsible for another life but then make choices that directly contradict that like not being around for the majority of the day, you hurt the child's upbringing.

No matter what your reasons are, a child misses out on the growing experience that nature and evolution have designed. The reasons behind that decision may be unavoidable and I don't see the world in black and white but if you want to be a parent you should act like a parent to the best of your ability.

Okay, that's helpful. And do you think, or not, that means people should be classified as either workers or parents at birth?

No, people should have the right to choose. At the least being around sometimes is better than nothing.

Got it. So, if I understand what you're saying now, it should be fine if a mother wants to give birth and keep working while the father takes care of the child full-time?

In which case, I am sorry I overreacted. But WTH do gender roles have to say about this other than that some people who don't want to be parents don't have a choice?

I think there are countless people who manage to balance both with flexible or part-time roles, or assistance from childcare, extended family, etc. And for them and any others, maternity leave is a huge help when it's available.

If the mother is permanently at home while the father is 9-5, does the child struggle to relate to a respective gender as a result, even with your favouring gender roles?

I think there's little doubt that mothers are the primary caretakers of children in the early years.

Okay, for the record, as a former full time mom, I 100% agree that America in specific and the world in general need to do a better job of arranging life such that children are not so totally screwed over by the choices the world forces their parents to make. Having said that, I see no connection here to "gender roles" per se. That framing does suggest what others in this discussion have said: That you are saying that merely being born male or female should determine the answer here.

I am 49. I did the full time mom thing already. I have no desire to repeat the experience. I very much want a real career in my remaining years. I have two adult sons who have said they would help raise a child if I turned up unexpectedly pregnant out of wedlock and the father wasn't good enough in our eyes to keep around. I would also be okay with marrying a man who wanted to very much be a hands-on parent and not just some workaholic who paid the bills while not spending much time with the family. I am totally against spending the rest of my life only raising kids merely because I was born female. I did the right thing by my kids. I have a fantastic relationship to my sons. I deeply resent that life is currently arranged such that women get so screwed here. I very much wanted more out of life and did not get it. Men are generally not given the message that they can either reproduce or have a career. In fact, men are given the message that having a good paycheck is the thing that entitles them to get married and sire children. (Granted, the reality is that some fathers have very little relationship to their kids because they are at work all the time. See my point above about the world needs to do a better job here of helping parents do both. We need more options.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com