Asymmetrical Information

Hmmm, I remember my first job working as a supermarket checkout operator. I was working after school, and found it totally boring, but after some time I decided that a surprising number of the non-student staff enjoyed it - a chance to get out of the house, chat with some other adults, etc.

And the 1950s/60s situation where women of high-earning spouses stayed at home and didn't work wasn't very stable, which revealed preferences indicates it didn't suit a fair chunk of people's desires. Even though socialisation back then for little girls was probably more intensely in favour of mothering and staying-at-home than anything that could be managed now.

I agree with most of your post about the benefits of a single stay-at-home parent. But a few questions struck me:

First of all, how much of a long-term career sacrifice do stay at home parents really need to make in order to raise their children. Assuming they only have one or two children close together, sure, they may desire to stay at home for the first 3-4 years when the children are learning to speak, learning key concepts, and forming the foundations of intelligence, but after that, and especially once the children are in kindergarten, there are probably steep diminishing returns to being a stay-at-home parent. At that point, passing your child off to childcare is not so costly, and the parent can return to his or her career as seriously as before. It may take a year or two to recover the lost institutional knowledge and earning potential, but that does not seem such a high hurdle (although I would be curious about studies of this). If the stay at home parent had a part-time position with the same company, he or she could at least ease the transition back into a full capacity role.

If we think the above is true then A) it could be unreasonable to assume that working women can significantly bid up the cost of local services and homes beyond the ability of the temporary stay-at-home mom to pay. And B) if they really aren't making such a major career sacrifice, then we don't really need socialization to help them resign themselves to a stay-at-home life with a diminished career.

The only reason, in my opinion, why women will continue to be the stay-at-home parent more than half the time is because of the biological factor that you mentioned. Maternal instinct, and the fact that biology forces them to leave their jobs temporarily, suggests that it makes more economic sense for women to remain at home if either parent is to do so. But that is only on average, and is easily overcome if the woman is the high-earner, which wlll eventually approximate 50% of the time.

I was curious about your last sentence here:

"If you believe that intelligence, and the other personal traits are highly heritable, then you can stick the kids in day care 14 hours a day. If you think environment matters, then probably you don't want your kids raised by the low-skilled workers who gravitate towards childcare. Yet people who are ideologically committed to the latter are more likely to use daycare, while those who believe the former are less likely to do so."

Are you implying that people go against their own beliefs (environmentalist more likely to use daycare, even though they favor nurturing their children), or did you mean to say the opposite?

Giving up a fully active career involves a higher price if that career is/was a successful one. But the "income effect" from your successful career should still put you on a higher indifference curve, unless of course you become obsessed with regret. If you can fight regret, the child/career choice will take care of itself.
- Trudie

taking a break from work for a few years generally seems not to work out how it arguably could in theory. this may be self-selection -- people who are very motivated/workaholics are often unlikely to stay home (or depressed when they do). but it seems hard to go back to full time, all out work once you've lived a more laid back life. this may in part be a function of age, but i think it's more the summer vacation effect: even if you got bored at the end of summer vacation, you still weren't necessarily thrilled the morning you had to go back to school again.

assuming people can resume work without missing much after a few years break also ignores the effect on relationships, the lack of continuity. people who were junior to you will be senior, mentors will be gone, clients will have changed personnel and you won't know the new folk, your job may have changed based on legal or tech changes or whatever, etc.

life doesn't stand still while people stay home for a few years, it's very hard to catch up, and it's likely also hard to motivate to do so.

I also think that there is a pretty strong biological factor at work for quite a few women. My disclaimer - I love staying home, don't find it tedious (well, now and then...), enjoyed my previous job in consulting, and am happy with my choice.

I have found that I, and many other women, have a very real biological need to be with their babies when they're small. Breastfeeding is part of it - it's a lot easier to just feed the baby than it is to pump and bottle feed, but I also just can't imagine being away from her for longer than a few hours at a time. That changes, as the baby gets older and grows toward independence (and of course, many women don't have this problem at all), but leaving for 8 hours a day is a major problem for the first many months or so. The thought of it makes me cringe. That is probably a good part of the reason I'm happy staying home, but it is something to think about - perhaps it's less socialization of girls to be caretakers and more of a very real biological/evolutionary need for being with your own baby.

i'm sure i'll be called a fascist for this, but the biological desire to stay with baby seems more than plausible to me -- a million years of evolution likely wouldn't leave to chance whether most women would prefer to stick close to their child, particularly if dad is off hunter/gathering, potentially to be eaten by a lion or stomped by a mastodon.

Jane Galt asks "What about me, dammit?". Many people have asked that question over history, I'm sure. There's no perfect social arrangement that is going to use everyone's talents to the max, not on the macro or societal scale, nor on the micro (family) scale. It may not even out over time, either, although often it does. In other words, the world is not a perfect place and isn't going to become one any time soon. Sorry to break the bad news...

Outsourcing child care seems to come with some long term price tags, in my observation. They range from minor behavior problems that can be remedied in a few months if both parents are attentive to detail, to larger issues like teenagers in rehab...

If married couples (*) view themselves as part of a team, rather than roommates/friends with benefits, it's easier to make short term sacrifices for longer term gains, even if he gains are not readily tangible, such as a child that learns to play the piano well.

(*) I'm of the informed opinion that children do best with two parents who are married to each other, rather than mommy & her boyfriend of the month, or other living arrangements that are touted as modern, but that can readily be found in the fiction of Dickens & others. So flame away...

Hopefully, Linda Hirshman will not get wind of this posting and comments....

This childless woman is not suprized that moms want to stay home with their infants. I simply can't imagine that the attention and care given by a paid caregiver could ever equal the time, attention and care a mom wants to give her new infant.

I'm tired of old school feminists and others blaming this on some sort of nefarious conservative plot. Very tired!

One of the immutable facts of life is that "You can't Have It All". You must compromise your time and your values. Not all time spent with another, with children, on yourself is equal. In your choice of compromise positions you will become who you really are. Not the fluff and facts, not the accomplishments and rewards, the compromises that show what you truly value most will distill into who you are.

It would be nice if you liked that person.

You know, something about this thoughtframe, and, more especially, its doppelganger, promulgated by Linda Hirshman, strikes me as a fatuous canard.

I mean no disrespect to those who are honestly engaging by thoughtfully answering, though, I suggest the wrong question(s) are being asked.

Why are we being led to believe that it is "natural" to have both parents, of a(n), already truncated, nuclear family, outside the home, away from their children?

Why are we led to assume that the only place that one can utilize their "education", is in the workplace?

Why are we acceding to the conceit: level of Financial remuneration=signifigance of self-worth?

Maybe this will be a useful reflection point: Why did the antebellum Plantation Masters forbid their Slaves from learning to read?

Are not Women of the gender that has the comparative advantage in Social networking?

When, before, in our History of human evolution have we had a cohort, such as our contemporary females, as well educated?

To paraphrase a well, and aptly, mocked GM ad: These aren't your Grandfather's rides.

With that in mind, maybe we would do well by not driving them out of the home, into the "workforce".

May be that many causes could be advanced by allowing these appreciable assets to leverage their learning. Lightened by Liberty to link anew, able, thereby, to break the chains of old.

Educated and Free, maybe that's what we're not supposed to see?

> Why are we led to assume that the only place that one can utilize their "education", is in the workplace?

Because "workplace" means "place where one exchanges the sweat of one's brow for the sweat of another's brow".

In some cases, that "place" is child-friendly, but not always.

"A very smart expert working 80 hours a week will be more productive than two equally smart people working forty hours a week."

For many people, myself included, working 80 hours a week is a recipe for a breakdown. It's certainly a recipe for obsession, and poor non-work relationships. 80 hour weeks often give poor decision making, poor delegation and controlling behaviour.

The demand, direct or competitive, for excessive work hours, is a significant contributor to sensible people's success in many high-level roles.

Oops, make that "sensible people's lack of success in many high-level roles'"

if the woman is the high-earner, which wlll eventually approximate 50% of the time.

I wonder about that. It seems like women are more likely to pick lower-paying careers on average. I'm not sure why, precisely.

Reality left a voice mail: you can't do everything. Kids say they want to be an astronaut, a fireman, a basketball player, a cowboy, and a doctor. Universities do the same thing with regard to teaching and research.

Adults recognize that you've got to make up your mind which endeavor has first call on your time and energy, and accept that other things will take second place - inevitably, and inescapably.

Men focus on careers because it's about all they've got in the way of self-actualizing behaviors. (Being a dad is great, but it's just not the same as being a mom.) Women have a purpose in life more or less handed to them, and for that in many respects I envy them.

No one on his (or her) deathbed ever wishes he (or she) had worked more, made more money, or gotten another promotion. Lots of people at that point - or earlier - wish they'd had kids. Some things are important in life; climbing the corporate ladder isn't one of them.

Jane Galt:

"A very smart expert working 80 hours a week will be more productive than two equally smart people working forty hours a week."

I would bet on the two experts myself assuming they are capable of a reasonable degree of cooperation.

A very smart expert working 80 hours a week will be more productive than two equally smart people working forty hours a week.

Sounds like you think marginal productivity is increasing, at least up to 80 hours? Surely at some point, declining marginal productivity sets in (somewhere towards 168 hours of work, one literally wouldn't be getting enough sleep to survive, which would stop productivity altogether rather quickly.)

But then a little voice whispers . . . I'm one of those happy professional women. What about me, dammit?!

I empathize. I was there. And now I'm home.

You know, you really don't need to worry about it much, until you're looking at marriage and a family in the near future. There can be a time to enjoy a professional life, and a time to enjoy something different.

The only advice I would pass along: When putting together a household, make financial and lifestyle decisions that allow you the choice to live on one paycheck, even if you expect to be drawing two --- because many of us change our minds once we have a babe in arms. I feel lucky to be able to stay home. I can imagine no greater poverty than wanting to be home with your children but, instead, working because you have to, or feel you have to.

The answer to "what about me, dammit" is you get screwed, if your list was actually accurate. And, it's worse than that, because if everyone believes the list, women who want to raise children will not only be left out of "professional positions", but it will also not make sense to prepare girls (who are likely to become women who raise children) for professional positions. Thus, preparing for the life of the mind that we cherish, won't make logical sense for women, except as an avocational luxury (fun, like fashion), but certainly not something in which society should invest.

Fortunately, I see potential flaws in your list, and that leaves me some room for hope for me and from my brilliant daughter. The most obvious one is that though there are clearly decreases of efficiency to dividing the job of "mom", more accurately the manager of the children & the home, there are also gains. The gains come from two parents who are intimately involved and knowledgeable about their children.

I agree with your list when it points out the real value of full-time laor in knowledge based jobs that cannot be divided, and the costs of part-time labor. Too many advocates of family friendly policies argue for those benefits as though they had no cost. They do have costs, but they may potentially have benefits as well. For example, dividing many jobs so that only 4 hours/day of work may impossible. But, it might be possible to divide the job so that two different people do it in two different semesters. There will be costs to that division, but there might also be benefits -- allowing a smaller university access to two different areas of expertise.

And, irrevocabilitiy of choices that produce greater happiness, in Daniel Gilbert's sense, are impossible in a non-coercive society.

bj

I simply do not understand why people insist that children are doomed if they dont have two parents, or a stay at home parent. It all depends on how you handle it and having decent childcare. My mom went back to work full time 50 hours a week at a hospital within 2 months of my birth, and after divorcing my father when I was a toddler, was my sole parent. I spent all day in pre-school/daycare and I turned out just fine. Better than fine, I would say, excelling academically, getting a college degree, getting a well-paying job, and leading a full and happy social life. All I remember is that my mom spent time with me in the evenings and was there when I needed her. And she still managed to rise to the head of her department. Meanwhile I have met many many people my age who had stay at home moms for at least a few years who have all kinds of problems.

My feeling? Day care (as long as it reaches a certain level of quality) is not a death sentance as long as your kids know you love them, you are involved in their lives, and you can spend some evening/weekend time together. Having a 2nd parent helps a lot too, so that quality time can be shared with less stress, but its possible to do it without. Stability in location/people is probably also important, and again, has nothing to do with whether or not mom is home. Upper-middle class women really can have it all if they just relax and stop letting everyone else make them feel so guilty.

I worry way more about the young people I interact with in my job who are working-class/poor who never ever see their parents, move every other month, and have parents/guardians waltzing in and out of their lives. A hell of a lot more energy should be spent on this problem rather than worrying whether or not a bunch of privileged kids are gonna be ok if mommy isnt there when they get home.

Jennifer,
Because you turned out "fine" does not necessarily mean that 90 or 80 or 70% of the rest of them do. And I hope you don't mind if I won't place my child's future on your belief that because you turned out fine then its ok across the board.

There are a few possibilities here...1. you did not turn out fine. 2. you turned out fine and your theory is right 3. you turned out fine because a variety of uncontrolable circumstances (luck) 3. you turned out fine but 3 of your childcare classmates didn't.

Whatever the case, I find it amazing that a parent could actually answer the question, "do you matter?" with "no". Because if you say you matter as a parent then surely the more you're there the better.

Please don't take offense with this message by the way...you brought your personal situation into it so I'm trying to comment on it, but I'm not attacking here.

My next point would be clearly your family did not turn out fine. For whatever reason your parents got divorced. That's not "turning out fine" for your family. I imagine if when your parents were married and decided to have children, they didn't imagine it would end with divorce. And if you would have gone back in time and asked them if it was "fine" that they'd be seperated and leave your mom just to raise the kids, they'd both probably agree that's not "fine".

As a SAHM who is older -- and can afford to stay home --

who wants to be in that rat race? I am glad I'm out of it and my ego can take the dismissive attitudes because I know most could have not worked for the men I worked for. I proved myself to me, very few regrets in my professional life.

I was raised by my grandmother because my mom had to work. I agree w/Jennifer, the kids need stability and security.

There's good and bad about both. IF you're going to work, do it while they're young, you NEED to be home during high school, which is what my friends with high schoolers tell me. (The horror stories......)

As to what about me.....It's not my time about me anymore (overall), I've had my time.

Linda Hirshman - that 60s boomer lib? I've heard her a couple of times, it's all about her.

But that's the point, it's not about her.

I didn't like school, I don't have a 4-year degree, not everyone will rise to the top.

Very insightful article.

"Of course, you could outsource your childcare. But ... if you believe that intelligence, and the other personal traits are highly heritable, then you can stick the kids in day care 14 hours a day."

But you love these little people, and no paid professional tends to a skinned knee like mommy. Let us allow humanity to be at least as powerful an incentive as measurable outcomes.

What about Jane? Nature and modern industrial culture present you with difficult choices not shared by men for the most part. All you can do is follow your heart.

Ken

Atypical, no offense at all :)

Yes, my parents got divorced so by some people's standards, my family was not "fine". However, it was fine with me, I believe the divorce was for the best, and really, my point was less about the divorce, and more about my family's childcare situation. I dont think its fair to say that I or things in general are not ok just because there was a divorce, though I would agree that it put more stress on my mom, and life for her at least might have been better if she did have a spouse, even if she still worked full time.

I would also highly disagree that working is the equivalent of saying "you dont matter" to a child. There are infinite numbers of ways to tell a child they matter besides devoting your entire life to them (btw, I am NOT in any way impugning your choice, if you are happy then fantastic! My beef is with people who say its not possible to be a good parent and work) I knew I mattered to my mom, because she loved me and was a good parent. Did she need to be at home for me to know that? No. I am also of the opinion that its not the worst thing in the world for children to be away from parents for a while. Mommy will not always be there to fix the skinned knee, at some point you have to learn to get past life's little bumps.
Like I said, it seems the most important thing is stability and love which one can still give while working full time.

Out of curiosity, has it really been all that common in our past to have birth mothers raising their children full time? Didnt most lower-class women always have work of some sort, either on the farm or in a factory, and most upper-class women have a nanny/governess? Or have I just read A Doll's House too many times? :)

Children, obviously, should be cloned in jars and raised in state creches whilst they play games of Find The Zipper all day. It may also be useful to sort these children into groups, perhaps the groups should be called something like Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon.

Jane: "If you believe that intelligence, and the other personal traits are highly heritable, then you can stick the kids in day care 14 hours a day."

Well, one major reason not to do that is that you decide to have your own children so you can raise them yourself. If you're going to put them in daycare all the time, it's almost like giving them up for adoption. One thing your kids want most is your time and attention, at least until they're teenagers. And most of us parents enjoy having time with our kids. It's worth it to make some career sacrifices to have time with your family. In the end time with family & friends is what makes most people happy if you look at the studies (and listen to your elders).

Theories about splitting everything equally sound nice until you put them into practice. We tried jobsharing (each 3/4 time physicians) with the kids only in daycare 2 days a week. Both of us found it a little too stressful & changed after 5 years. Husband now 3/4 time, wife a little less and now moving to no call/wknd/holiday work.

I have professional friends who've balanced it many ways - husband full time/wife home, wife full time/husband home, variations of jobsharing, etc.. Most who were stay at home moved on to working again when the kids got to grade school.

It works for either to stay home, but still the majority of the couples I know the wife decides to be home more. Still it works both ways and I know a few happy stay at home dads. On the whole it will never be split 50/50 male/female, but in a free society we should be free to choose and not forced/socialized/whatever into 50/50. I think the women will choose to put the career on hold more often than the men. Thankfully we have the choice to go either way.

What do women want????

Waaaaay back when, while the men were out hunting wildebeaste(s), the women were back in the hut, pregnant, weaving and cooking (because you can do that part of the work while pregnant - which they were a LOT of the time). Women worked at home, AND they took care of the children till they were old enough to be productive (probably about 8 years old).

Move forward a bit, and society has started to specialize, so that the female doesn't have to do as much basic housework (weaving, gathering sticks for firewood), but she is still pregnant fairly often, because the men can't control their natural urges, the women can't stave them off, and there is no birth control. So she STILL has to stay home because there is not much "office work" that can be done by pregnant women.

Move forward to present day, and the guys still have their primal urges, but women can now control quite well their fertility, so they are no longer barefoot and pregnant (except in certain societies), and bored. They have the best of both worlds, in the sense that they can CHOOSE to have/not have kids, they can CHOOSE to stay at home with them or get a job and outsource it, or try to be superwomen and do it all. Guys just have the urge to breed and hunt wildebeaste(s).

Men are really the ones who have a gripe here...

Jennifer,

A single anecdote does not negate the trend that two parents are needed for healthy socialization of children. Both sexes need it equally. I turned out reasonably fine and I grew up with an almost out of control, very often verbally (and nearly physically) abusive alcoholic. Would it make sense for me to say, "I don't see what the big deal is? Why can't everyone function with a raving alcoholic parent when they're growing up?"

I think it's a given that we accept that in general, boys and girls need a good mother, but studies have also shown that having a strong, good father in their lives is also equally important. In fact, the worst crime-ridden areas have the greatest problem with men being involved with their children and the mothers of their children.

Jane Galt says: "Assuming there isn't any biological predisposition towards childrearing whatsoever..."

But - biologically speaking - this assumption is simply untrue. 'Maternal instinct' is massively supported by all kinds of multi-level and interlocking evidence: see Mother Nature (1999) by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy for a comprehensive discussion and survey.

One minor point. My wife is a securities lawyer who will not go back until all the kids are in school. But we had a hard time deciding until we actually had the baby. When she saw the way most of the nannies treat their charges, she was done.

Because she was a corp lawyer, she had 3 months off and could really see the nanny scene. If she was a reporter and had 4-6 weeks, she wouldn't have been exposed to as much and might have decided to go back. Also, the savings cushion from being a lawyer is probably a bit more than from most creative writing jobs, so that also influences the decision.

Jane, what about you?

Here's an idea: by now you must have some little nieces, nephews or cousins. Spend a day with them, maybe even babysit them. Not just an hour, a whole day. That should cure you of it.

"Doomed" is a strong term that I don't see anyone seriously using with regard to single parent families, any more than it's used with regard to people who smoke cigarettes. But just as smoking shifts the probability of certain cancers and some forms of circulatory disease by a sigma or more, having only one parent shifts the probability of certain bad things as well, not always a full sigma. Study after study, as well as experience and the anecdote, teach us that it is more difficult for a single woman or single man to raise one or more children. Some of that is just sheer 'workload', and some of it is the role model issue.

A century ago, when it was common for children to lose one or both parents to disease, accident, etc. it was also common wisdom that a widow with children needed help to raise them, preferably from blood relatives starting with her sister(s) and brother(s). It was part of "taking care of one's own", and in some subcultures allowing any child, no matter how distantly related, to be taken to the poorhouse or orphan farm was unthinkable.

Attitudes in any hierarchy, including societies, flow from the top down. This unpleasant truth pretty much keeps showing up. Therefore it matters what corp. lawyers and media figures do, at least to some extent. Yes, yes, I know, no teenaged girls are going to run over to Africa to buy a baby because Madonna did...but the normalization of a number of things that were once regarded as deviant in some way has clearly been affected by the fact that "everyone does it", where "everyone" is those people in the public eye.

We all do what we gotta do, and that often means someone's career takes a hit, for some years, one way or another.

"A single anecdote does not negate the trend that two parents are needed for healthy socialization of children. Both sexes need it equally." [MikeT]

Neither does opinions based on what? gut instinct? The data on "best practices" in child-raising is very mixed, and it's ridiculous to suggest that any particular solution, in the abstract harms the child. Smoking is always bad for you (in spite of side benefits like reduced weight). Outsourcing primary childcare away from the mother depends on how you do it and the overall impact on the family. I have no doubt that the people who have cared for my very young children are actually better at dealing with a skinned knee than I am. It's true, in their childcare/school, the impact of their cries are probably not nearly as visceral as they are on me (or their grandmother, or their nanny), but that's an important thing for them to learn, too, as long as their needs are met.

There are some folks who are really troubled by the care their child is receiving, and need to work anyway. But, most of us include the care we are able to find in our optimization equation.

bj

Hear, hear, Ralph! I have often wondered whether this notion we have - that women (or more specifically mothers) didn't work, or didn't work outside the home, until our modern era - is correct.

Whether you were out gathering berries or tending your crops or watching your sheep, wouldn't you have to leave your kids relatively unsupervised a lot of the time?

And what about the industrial era - all those women working factories, surely many of them were mothers?

Jane, if you are ambivalent about the career-vs-motherhood crossroads you will probably find yourself at one day, maybe the best thing you can do is try now to steer your career in a direction that will eventually give you flexibility re hours and location. I would think as a journalist, and such a compelling writer in general, that you would have about a million good options.

Jane, did you really mean to write
4) Happiness and meaning: society should aim to maximise these for its members.

How does "society" go about maximizing my happiness, please? Be specific...

I considered law for a little bit until I realized that it would really remove options for motherhood. I might not have ended up in law school anyway, but it occurred to me that if I went to law school I would want to be able to do the high-powered interesting stuff, which would include at least a long period (if not indefinite) of 60-80 hour workweeks, without break. There is no way to raise children in that environment unless you don't care about getting to know them.

Fathers can, of course, get away with this. Although I don't think its a good idea, at least once the children are old enough to remember. Science suggests that things before that age matter at least as much though. I do think that feeling like both your parents care and are around is important - you never know what kind of scars you might leave on your children if they feel abandoned by one parent.

So, women's if not everyone's choices are limited by having children. But how could it be any other way?

"What about me, dammit?!", you ask. May I just point out that that Borat fellow is very tall?

The consensus on working parent/stay at home parent is so varied because it is very hard to measure a "sucessful person."

Most of us think that "turning out fine" is getting an education, getting a good job, making a good amount of money. But even those people who do all these steps may not be fine.

It's hard to measure what constitute a person turning out better than another person. If a SAHM and a working mom both had kids who did all these steps, which made the better choice?

You never know what is the better choice. It is not measurable, since we all have different ideas on what "better" is. All these studies tell you not a damned thing.

It's a personal choice - everyone is different, every family is different. All we can do is gather personal stories on how it worked or didn't work for other people. And even people who have MADE that decision, they still wonder...

I am a working mom, but I struggle with work/stay home question all the time. So do my other SAHM friends. No matter what decision you make, you always have doubts, but you do the best you can with what you've got.

Making decisions and having doubts are a part of life. Just because we have doubts don't mean we made the wrong decision. And just because someone doesn't have doubts doesn't mean that person made the right decision.

Not all women want children, for example, me. I have a career in academia, and it's demanding, and this year I got my final promotion to full professor. I can't imagine working as hard as I did to get where I am PLUS having a child/children, but that's me. Other people do it, especially if hubby is a professor and there's time flexibility by both to arrange teaching schedules and office hours to maximize parent care of kids and reduce institutional care of kids.

According to the PRF, I have very strong independence and freedom needs as part of my personality structure, especially when compared with female norms. I don't feel bad or guilty about not wanting to have children; as a girl, I never wrote a boy's last name next to my first name, played wedding day, had a baby doll. Zero instincts in this area. My Barbie was always off having exciting adventures in the world and Ken was a recreational accessory and not a husband. My sister was very motherly and domestic from the beginning, and I wasn't. My family has never pressured me to get married or have kids when it's clearly NOT what I want.

My mother (in her comments about others) thought people who didn't have kids (but could) were selfish, but then again, the Pill didn't come on to the market until she was well into adulthood and childbearing. Her mother probably thought she was selfish for having "only" 3 kids instead of 8! Times change with technology. Also, in their time, it was very difficult for women to be self supporting in the world, and now it's common. I love owning my own life.

Yet, my mother told me that when I grew up, I could do exactly what I want to do.

I'm grown up now, and do you know what I do?

Exactly what I want.

Jane, if you want kids, fine. If you're not sure about that until "if and when" you find a life mate with whom you can imagine yourself having a child/children, fine, leave it an open question. If you don't want children, that's fine too. (Some people will judge you and consider you suspicious, but if you know yourself well and know you don't want kids, that's OK. Their problem.)

Sometimes it's hard to face hypothetical choices, but you'll probably know your mind when they become real choices in your life.

I know for me, I love particular children that I love, but I like to give them back. I like being a generous auntie to my nieces and nephews and friends' kids. My work involves helping people, many of whom have families, become more educated, skilled, employable, and self-sufficient in life. There are ways in my life that I love kids without having to pop them out myself, and to exercise what little small shred of maternal spirit that I have via caritas.

Don't fret.

You never know what is the better choice. It is not measurable, since we all have different ideas on what "better" is.

Its also hard to know how someone would have turned out if things had been different -- or impossible to know, really.

One thing I know is that the proportion of friends of mine that have serious emotonal problems, drug abuse problems, mental health problems, relationship problems and other disturbances is statistically different from the median, and correlates strongly with the divorce rate (and liberal political view) of this group.

The parents of my friends from childhood all beleived that working and independence were most important, but had children anyway. They soon got divorced and both continued to work while one or both also attempted to raise the child, often acting more like a friend than a parent. This kind of childrearing is not healthy, if my small sample size is meaningful at all. The most stable of the group also happen to have two happily married parents - but the sample size for that branch is tiny.

I think you have to put family first if you're going to do it. Wait until you know you're ready, you won't put work first, you won't change your mind or end up n divorce, you are really really sure. Then do it. If not, you don't need to feel guilty - just enjoy your independence.

One thing that may be behind the trend of more and more women becoming housewives is the steady increase in the minimum age at which children can be left unsupervised. An anecdote:
While driving to the train station in the morning I go down this about half-mile strech of road past four groups of kids waiting for the school bus. It's a decent, safe suburban area. Each group consists of maybe five to ten students. Now, there always is a parent or two, usually a mother, waiting in her car by each group of kids, making sure that they get on the bus safely.
The thing is, these are high school students, for Christ's sakes. They're way past the age at which they need to have Mommy get them safely onto the bus. Back in my day (I know this makes me sound old), any kid who was so overprotected would get a well-deserved beating in school.

economicliberty: Based on my own anecdotal life experience, I agree with you completely. I don't believe the "divorce doesn't necessarily damage kids" position for even one second. The question is how much it damages them -- not whether it does.

Peter: That's an interesting observation. The other day I drove by a bus stop where a cute little 8- or 9-year old was standing there by herself waiting for the bus and my reaction was that it was sad that the parents had to expose the girl to risk like that.

Ok, some people don't know much about children. That's ok, it's common now.

In the "good old days", say, 10,000 years ago:
* Babies go everywhere their mother goes, unless it's too dangerous for them. Then they stay with someone else, preferably a blood-related woman.

* Toddlers follow mother wherever she goes. They're going to anyway...

* Children begin to follow their same gender parent around sometime between the age of 5 and 7. Girls stay with the women, boys go with the men.

* Puberty makes the child into a junior adult, and typically is recognized by a ceremony of some sort.

Please note that "functional" within a hunter gatherer or subsistance agricultural society isn't the same thing as "functional" in a knowledge-based industrial society. Also note that the existence of people multiple sigmas from the median doesn't say much about the median. The fact that Thomas Sowell is a significant thinker doesn't mean that anyone who grows up in the Philly projects is also likely to be the same.

Most of us are close to the average/median, for some reason or other, and need whatever help we can get growing up.

"What about me, dammit?!", you ask. May I just point out that that Borat fellow is very tall?

My nomination for the best posting in this thread, hands down.

For most people, the most rewarding jobs have the highest degree of autonomy and cognitive content.

I don't think this is true at all. I know plenty of people who work high-cognitive content jobs in IT, law, and finance who are only doing it until they can get out.

On the other hand, some of the happiest people I know are cabinet makers, cooks, and nurses. They all have something in common though:

I would say that your happiness in your job directly relates to your ability to see your efforts realized. High-cognitive content jobs aren't so satisifying when you're just another cog in a huge IT machine, but it is plenty satisfying to be the only systems administrator in a startup.

When we're kids, we like to say "look what I made!" - and we don't change much as adults.

I think this is what draws women to childrearing. There is a huge feeling of self-actualization in creating something, and childrearing makes it easier, since nature does half the work.

If you already have a job that gives you that self-actualization, high cognitive content or not, you may not feel as great a desire to have children.

Me? My job gives me great self-actualization, but I still don't have anything against having children.

I just don't want to find out about them.

It is true that the age children are considered Ok to be left alone keeps increasing. I walked to school with my friend from the 1st grade on, rode my bicycle all over the place from age 10 or so on, and in the summer I was gone from the house most of the day. Then again, the probability of my being kidnapped by a child-rapist was zero. Not minimal, zero.

The risk/return ratio on letting, say, an 8 year old girl roam around on her own, even in 'nice" suburbs, isn't what it was 30 years go. Sure, the probability of kidnap/rape/murder is small, but it is nonzero, and more to the point it is perceived to be nonzero.

At the other end, "childhood" seems to last a lot longer than it used to, and "adolescence" even longer still.

It is true that the age children are considered Ok to be left alone keeps increasing. I walked to school with my friend from the 1st grade on, rode my bicycle all over the place from age 10 or so on, and in the summer I was gone from the house most of the day. Then again, the probability of my being kidnapped by a child-rapist was zero. Not minimal, zero.
The risk/return ratio on letting, say, an 8 year old girl roam around on her own, even in 'nice" suburbs, isn't what it was 30 years go. Sure, the probability of kidnap/rape/murder is small, but it is nonzero, and more to the point it is perceived to be nonzero.

"Perceived" indeed is the key word. I'm not sure if, statistically speaking, the risks of kidnap/rape/murder actually are significantly higher today than a generation ago. But people think they are, and that's what counts. It's a pity, too, as overprotecting children may stunt their development in certain ways, and of course puts an extra burden on the parents.

"Now, there always is a parent or two, usually a mother, waiting in her car by each group of kids, making sure that they get on the bus safely.
The thing is, these are high school students, for Christ's sakes."

I've seen that, too. I've got to maneuver past a cluster of overprotective parents waiting in their SUV's on my way to work each morning. Fifty years ago, I walked to kindergarten by myself (about 2 blocks in a very safe neighborhood), Sure, Mom was a stay-at-home and could have loaded my sister in a baby carriage and walked with me, but that would have been embarassing. Third grade wasn't in such a safe neighborhood, but I still walked by myself, across the railroad yards and six blocks in a Minneapolis winter. Nobody died, and nobody was kidnapped.

It probably got more dangerous when I started riding my bicycle to school, in another neighborhood - the streets were safe enough, except for the way we rode. Someone put the school way up on top of a steep hill, and coming home, I didn't have a speedometer, so I didn't worry about that 25mph speed limit... Not until the time I failed to slow down enough before turning into the alley behind our house, and my bike skidded and started doing things I didn't know were physically possible. (My friends were awestruck by the acrobatics, but I darned near pressed fingerprints into steel tubing.)

The specialization/standardization process explains a lot. When a person or groups of people can do something better than others it's more economical for them to specialize in that area. They then have to trade/interface with other specialists for their outputs using some sort of standard (money, SAT scores, HTTP protocol, etc).

The effects of standardization are a higher average output (per total cost, the bread at the baker's is much cheaper than homemade) and lower variability (the baker's bread is never a bust [my dough doesn't always rise], and yet never as good as the best homemade bread [my best pizza crusts are to die for]).

Applied to childrearing there are a number of ways this process works ...

(a) When there are two parents doing all the childrearing, each will specialize in some aspect of the project at hand and standardize to coordinate activities. For example, one parent will play bad cop (disciplinarian) while the other plays good (experientialist). That works remarkably well as long as there is coordination/communication to keep the balance (a weekly Sunday dinner discussion/project management meeting, say).

(b) Single parents who try to do *all* the childrearing work will find they do none of the tasks particularly well, or as well as they could if they could narrow their focus. Though there will be some single parent households who are better than two parent ones, there will be a lot of duds too. And the average childrearing output will be lower.

(c) When parent(s) outsource childrearing, childrearing becomes normalized to the standard of care. Since almost everyone outsources their kids' education, the discussion of outsourcing is about how much is outsourced not whether it so. Here the same s/s process works too ... schools are accredited, split into education levels, level are integrated using standards (grades, SAT scores, and a development that came after me - the state boards, Regent's Exams). The average output is higher with lower variability (no more Aristotles or Leonardos, I'm afraid).

Same with nannies ... a parent wants them to meet a minimum standard (that they are not pedophiles, for example) that parents themselves don't need to meet to become parents! Again, higher overall average, yet lower variability - an accreditted, well-referenced nanny will never be as great as the best parent, nor will she be as bad as that mother who drowned her kids in the bathtub.

What works against a nanny specialization/standardization process is that people believe they are better parents than they really are. More than half of parents believe they are above median in their skills. Oh well, it's not the first belief economics had to jump over - people believed that financial specialization (charging interest rates on loans) was immoral too.

For single or full-time working parents, a nanny can be a further godsend - she adds variety to the skills exchange. She can be the disciplinarian while the parents are the permissive ones. Or vice versa, she can be the lenient, kind, experience-focused one, where what the parents bring to the exchange is their superior disciplinarian skills. It's additional data that the nanny literary stereotypes - Shakespeare, Jane Eyre, etc - fall into own of those two groups (and problem arise not because of speciaization, but because of poor coordination of standards).

(d) What is the goal of childrearing? Does anyone know? I'd propose that the goal is to raise the child to be a specialist (at a sufficient level) in a society where specialists interact through exchange stanards. Same process - the average citizen is more self-actualized while there are fewer outcasts or Alexanders the Great. Yet it only works if agreements on exchange standards are met. How very self-referential. :)

Lastly, I don't know how many hours a week it takes to raise a child - is it 80 as Jane hints at? Are two parents enough? Does it take a village? Is that they way our brains evolved way back when?

What I do believe is that childrearing task isn't different from any other economic activity and divvying up its work *is* an overall benefit, as long as coordination/standardization is met. I believe that the village, functioning as skills exchange, can raise a child better than one or two parents who believe in isolationism and keep their child away from the childrearing marketplace.

What I do believe is that childrearing task isn't different from any other economic activity

I've never had my boss show up at my house at 3:00 AM, sit on my lap screaming incoherently for no reason for 20 minutes, then throw up on me.

But in principle, I suppose it could happen.

Lastly, I don't know how many hours a week it takes to raise a child - is it 80 as Jane hints at?

Lets see .. 24 x 7 = 168. I guess its 168 hours per week, then.

I don't think this is one of your best written posts, but it sounds like your key conclusions are that if you have kids (1) one parent's career must suffer and (2) society may be better off if we socialize girls be be primary care-givers (maybe to the point that they are happy to give up their careers? I'm not sure what you're saying.)

But, I think you have a couple things wrong:

1) You don't have to work 80 hours/week to be a valuable employee to your employer. There are jobs with great autonomy and cognitive content that are closer to 40 hours/week.

2) The mommy role is divisible. One person can do baths, the other dinner. One can manage doctor's appointments and another school drop-offs. While you need one master co-ordinator, that is not even close to a full time job.

The conclusion that one career will suffer is only true from the standpoint that for some period of time (5 years, 10 years?), if you don't want to completely outsource raising your children, one spouse will need a job that is close to 40 hours a week and doesn't require excessive travel. While that does limit options, it doesn't mean that you can't have an interesting job in which you continue to build your skills and increase your value to your employer.

Don't forget Sandra Day O'Connor - while clearly an exception, it's hard to argue that having children hampered her career.

Then for all those posters who claim that no nanny can ever be better than mommy. While it is true that a nanny can't replace mommy, watch a couple episodes of Nanny 911! Some people are clearly far more skilled with children than others. I've learned skills from every nanny I've employed. I really find it hard to believe that my children suffer by having another adult in their life that fully loves them. (And while not all nannies love their charges, many, many do.)

Lastly, on this statement:

So it is entirely possible that society might be better off with pro-childcare socialisation for women.

So society is better off by telling half of the population they have one option in life? Because they'll be happier if they don't have a choice and that will make child-rearing run more smoothly? Isn't that what the communists tried doing? I'd think society is best off when we have everyone contributing in the way that they believe that they'll make the biggest impact, and trusing people to know themselves the best and making the right decision for their situation - whether that's working instead of kids, working with kids, or staying home with kids.

Along the lines of being contrarian...

It seems to me that the post and most of the comments make the assumption that the ultimate goal is a rewarding career - and childrearing is something that often interferes with that. I start from a different assumption - that "the goal" is raising responsible and competent children, and that the purpose of the career is to make that possible. I go to work for the purpose of supporting my family and I come home to help rear the children. My wife currently stays home because child-rearing is an ongoing task (not to mention keeping the home and food to satisfy the family's needs), but is looking for ways to increase our income as our daughter is now old enough to go to school.

It seems to me that this is what society should care about most - not seeing that people have rewarding careers.

"It seems to me that this is what society should care about most - not seeing that people have rewarding careers."

It seems to me that this should be an individual choice. For some the career is more important (at least until they actually have children, at which point priorities may change) and in fact may be so important that they do not want children. For some it is the children and the job is just for income. For some there is a mix, both are important; this can make the choice about whether to have children more difficult. Both are important but one may make the other suffer.

One factor I rarely see folded into this debate is the ever-increasing average life span. A woman starting a career at age 25 may very well have a "budget" of 50 years to divide between career goals and childrearing (assuming it eventually becomes a norm to retire at 75).

Why is devoting, for the sake of example, 10 years out of a total of 50 productive years to raise children percieved as such as crisis?

I'll never understand it.

"A woman starting a career at age 25 may very well have a "budget" of 50 years to divide between career goals and childrearing (assuming it eventually becomes a norm to retire at 75)."

Because it's really mostly about 25-40, a lot less than 50 years and these years cannot easily be split. This is the age people tend to have children as well as the most decisive years in "ambitious" careers. (Almost) no one can have children at age 50 or start certain types of careers at 40 (or even 30?). There might be exceptions, but that's how the world generally works. Take 1-10 years for childrearing and there's virtually no way you'll ever make it anywhere near the top at, say, an investment bank or a law firm.

I largely agree with Jennifer and Jenny. I don't think a child feels totally abandoned if the world does not constantly revolves around them. It's such a modern thought that children have to be the center of their parents' life all the time to become decent and happy. When in history has it been like this? And is it good for the kids after all? How does that foster sensitivity towards others' needs or a realistic self-perception? You can have worse parents than those who are working but loving.

ellipsis vs. Peter: I'm with the latter about perceived risk, and note this as one possible data point: despite the hysteria after the Columbine shootings, in fact homicides at school have been in a long, slow downward trend. Whether overall safety from mugging/abduction/etc is up or down is actually a separate question, I know...

If you were a journalist who got a lot of satisfaction from writing, modern technology would let you start a "blog" which you could create from home during breaks from child care. This might let let you focus on childrearing without giving up a career. Might be worth checking out.

I understand from Judith Harris's _The Nurture Assumption_ that the parenting pattern in most of the world's hunter-gatherer/subsistence farmer is:

1. baby is carried around by mum until next baby is born (normally when it is about 2-3 years old due to lack of food delaying the return of ovulation in the mother).

2. baby is then passed to an older-sibling/cousin/etc for child-rearing. Girls are preferred but boys are used if necessary. This child may be only a couple of years older than the baby.

3. Children then run around with other children, when they can avoid being roped in for chores.

Some parental teaching of tasks goes on.

I haven't observed enough remote traditional societies myself and if this is true, I don't know what this means for debates over modern childhood, given the death rates in those societies.

How many hours per week does it take to raise a child? Well, a baby takes about 168 hours a week. Luckily, you get to sleep some of them.

After children are school age or in full time day care, that drops to only 128 hours per week.

Strange to find this thread at this time. Next week I go back to work full time after being off the last three months on maternity leave with my second baby. Part of me would love to keep staying home, but we can't afford it. I also know the other part of me will be glad to get back to work and start using that part of my brain again. Not worried about childcare - we have a wonderful in-home daycare, whose proprietor is like a grandmother to my older daughter. My infant daughter joins her older sister there soon. My husband is a musician who is home much of the time, and he will have the girls home about half time when he's not on tour.

Still, it would be nice to stay home, or even better, work part time. A full time job plus childcare at home, especially when one's husband travels a lot, is physically exhausting. I've no doubt I'd be a better, happier parent if I wasn't so tired. And I've been blessed with "easy" babies - if mine weren't so easy, or had health problems, it would be that much harder.

So, I've got no real conclusions, nor many substantial complaints. I will say this - from what I've felt and observed, the decision whether or not to go back to work has a lot to do with how much you like your job. The women I know who are most happy at home, weren't really thrilled with their jobs before having children. The moms I know who are happy to be working are the ones who love their jobs. Not too surprising. I guess I'm about in the middle.

Totally agree with the commenter (Peter, I think) who talked about the difference between real risk and perceived risk regarding child safety. Part of the stress of "modern" parenthood is that many parents feel the need to hover over their kids 24 hours a day. This leads to insecure and overly dependent kids, in my opinion, plus it makes parenting a lot more demanding than it needs to be. Unfortunately, even if you don't want to hover, and you believe (for example) that your neighborhood is safe enough for your kids to roam alone in (as I did when young), if you do let your kids out of the house unsupervised, even if just to walk to school, you'll likely be considered negligent by other parents. We live only two blocks from the elementary school and even the older kids on this block still have parents walking them to and from school. And this is a very safe part of town.

I find this to be sad, having had so much more freedom and solitude as a child. How is a kid really ever going to get to know himself if he lives every minute of his life with a grownup less than 20 feet away? Every experience of contemporary childhood seems to be mediated somehow by one or more adults. Sounds miserable, doesn't it? No self-respecting kid wanted any such thing when I was young.

Anyway, sorry for the long comment - I've especially enjoyed the thread, since the subject matter is something I'm right smack in the middle of.

economicliberty> Lets see .. 24 x 7 = 168. I guess its 168 hours per week, then.

But why should the parents be the only ones contributing to this work effort? Why can't 40-45 of those hours be done by someone else (it is for school age children) while the parents go and utilize their strengths elsewhere?

""A very smart expert working 80 hours a week will be more productive than two equally smart people working forty hours a week."

For many people, myself included, working 80 hours a week is a recipe for a breakdown. ""

The ABA did a study, years ago, of attorneys. They found that at 60 hours spent in the office (about 40 billable hours) productivity went negative. That is, someone who spent 65 hours at work actually produced less than someone who spent 50-60 hours at work.

The reason that a 40 hour work week became standard was not the union hype, but the time and motion, etc., studies that reflected that while in the short run it is possible to get more than 40 hours of labor, in the long run, net productivity goes down.

Assuming I pay a flat rate, if I can work my workers 60 hours a week they will produce less than if I work them 50 hours a week. Piecework factories tend to confirm this.

On the other hand, you are right about coordination. I've had secretaries who job shared, and there were coordination issues that were prohibitive in most models they tried until they started swapping out weeks.

But almost all hospitals run on effective and successful job sharing models.

Another reason why parents hover and are overprotective: smaller families.

Larger families happened because of:
1. pre-Pill era, limited effective birth control
2. pre-New Deal, no Social Security: your kids would look after you in your dotage.
3. agricultural economy, pre-big ag machinery: large families were necessary to run the family farm.

(Of course, there was an economic incentive to have larger families previously; now it is the opposite. Witness the hyperventilating news stories about how expensive children are to raise.)

If you have eight children and one dies, (whether by crime or more likely disease), you still have seven left.

If you have one or two children and one dies, it's a freakin' disaster.

By evolutionary psychobiology, procreational success is when you have grandchildren (not children). So parents of modern small families have to ferociously protect their offspring until they get old enough to pop out some offspring (hoping, of course, that their kids want kids and aren't infertile or gay). Not like anyone thinks of this consciously.

There might be a difference between city and country folk. My brother has his family in the suburbs of the city, only two children, and is so protective that they won't let them do a lot of sports or any activities with risk. The kids are weenies because they have never tested themselves. My sister has her family in a small farming town in Iowa. These kids have explored the great outdoors, do farm labor with big machinery and large animals, ride ATV's and horses, go target and skeet shooting, hunting, and fishing, and are adventuresome, boisterous creatures. They seem more comfortable in their own skins and much more confident. There is more objective risk in their lives compared to the sheltered city kids...who love to come to the farm at Thanksgiving, play with their cousins, and get outside and do things their parents would never let them do. It's their only time to escape the hovering worrywarts.

Do we perceive more risk to children in the city? Are outdoorsy country kids less at risk? (I have a particular country nephew that I always thought was a farm accident waiting to happen, but he's survived intact so far!)

Is the perception of risk due to the fact that we have multiple 24-hour news channels? Are Nancy Grace and Greta Van Sustren causing the suffering of children everywhere by causing their parents to become too overprotective?! LOL

kentuckyliz -

Very good analysis. I would say that parents in cities, and not necessarily those from poor backgrounds either, are more like their rural and small-town cousins when it comes to letting their children take risks. Suburban parents are the most fearful overprotective ones, and the more upscale the suburb the greater the fear factor.

You also have a point about 24/7 news coverage. Crimes committed against children - more specifically, against white children - get obsessive news coverage, which of course creates a perception that the crimes are far more common than they really are.

I think that this:

"A very smart expert working 80 hours a week will be more productive than two equally smart people working forty hours a week."

Should read:

"A very smart expert working 40 hours a week will be more productive than two equally smart people working twenty hours a week."

You can't work productively for 80 hours a week for very long. Even 60 is pushing it. For a couple of months, maybe, but after that, productivity starts to go down hill. Now if you're billing those hours, productivity probably doesn't matter and more less productive hours is better. But that's not what you're talking about in this example...

EI

leave it to this war

Four American Contractors Reportedly Kidnapped in Iraqi Convoy Attack

' Those jobs cannot be successfully divided. A very smart expert working 80 hours a week will be more productive than two equally smart people working forty hours a week. '

Let me be about the 10th person to pile on that somebody working 80 hrs/wk is going to be about half as productive as 2 people working 40 and this situation is the result of poor management not hard work.

'some of the happiest people I know are cabinet makers, cooks, and nurses. '

IMHO and from my personal experience nurses are about the most miserable people on the face of the earth. I'll add in a couple of other professions but the combination of bad hours and a lot of non nursing responsibilities seems to contribute to the problem. There is a huge shortage of nurses where I am which would seem to belie the happiness factor.

Tracy,

Your synopsis from Judith Harris is certainly accurate enough to serve as a rough outline (at least of what I observed in Africa.)

IMHO and from my personal experience nurses are about the most miserable people on the face of the earth.

Odd, because I know five nurses, including my sister and my cousin's girlfriend, and all of them seem to be very happy with their jobs.

Of course, it might depend on personal attitude toward the job; not everyone has the right personality to perform it. Then there's the question of whether or not you're working at a good facility that offers the occupational specialization you desire. For example, my sister and one of the others are and have trained, respectively, for OBGYN (and enjoy it); another entered pediatric care, etc. "Nurse" is not a monochormatic position.

OOOOhhh, I am so scared for my child.
Crap. bad things happened when I was growing up, and did anybody care? Yeah, but the world kept turning.

I was a latchkey kid from first grade on- in junior high I used to ride the bus in Milwaukee to get where I needed to go. Do you know who was also riding the bus during the same time period of the late 70's in Milwaukee? Jeffrey Dahmer. So much for feeling safe.

Life happens, but people seem to believe they can live in some mythical safe cacoon in the past. Crap. Stuff like this has always happened, and always will. People have had millions of years to be stupid- so what is daycare going to change?

Now Romanian orphanage children? THEY have real problems from being warehoused 24/7- but our petty bushwa worries are crap!

Why do kids act badly? Because they can!
Why do teenagers act badly? Same answer!
What a society that believes if you went into daycare you are somehow damaged!
Excuses all!
Have kids, do the best you can with them, and if they fail some part of it is not your fault!!
So get over the boomer guilt!
Dang- boomers seem to believe kids are some kind of preprogrammed robots. Fools.

Here’s what I know:
I’m a socially progressive Executive Director in a major corporation. I believe in the woman’s right to choose, regularly contribute to Naral and voted straight Democratic in the last election.

Working for me I have 5 managers. One of them recently got married and is now pregnant. Since getting pregnant she has taken several unscheduled weeks of sick time and regularly takes half days to visit the doctor and because she does not feel well. It appears that this will be a pattern for the rest of her pregnancy and who knows for how long after that.

She is one of my most important employees. As such, I find it difficult to continue to run the department effectively without her. I know it is not her fault that she is missing time and yet I need her to run my business.

Knowing what I know about her and others in my work experience that have gotten pregnant and decided that it was more important to raise a family then continue in their careers, this will definitely effect my next promotion of someone to be manager.

I have to take issue with your points about working hours. I think you're taking too narrow a view. It may be true that a person thinking night and day about their work is more productive than two people who are doing it 9-5.

But you are presupposing that there is an infinite supply of those people who want to work 80 hours a week. Yes, there are in some professions, (investment banking) where the rewards are high enough that people are willing to do it.

But for those of us in ordinary, everyday companies, we're willing to accept the wider choice of the labour force (e.g. smart women who would like to spend time with their kids) that we get by not insisting that every one of our employees work 80 hours a week.

For society as a whole, I don't believe that we get the maximum possible output by the specialisation you are suggesting.

My husband, who looks after our kids as the primary caregiver, adds a lot of economic value to society in the 15-20 hours a week he works. Making that possible would be good for society as a whole.

The person I am talking about typically puts in a 40-45 hour week, no more than that. This is a 24 hour, 7 day operation that needs management physical presence during the first shift.

I am sure you are right that there are jobs where the situation you described will suffice, but this is not one of them.

Hmmm, maybe you could be as lucky as I am and marry a stay at home Dad....

Well, a baby takes about 168 hours a week. Luckily, you get to sleep some of them.

Maybe with your baby :-)

It wasn't until my second child (who actually slept on occasion) that I could even conceive of how single parents or parents of twins survived...

One might say that what has made our species successful is our capacity to put another person, a stranger, mentally in ourselves and predict their behavior. Our ability to do this and our sense of psychological security begins when another human accepts our cries as an infant and tries to meet our needs. Facing an infant who, say at 2 months, can move it's head but not adjust it's body position calls forth, perhaps unrecognized, our own sense of self embodying how we were cared for and perhaps anger misunderstood by ourselves. Motherhood is an important function and, in various ways, controversial.

I would urge everyone to read the New York Times Sunday Magazine piece entitled: "What It Takes to Make a Student."

It is very relevant to this discussion about parenting because in it, the author provides very strong evidence that IQ and success are determined early on by parenting style. He repudiates the idea that the achievement gap between blacks and whites, and rich and poor, is a result of race or class, and provides results from several studies which show that it has much more to do with parenting style, in particular encouragement, interaction, and most specifically, the number of "utterances" spoken to a child on a daily basis.

In these studies, children's IQs are already a function of their vocabularies at age 3. Children of rich parents, who generally spoke to their children more often, knew twice the number of words as poor children by age 3. Clearly this shows that parenting is a very important full-time job. Not that daycare can't do it, but only great daycare can.

To me, it also suggests that if a parent leaves a job (or works part time) to work as a parent, he or she can reenter the work force after only four or five years, because after that point the child is largely on a path of either high IQ or low IQ that is highly correlated with future success in school and later, career.

If anyone doesn't feel like reading the entire Sunday Times article referenced in the previous post, I just summarized it on my blog.

Jane,

It is great to ponder future potentialities. Theoretical arguments are often fun. However, being a parent and raising children is one of the few things in life that I think is almost impossible to comprehend until you find yourself in that situation. Also, there are so many genetic unknowns that until you have children it is impossible to accurately predict the type of care each will need. No matter what our careers, or how much pre-planning we do, we are all "rolling the dice" once we decide to dive into progeny producing.

You refer to "socializing daughters" as only a non-parent can. If you have a daughter I wish you luck in "socializing" her. The same goes for sons. I mean no offense by any of this. I was as mis-guided as you before parenthood happened to me. My best advice would be; Relax! If you find someone you want to breed with, and he feels the same, you and he will figure it out and your children will turn out exactly like only your children can.

An earlier poster makes an interesting point about women in the workforce in history. For some reason we latch onto this notion of a 1950s nuclear family as a societal norm. I think family life in the West in the late 1940s - 1960s was the historical aberration. Imagine a family on the American fronteir. Did the mom spend any more time with the children than the father? Everybody was working all day long, including the children. How about a family of Chippewa? Same thing.

The main difference in our modern family structure is not the role men and women play as parents. It is the state of arrested development we keep our children in. There are good reasons for this, but throughout history kids were helping their families by the age of 3 or 4 and independent and productive by their early teens. Mom, Dad AND the kids worked.

So viewing the raising of children as a business proposition, what is the deliverable? Is it a domesticated animal that doesn't make too many messes in the house and does more or less what it is told, eventually? Is it a self-actualized personality capable of multireferential interaction with other personalities in an environment of mutual utility?

Is it a "citizen"? What does "citizen" mean to libertarians, anyway?

Tell me the deliverable, and I can work backwards & discern the requirements for parents...

FWIW:

I took the liberty of asking a few children in the 6 to 9 age bracket how many hours/day parents should spend "parenting". Basically it boiled down to "all day", i.e. as long as they were awake....

Ellipsis,

Your question is crucial, and I think few parents ask it. I think even fewer work with their spouse towards a consensus answer. I have a half-joking response to this that I share with my children and others; "My goal as a parent is to make life at home so miserable that my children cannot wait to be independent, functioning members of society living on their own."

Of course I don't really mean the "misery" part, but I think many parents lose sight of the fact that good parents ought to be raising kids that don't need parents at a certain age.

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