Why Men Can't Have It All

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/whole-life/why-men-cant-have-it-all

by mtoddh • 14 years ago

227 225 14 years ago

dkhenry2• 14 years ago

The single best line from the article.

"""Men should not feel emancipated because everyone believes they are only mildly competent as caregivers"""

I fully agree with this. I strive to do as much work in raising my one child as my wife does. Recently my wife had to cover two saturday shifts giving me two full days with my son ( breakfast to bedtime ). My wife approaced the days like they would be some great hardship for me. I approached them as wonderfull opertuinities to spend extra time with my two year old. Even though I try to do just as much as she does in terms of feeding and changing and general parenting, the fact that for most of the week I am only present for maybe an hour a day gives her the impression that I am incapable of handling the full load of responsability by myself. I see this as the issue. If men do have full time jobs and their wifes are stay at home moms then there will allways be this perception. People always assume that those who are _not_ doing what they do _can't_ do what they do

mtoddh7• 14 years ago

People always assume that those who are _not_ doing what they do _can't_ do what they do.

I can definitely attest to this sentiment. When my son was born two years ago, I decided to quit working and become a full time stay-at-home dad. When my wife told the other women in her mother's group about my decision, one of the first responses she got back was, "You trust him?" The implication being that not only are fathers less capable than mothers, but that men are so incompetent at parenting that leaving a child in the care of Dad might be a risky decision! I think this sentiment, plus the still present cultural expectation for dads to be "good providers", is part of why you don't see men contributing more in the home.

dkhenry2• 14 years ago

I have heard multiple people express the same sentiment to mothers who leave their kinds in the care of stay-at-home dads. Somehow if your child is left in the care of a male then he is at risk for bodly harm.

pyre• 14 years ago

She could easily turn it around and get offended that those women think that she would marry a man she couldn't trust. At the very least it would force their hand into verbalizing their sexist views, rather than subtlely implying them.

rmc11• 14 years ago

Some good answers: "Well he trusts me with the credit card, so I trust him. Does you husband trust you with money?"

lotharbot2• 14 years ago

Likewise, I became a full-time stay-at-home dad about 2 and a half years ago.

I still have people ask me when I'm going to "get a real job". I can write it off when it comes from my 91 year old grandfather, but it's often coming from 30-something women and men.

The implication is that you're not a "real man" if you're not financially supporting the family, and that your wife is not a "real woman" if she lets her husband watch the kids. I'm often surprised by how many people refer to our situation negatively, while they seem to view it as heroic when a single mom works and puts her kids in daycare.

TimGebhardt7• 14 years ago

I get the same thing too, but people seem hyper-scared for our family when I'm at home with our twin 18m boys: "Well is your mom (kids' grandma) going to help him? No!? I can't believe you'd leave him alone like that."

I'm about |---| this close to start responding with highly offensive responses like "Well, I can't believe your husband trusts you with a credit card, because women are bad at money and math". My wife gets just as offended as I do when her friends say stuff like that to her.

Expecting some downvotes, but unless someone's said it to your face or your wife's told you some of the things her friends say, you can't know how infuriating it is when people don't think you're capable of taking care of your own kids.

AutoCorrect• 14 years ago

we have 5 kids. They're older now (youngest is 10), but I watched them while their mother shopped, or had other things to do. We had great fun! I'm like you - I can't understand why people would think men are incapable of handling kids.

roc5• 14 years ago

Weighing in to agree. Or maybe just to pile on.

I'm a new father and I already can not count the number of times my wife and I have already been asked the cutesy "so how many diapers has he changed?" question.

The automatic assumption that I'm just going to phone it in -- not to mention the assumption that my wife would put up with me, were I that type of person -- has already strained more than a few relationships.

Never mind that my wife had a difficult labor, unexpected surgery and was stuck in a hospital bed, leaving me to handle everything other than breastfeeding, for the first four days and it never even occurred to either of us to call a grandmother in as a ringer.

We just always planned on each doing as much as we could and so my stepping up when she couldn't was the most obvious and natural thing in the world. At least, to us.

Seemingly half of everyone we know expected I'd hold my daughter just long enough to hand her to my mother and then head back to work.

And as to the people who see my wife out and about and ask in shock/concern whether it's a good idea/whether I can really handle looking after our infant daughter by myself while she so much as runs a few errands ... I have never actually been so angry as to see red before.

bmj3• 14 years ago

I agree with you, but why do people think this way? Because there are fathers who absolutely cannot function as a caregiver to their own children. I have friends who have trouble watching their kids for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon while their wives do other things. So, the stereotype exists for a reason--but I agree it is not pleasant to be judged by it.

Parenting isn't rocket science, but it's hard work that requires a bit of introspection if you wish raise your kids well. It's a shame that folks have kids but have no desire to shoulder the burden they've accepted.

HeyLaughingBoy• 14 years ago

Honestly, it goes well beyond childcare. I think a lot of people simply don't expect men to do anything but go to work and come home and mow the lawn with a beer in hand.

When my son was in Cub Scouts, I remember the scoutmaster asking the kids how they helped at home (in order to get a badge or something). My son said "I help my Dad cook." Scoutmaster looked puzzled for a second, then said, "oh, you mean on the grill. OK!" No, he means he helps me make breakfast, lunch, dinner, bake cookies, whatever needs to be done.

Likewise when my wife was pregnant, she couldn't lift heavy things during the last couple months. We live on a horse farm and normally she thinks nothing of tossing around 60lb bales of hay. When she was asked who was doing her chores when she was pregnant, and she said that I was, the look of amazement on the other woman's face was classic "are you serious???"

Oddly enough, no one seems surprised that I change diapers!

rmc11• 14 years ago

Here here.

Back in the day it was seen as perfectly fine for the husband to take care of the money, and for him to give his wife a bit of money for shopping and things like that. Now we have moved on from that (thankfully!). However there are still people who think that men can't handle children.

brudgers2• 14 years ago

One of the common gender asymmetries of parenting is that a father's "more active role" is more likely to be as "the fun parent." Dad takes his daughter fishing and coaches her soccer team instead of taking her to get a haircut and serving on the PTA fundraising committee.

When our child was two, on my Saturday's as caregiver because my spouse was working, the day was organized around a "big adventure." When I was the one working the weekend, the house got vacuumed and the week's groceries got bought...our child got fed and bathed, too, of course.

On my days in charge, I got to be entirely present. The priority was a walk in the woods, not the laundry. The all of the article is cherry picked. The all that is expected of women is far more encompassing.

roc5• 14 years ago

> "The all that is expected of women is far more encompassing."

The article isn't about how much women do or how high expectations are for them. Truly the more-present parent, regardless of gender, has a more serious parenting load.

The article is about the social expectations for fathers.

To put it in more clear terms:

Society expects X from mothers. Society expects Y from fathers.

The article is not about a comparison between X and Y in any way. It's not about whether X ~= Y. It's not about whether X > Y or whether X >> Y. It's not about whether any of those comparisons being true might be fair or accurate or desirable.

The article is about society's expectation that Y ~= 0 and acts surprised as all hell whenever Y > 0. And how that is bad, shameful and insulting.

aaronharder2• 14 years ago

The asymmetry you point out is a difficult truth that definitely resonates with me, and I would guess many other fathers as well.

specialist2• 14 years ago

Post divorce, stretches of solo parenting is the norm.

d4nt• 14 years ago

I think the level of expectation on fathers is still on an upward trend. But getting to parity is probably related to the gender pay gap and whether that's a problem that needs some kind of intervention. In my own family it made sense for me to work full time while my wife took a career break to raise the kids, because I could earn more. But my wife left education with way more qualifications than me so, in theory, could have been earning more by the time we had kids. If what held her back was in any way a cultural legacy that values women less, then we've gone and reinforced it by taking the decision that we did. So maybe there's a chicken and egg issue here.

VMG• 14 years ago

So there is something like a implicit cultural hypothesis that women are better at raising kids at an early age. Anecdotally, women seem to be preferred in custody cases.

Is there any actual science supporting or refuting that?

brudgers2• 14 years ago

Seeing as humans are mammals, there might be a biological argument which could be raised.

infinite8s5• 14 years ago

Well, it used to be the case that it was much easier to determine the biological mother vs the father (excepting cases where babies were accidentally switched at birth).

parfe• 14 years ago

>Anecdotally, women seem to be preferred in custody cases.

"Fathers who actively seek custody obtain either primary or joint physical custody over 70% of the time. Reports indicate, however, that in some cases perceptions of gender bias may discourage fathers from seeking custody and stereotypes about fathers may sometimes affect case outcomes. In general, our evidence suggests that the courts hold higher standards for mothers than fathers in custody determinations."

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/Massachusetts_Gender_Bias...

makomk13• 14 years ago

As I recall, fathers are discouraged from seeking primary custody without strong justification (by the advice their divorce lawyers give them, by not being able to afford a divorce lawyer at all, by the fear of losing all access to their kids if they kick up a fuss...) so the cases where they do seek custody are going to be biased towards ones where the mother's abusive or otherwise unfit. The study doesn't seem to investigate whether this is the case.

Also, I'd be interested to see actual methodological details. For instance, it talks about women being unable to get adjustments in payments to which they're entitled. Did they bother to investigate whether men have the same problem? They don't mention it if they do, and anecdotally they do seem to have difficulty getting their payments adjusted down if they lose their job and can no longer afford to pay as much. To be honest, I reckon this study is kind of biased in terms of what questions it actually asks.

chc• 14 years ago

That number is just plain weird.

1. It attempts to draw a comparison but only offers one number. If mothers who actively seek custody obtain either primary or joint physical custody over 95% of the time, there's still bias at work.

2. It lumps primary custody in with joint custody. There's a lot of room for disparity between those two numbers.

3. It doesn't show how men who fervently seek custody stack up against women who don't particularly go out of their way to get custody. If women have to do less to be awarded custody, that would weigh against their conclusion.

I'm not claiming any of these are the case (really, I have no clue), but this paper doesn't really show its work, which makes it hard to evaluate.

johngalt2• 14 years ago

In 1990 a judiciary investigated itself and found no evidence of bias against men only women. Conveniently that was the socially correct opinion at the time.

Joint physical custody just means that there is regular visitation. So saying "primary or joint" covers all fathers that see their kids regularly.

That quote really says that 30% of fathers actively seeking regular time with their children were denied the right to parent their children. I wonder what percentage of mothers were denied regular parenting time?

roguecoder10• 14 years ago

http://www.squareonemd.com/pdf/Does%20the%20Gender%20of%20Pa...

Any study is going to be confounded by the cultural training received, but this one concluded that among American women and men:

"Average differences favor women over men, but parenting skills are not dichotomous or exclusive. The gender of parents correlates in novel ways with parentchild relationships but has minor signiﬁcance for children’s psychological adjustment and social success."

Tichy• 14 years ago

I really noticed that, and it annoys me. My son (20 months old) tends to wake up around 7 or 8am and around 8 or 9pm it is bedtime. So if I were to take on a "normal" job, I would not spend time with my kid at all, except for the weekends (leave house 8am, work from 9 to 6, back home 7 at the earliest). Society assumes that I am fine with that, but I am not.

Still, I'd like to add that at least in our case, in the first year the mother was definitely more important because of the breastfeeding, which really incited a strong bond. But of course not everybody does that.

JoeAltmaier• 14 years ago

Its great to put such an emphasis on being there for your kid. But this is definitely a 1st-world issue. The family has to have money to function; many places the employed parent has to work diligently to accomplish this. Kind thoughts about being there for the spelling bee or ball game are cute; but the job has to come first or its all down the drain.

AkThhhpppt2• 14 years ago

The article is about caregiving fathers; what if the employed parent is the mother, or the couple are gay and the child is adopted?

Why should the 'present' father get medals for doing things every mother is expected to do?

danso• 14 years ago

Here's a tangent from yesterday's HN frontpage article about fasting and programming...I still don't think that the rigors of fatherhood, on average, are as demanding as that of motherhood, for a very simple fact: women are effectively supporting, through their lifeblood, another lifeform within them for 7-9 months before they're thrust into parenthood. So in that sense, they have a headstart in the race-to-give-it-up for the child.

(please emphasize the on average part in the above statement...obviously, fathers have the opportunity to more than make up for this once the child has left the birth canal)

How many articles do we see on HN about how important it is to get regular exercise, sleep, etc. in order to become the best hacker you can be? It's tough to do that for even young men out of college...how much harder is it to maintain that while pregnant?

sreyaNotfilc2• 14 years ago

I can't relate. Its not because I don't have children. I've basically had children since I was 13. Well, they were my sister's kids, but I still took care of them as they were my own (in a way).

I recently had to watch a few of my sister's kids while she was touring with the Army. This was for a year, and the kids were pretty young (twins at one years old and another 3 year old). They were a handful, but I was always up to the task to take care of them. That involves, nurturing, feeding, disciplining, educating, cleaning, playing and interacting. Its a lot of work, but it can be done.

In away, I see them as my children, since I've been around they everyday for a year.

Long story short, it wasn't because I was a girl that I successfully took care of my nieces (for that short period of time). I'm a dude. I don't find it strange either. Parenting really is just a task. How well you do correlates to how much effort you put into it.

Its a lot of work to take care of kids as well as take care of yourself and your occupation. Perhaps this is the reason why we have marriages. Having two adults makes this task much easier. So lets go back to the subject on men being great parents and a great employer/businessman. It can be done. We are not aliens. We are no inept. We are human. We have as much of a chance to be successful fathers than any women being successful mothers.

Its all about effort.

papsosouid• 14 years ago

It seems weird that you start off with "I can't relate", and then your entire post has very little to do with the article at all. Did you read it? He didn't suggest men are incapable of being great parents, quite the opposite in fact.

sreyaNotfilc2• 14 years ago

I guess I should have been a bit more clear with my intro sentence.

"I can't relate" was more towards the title of the article (Why Men Can't Have It All) than the actual content. I'm not sure what's up with the title actually. The content is basically what "krktb" wrote as a reply. I'm not debating that. I just merely linked my childcare experiences with the article's examples while refuting its title.

I can't relate to the "social stigma" that men are looked to be inept when it comes to child care. It doesn't make any sense why that would be. As I explained, child care is basically a task. Almost any task can be performed by either a male or a female. This includes taking care of a child. To do this task well, all that matters is the effort you exert. I explained the rest in my blab above, so I'm not going to revisit it.

I apologize if you didn't understand what I was getting at, papsosouid. I'll make sure I'm more clear next time.

hrktb2• 14 years ago

The title of the article was relevant but misleading. It was not much about the ability or not of men to parent children, than on the perception of their abilities and expectations (or lack of) to do it from the society POV.

Your experience is supposed to be exceptionnal, and men really investing themself in parenting is not the expected behaviour. And in my experience taking a long parental leave for a man can be more or less difficult, but it is also surprisingly awkward (you're just slacking are you? jokes abunding) and needs a lot more justification. It seems to be changing, but so slowly.

peterwwillis2• 14 years ago

I think I know why women assume men can't raise kids. As we all know, at some point the biological alarm clock starts ringing in a majority of women's ears and they want to be a mother. The urge is probably such that they see it as a job that they want to do for themselves, and that a husband taking care of the child is removing them from that which they want to do, similar to a temp being hired to do part of your programming for you. I'm not speaking about all women, of course, just the ones that make comments insinuating fathers are incapable of being a primary caregiver.

corin_3• 14 years ago

"As we all know, at some point the biological alarm clock starts ringing in a majority of women's ears and they want to be a mother."

I have no idea if this is common, or if I'm a rare exception, or perhaps if it's linked with being gay, but I'm a guy who feels that.

Anyone else (male) here, or just me?

peterwwillis2• 14 years ago

Do you mean you just have a strong feeling like you want to have kids, or like you want to fulfill the role of a mother? I know there's definitely guys who at some point have a strong urge to have kids, but i'm not sure if it's the same.

sliverstorm• 14 years ago

The difference is the "alarm clock" refers to the oft-too-rapidly approaching date of menopause. You on the other hand, as a guy, have no "expiration date".

lotharbot2• 14 years ago

I had that. It's why I've been a stay-at-home dad for the last 2 and a half years.

invalidOrTaken• 14 years ago

I've felt it recently. And I'm not gay, either. Like others have mentioned, it's not a "bio-clock is ticking" deal(I'm 25. And a dude.), but more a desire to help my kids grow and be happy. That's kind of weird because I don't have kids, but whatever.

That said, I'm not married, and startup life doesn't mix well with single parenthood, were I to adopt.

kungfooey• 14 years ago

Did someone manage to grab the text from this article? I couldn't find a cached version.

aaronharder2• 14 years ago

http://www.relevantmagazine.com.nyud.net/life/whole-life/why...

RyanMcGreal3• 14 years ago

The site seems to be down right now. Here's the google cache:

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp...

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When my older child (now 17) was little, people who knew he was my son would see us at the park and ask, "Oh, are you babysitting?"

I'd answer, "No, I'm parenting."

TimGebhardt7• 14 years ago

Oh man, please let me steal that response from you. That's fantastic.

RyanMcGreal3• 14 years ago

It's all yours!

mtoddh7• 14 years ago

Even the Census Bureau views fathers this way- when fathers are the primary caregiver, the Census considers it a "childcare arrangement". There's a petition to change this: http://www.change.org/petitions/dads-don-t-babysit

paul-woolcock• 14 years ago

I am going to be a father in about 2 months. A friend of mine, who is a father of 3, has responded with this some line when confronted with the "babysitting" comment, and I am already preparing myself for the same.

The sad thing is that he is probably one of the best fathers I know, so it just seems extra tragic to me that people assume the opposite about him.

flatline• 14 years ago

I'm home with our daughter semi-regularly, and I use the "babysitting" line, albeit somewhat ironically, as every day is babysitting in this context to a greater or lesser extent. Still, my wife's coworkers express surprise that I'm at home alone with the kid and am not calling her every five minutes. You definitely do get a different reaction as a guy alone with kids.

reinhardt• 14 years ago

As a non-native speaker, what is the difference and why is the former (I'm guessing) mocking/derogatory?

RyanMcGreal3• 14 years ago

Babysitting is a term that means paying someone else (usually a young teenager) to look after your children while you go out. To say that a father looking after his child is "babysitting" is to imply that it's not normal and expected for a father to look after his child.

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

I think taking care of kids is a fulltime job, and one parent should just stay home until they're old enough. Many of you may dismiss this as old-fashioned, and sexist, but it's very true. Don't forget that in the past, families lived together. Grandmas, aunts, uncles, sisters, EVERYONE in 1 roof. Which meant the mother had a ton of help. Today, we live in an entirely different society, and mothers usually are alone in caregiving. I blame society for getting rid of this family structure.

maratd2• 14 years ago

I just had a my first kid, she's 5 months old now.

On the weekends, we stay with my parents and they take care of the little one. Tuesday and Thursday, I take care of her from 8 am (morning) until 1 am (next day). I work on Saturday + Sunday to make up for those two days. My wife takes care of the kid on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. She works the rest of the days.

Yes, it would be nice to have her take care of the kid full-time. She wants to. She had debt from law school and wants to pay that off first. Until she makes that decision, everybody helps out.

There is a fundamental difference between want and can. Unfortunately, many of the decisions we make before we have children limit our options after we have them.

luser0014• 14 years ago

You guys should consider sending her to a quality daycare. We've been sending our son to one since he was 3 mo. old. He loves it; we love it. We think that's the best thing we've done for him so far.

Socializing with other children is sooo important. He interacts with other adults (daycare employees). He learns so many things (esp. wrt self-control, autonomy etc) just by playing with his friends.

I personally think a daycare (many kids + several caregivers) is closer to the environment that we evolved to grow in, rather than having no other kids + couple of caregivers as would be the case with an at-home parent.

You should give some serious thought into finding a quality daycare. You're highly likely to like it. Good luck!

run4yourlives3• 14 years ago

As a parent of 2 (5 and 3) who works while his wife does the more important job, I couldn't agree more. It is so obviously beneficial to children to have a parent at home full time. It certainly does not have to be the mother. The problem though is that expressing this opinion is hard because most parents that work carry an extreme guilt with them - regardless of whether they pretty much have to have two incomes or simply choose to.

All else being equal, quantity of time is better than "quality" time when it comes to raising kids, IMHO.

As an aside, the US is so out of sync with the rest of the western world when it comes to it is laughable. As a comparison - Canada has 17 weeks of Mat leave for the mother, followed by an additional 35 weeks that can be taken by either parent. You receive 50% of your salary (to a low max) from the government during this time as part of the Employment Insurance program.

gyardley3• 14 years ago

Well, yes, but this situation is largely our own fault.

I know there are plenty of men who want to split domestic chores fifty-fifty and take an equal role in childrearing, and I admire them. But there are plenty more, including myself at times, who have been happy to let our spouses shoulder more than their fair share of domestic work - not because we're deliberately trying to be troglodytes, but because a good portion of domestic work is thankless and uninteresting. So we do things less often and less well than our spouses, usually unconsciously, and eventually things gravitate towards something like an eighty-twenty split. This gets us what we want, but it also gives rise to the incompetent husband stereotype that's bothering the author of this piece.

I've got no idea how to fix this soft bigotry of low expectations, if it can be fixed at all - we obviously don't mind being made fun of for our incompetence at things we don't want to do in the first place. Cultural problems are always the hardest to solve.

HotKFreshSwag2• 14 years ago

One way to cure this symptom of patriarchy is to try to stop being a 'troglodyte' as you put it. What would a non-'troglodyte' do?

If you shrug, accept the status quo and say meh, it's a cultural problem you're functionally no different than someone who is completely ignorant of the issue.

gyardley3• 14 years ago

Well, yes - I stopped behaving this way a while ago. But I was referring to the difficulty of changing the behavior of people who are not me.

Changing yourself is easy; getting others to want to change themselves is not.

NotMyMorals8• 14 years ago

>One way to cure this symptom of patriarchy is to try to stop being a 'troglodyte' as you put it.

"Patriarchy?" Cultural Marxism went out in the 1970s. "Troglodyte?" As a metaphor for a man who works and takes care of his wife and children?

"Ignorant?" No one is "ignorant" of cultural Marxist screeds about "sexism" and "patriarchy." Plenty of people are quite knowledgeable on these issues, but simply reject your kind's often-strange morality and attempts to remake society to conform to bizarre sociological notions from the last century.

Really, burning bras is so last century. Get with the times.

yaliceme2• 14 years ago

>"a good portion of domestic work is thankless and uninteresting"

>"we obviously don't mind being made fun of for our incompetence at things we don't want to do in the first place."

This reminds me of the "protective incompetence" that paul graham talks about in "How to Start a Startup" (http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html):

People who don't want to get dragged into some kind of work often develop a protective incompetence at it. Paul Erdos was particularly good at this. By seeming unable even to cut a grapefruit in half (let alone go to the store and buy one), he forced other people to do such things for him, leaving all his time free for math. Erdos was an extreme case, but most husbands use the same trick to some degree.

huggyface2• 14 years ago

To be fair, Paul is far from the first to make such an observation. It has long been called strategic incompetence and is a very common behavior to avoid doing something you don't want to do.

infinite8s5• 14 years ago

It's not like women enjoy doing that sort of work more than men. Just suck it up and do it. Otherwise, cultural expectations and your own laziness are just letting you take advantage of your wife.

will_work4tears• 14 years ago

I do my share of the domestic chores, I don't even mind changing the diapers or feeding my son. However, what I hate is walking around holding him up on my shoulder for hours on end while he is crying.

Unfortunately, I think I let the wife "shoulder" the burden in that case - though I don't pretend incompetence, I just work it out with her in discussions that I'd prefer her to do that and I'll make it up in other ways.

FWIW, I probably do a bit more than half of the housework, I always cook, almost always do dishes (she does them a couple times a month), do all of the yard work/trash, etc and she sweeps, does laundry and cleans the bathrooms. We split everything else.

roguecoder10• 14 years ago

I think that any couple who has honest, adult communication is already leaps and bounds ahead. Many seem to take tasks for granted based on gender roles. By the time one's gotten to "and then we have a conversation about our individual preferences" things are less likely to be grossly unbalanced.

JanezStupar• 14 years ago

I don't have kids yet. But I would have a big beef with a relationship in which one person does 80% of the work.

I am mentioning this because you make it appear as if you sit idle while your wife does the work. In our home I take care of the handywork and the nasty work (home maintenance, getting plumbing and sewage to work,...).

If I was working overtime or 2nd job to help support the family I would set that right next to my wives work with the housewife stuff (if that was the arrangement). On the other hand "working overtime" just to hide from doing your part or to "go out with friends" on a regular basis to get away from your family, I consider pretty weak and immature.

roguecoder10• 14 years ago

I am reminded of Carol Channing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y7dJrGnEYI&feature=relat...

On the other hand, I don't think we can write off social forces. Starting in school we punish little boys from being "pussies" for doing the kinds of things that make good parents. It continues into the workplace: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/men/11/2/140/ If every time you do something people treat you worse, you are likely to stop doing that thing even if it might otherwise make us happier.

The best way to change that is to become aware of the dynamic, notice when it is happening, resist and point it out to the people around us. It is a combination of just making these choices ourselves, despite the downsides, and making sure other people don't get to unconsciously punish us for choosing non-traditional paths to happiness. They may still punish us, but they will have to confront their own bigotry to do so.

erichocean2• 14 years ago

The rule in our house is that, for work that neither of us wants to do, we do it together.

I had my 15 year wedding anniversary this month, and it's worked pretty well for us. :)

jacknews• 14 years ago

I think it has something to do with tits?

bhousel• 14 years ago

Health, Family, Career - pick 2

This is a false trilemma for only a privileged few. If you have unusually healthy genes, an unusually supportive family, or an unusually cushy job, consider yourself lucky! Both men and women need to make the same tough decisions to find balance in their life -- it's not a gender thing.

yaliceme2• 14 years ago

This is actually a big part of why I can't take any pleasure from the "bumbling/incompetent husband" stereotype in commercials, sitcoms, etc. It's supposed to pander to women, but it's actually insulting to everyone - insulting to men by implying they are too dumb to handle basic self-care, and insulting to women by implying that housework is their natural domain.

jeremymims• 14 years ago

Disclaimer: I'm not married and I don't have children.

Truly having it all (defined as having a stimulating and powerful career while being fully present in your children's lives) is difficult for anyone: women and men. There's only so much time in the day and if you want to have any type of powerful career, that will usually mean some sort of irregular hours that will mean missing important moments in a child's life. Likewise, prioritizing childcare over a career will mean missing some important moments to build a career. You couldn't go speak at that conference or stay late to build a feature or invest the weekend to come up with the new killer product. Maybe you had to miss important meetings because you had a sick child that needed to go to the doctor or couldn't do the business trip to close a deal.

The people who seem to "have it all" are usually wealthy with a flexible job (like famous actors). Their secret is they have a whole lot of help. We never hear about Angelina Jolie's nannies, professional chefs, drivers, and cleaning staff making it possible for her to "have it all". But she probably couldn't otherwise, she'd have to choose.

I'll admit that there are likely some people who really do seem to "have it all". But let's also admit that they're the anomalies. For most mere mortals, there seems to be a balance requiring a choice. As a society, we'll move towards equality when we can respect people for the choices they make instead of trying to wedge them into the mold that we want and without judging them.

My mother was an Ivy educated professional who left the workforce to take care of her children. It would be very sad if she were judged poorly for not attempting to "have it all", because in truth it was a great gift to her children. I've always respected her for her decision. Though there were times when my father couldn't be present, he's always said that not being able to spend time with his children when they were young was one of his big regrets. His sacrifice to provide for my family even though he couldn't always be there was a great gift too and deserves respect.

As employers, there are things we can do that can certainly make it easier for people on our teams who choose to be more involved in their children's lives (like daycare, good healthcare, flex time, days to work from home, etc.), but very often startups forego these amenities to extend the runway.

It's still a relatively new idea in our civilization that men and women would share equally in raising children. Equally new is the idea that we'd have two middle class parents in the workforce attempting to have high powered careers. I see progress all around us, moving more slowly than we'd hope, but generally going in the right direction.

But I think that "having it all" as a standard may be hurtful to people who can't. Everyone's circumstances are different and perhaps we should just respect people for the choices they make and for doing the best they can.

Spooky23• 14 years ago

You can have whatever you really set your mind to have. Male or female, when your time comes, none of these debates matter, and you'll figure out what you need to do.

When my son was born a few months ago, my wife felt a unexpectedly (even to her) strong desire to be home with him as much as possible. She was able to cut her schedule by about 60% -- if that wasn't possible, she would have quit. Fortunately, we have the means to make that decision and not necessity.

Is that sexist? Outdated thinking? Dumb? I don't really care -- we did what was right for us.

king_jester2• 14 years ago

So the author of this post is offended that a man can get a cookie for just being a father? That somehow getting extra attention for doing what many mothers do daily is a wrong?

Men CAN have it all. There is nothing stopping a father from pursuing parenthood full time. Fathers can ignore the negative stereotypes of men being awful caregivers and may in fact be praised for being a parent at all. The social expectation that men won't be involved in parenting is not a barrier to parenting in many cases, as few people will question your agency as a father if you choose to be more dedicated to your children.

Women have a much worse time dealing with social expectations and institutions regarding parenting. It is not that society feels that women are superior parents or are more capable of caring for children, but rather that a woman's primary purpose is to execute this role. Unless you have tremendous resources, your life's passion and having a family are mutually exclusive for many mothers. Women are expected to take on domestic responsibility and work the second shift at a much higher rate then men, so these issues affect them much more than men.

Defeating gender stereotypes in regards to parenting will help both men and women do as they please and raise their children as they wish, but let's not kid and declare that there is a need to focus on men when women are the most impacted in regards to this kind of sexism and are the least able to be free from it.

mtoddh7• 14 years ago

let's not kid and declare that there is a need to focus on men when women are the most impacted in regards to this kind of sexism and are the least able to be free from it.

"We've demonstrated that women can do what men do, but not yet that men can do what women do. That's why most women have two jobs - one inside the home and one outside it - which is impossible. The truth is that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it." Gloria Steinem

Making men equal partners in parenting isn't going to happen by focussing on only one of the parents.

slurgfest3• 14 years ago

I can see why someone would disagree with this but downvoting it seems unreasonable - it's a fairly nuanced statement...

bryanlarsen• 14 years ago

I think the downvotes were because Peter Chin never suggested that we should focus on men to the exclusion of women, he's attacking a straw man.

lifebeyondfife• 14 years ago

If I recall correctly, wasn't the reason Jeff Atwood (codinghorror) stepped down from active work on StackExchange owing to spending more time with his children?

I'd be interested to know his view on this article.

Edit: Also, my PhD supervisor went part-time after he became a father. But these are the only two examples I can think of of professional men making a career sacrifice for spending more time as a parent.

bobwaycott• 14 years ago

Social-cultural notions and expectations are, at least in the U.S., bizarre concerning males and parenting. Perhaps because there are so many who abrogate involvement and parenting.

I can't tell you how many times (okay, I'm telling, so it's been a whole hell of a lot), that I seem to get automatic plus points just for being a non-abandoning father. I have two boys (one adopted, one natural), am divorced, and have had custody of the boys since the divorce. People who find out about my single-parenting situation seem to then react in a way that implies I ought to be revered or something.

I simply don't understand this. It's as if just because I am there I am equated to "being a good father and, therefore, some kind of rare good man". I mean, I could be an absolute shit parent, and just trotting out the facts creates this unwelcome (and unhealthy) mental bias. This has become quite the issue whenever I meet otherwise interesting women, too (in the sense that their reaction to my situation has overwhelmingly been one of summarily attempting to "latch on")--so much so that I've developed a habit of specifically not mentioning being a single father at all.

I've never felt like my kids get in the way of professional aspirations. But perhaps that is because I've always tempered my professional aspirations in such a way that they exist to support my sons and give them the best life I possibly can while keeping my brain entertained with creating new things and solving challenging problems (challenging problems of a different sort than parenting). I don't pursue professional aspirations and then ask myself, "How can I squeeze my kids into this?"

luser0014• 14 years ago

> I don't pursue professional aspirations and then ask myself, "How can I squeeze my kids into this?"

Brilliant nugget! Thanks.

hansbo• 14 years ago

I don't know if it's based on culture or laws, but this article doesn't really ring true to me as a Swede. My father, like many (probably not most though) fathers I know, spent as much time home with the children as the mothers did. As I intend to as well when the time comes. It is very possible for both parents to keep up their professional careers if the burden is split between them, I think.

makomk13• 14 years ago

From what I recall, Sweden has very different cultural and legal norms around male parenting than the rest of the world - for instance, their paternity leave laws are much more friendly to fathers who want to stay at home and look after the baby so the mum can return to work than in most other countries.

crazygringo• 14 years ago

This is a really important thing to bring up.

There's so much focus on letting women have balance in their lives, but almost never men.

Women complain that they can't keep up with men because they can't reconcile 80-hour workweeks with raising children.

The solution is not healthier, more balanced workweeks for women. The solution is healther, more balanced workweeks for everyone.

The solution is creating a cultural expectation where CEO's work 50 hours a week, not 90, regardless of gender or children.

After all, male CEO's would love this just as much as female CEO's with children. But they can't ask for it, because it's seen as weak and uncommitted, and another male CEO will take their place.

There's a truth behind the clichéed businessman dying in his bed, saying he wishes he had spent less time working and more with his wife and children. But as a society, we refuse to let our male CEO's work less. Why?

refurb4• 14 years ago

You've already stated why we don't do it. Many people (men and women) choose not to have children. So if you're a CEO and you say "I don't want to work 80 hour a week", they could easily replace you with someone who says "I'll do it!".

And do you know what? That's life. It's no different than any other choice. Plenty of people who don't have children don't want to put in 80 hrs per week at their job. Should we accomodate them as well?

nitrogen• 14 years ago

Plenty of people who don't have children don't want to put in 80 hrs per week at their job. Should we accomodate them as well?

Yes, why not? "Think of the parents" arguments may just be a pretext for letting everyone work less. As productivity increases, the amount of available work decreases. We can either concentrate that work among a few, leaving many unemployed (e.g. the would-be 50hr/wk CEO), or have everyone work less.

makomk13• 14 years ago

Why? Because as a society we're not interested in confronting the problems with male gender roles when they affect men, only when they affect women. So you'll occasionally see someone poking at the edge of the problem when they realise (for instance) that men being pressured into 80-hour workweeks means women are forced to look after kids, or that women can't rise as high in the ranks as men, but that's it. Often they'll just end up trying to patch the symptoms whilst ignoring the underlying problem, for instance by trying to lower demands on female executives and employees compared to their male counterparts.

NotMyMorals8• 14 years ago

Why are gender roles a "problem?"

roguecoder10• 14 years ago

If I might turn this around, some men don't. What makes them different than those who do? I think the answer is "they are willing to be seen as less than manly."

We can not both live balanced lives and keep the prestige and power we are used to. We, as individuals, must give up our illusions that we are better than others because we manage more people or make more money or get more funding. Instead, we much know we are good enough and choose for ourselves how to distribute our short time on earth.

Men can't have it all: we must give up "man" as our primary identity in order to find our more-satisfying "self".

colmvp2• 14 years ago

"We can not both live balanced lives and keep the prestige and power we are used to."

Isn't that a double edged sword? That prestige and power is an attraction and sometimes necessity for men to court women. While I know it does happen, it's rare to find women who marry 'down' in the status ladder (be it race, income, or position). And as a marginalized male minority in the U.S., I know for certain that even good well-adjusted women wouldn't have given me the time of day if I wasn't earning a certain amount or at a high level or at a great company.

vm• 14 years ago

I'm not convinced that the best CEOs have to work such crazy hours.

It comes down to efficiency. We should all focus on being as effective as possible in the shortest amount of time. Prioritization is another way to look at it - spend time on the most important things.

This reminds me of Colman Mockler - longtime CEO of Gillette. He thwarted corporate takeovers throughout the 80's and led Gillette to massive growth and share price increases, up until his death in '91. He did all this while adamantly not working past 5pm. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find much information him online but the book, Good to Great, covers him in detail.

Sheryl Sandberg is another great example of someone who draws the line at 5:30pm and seems to be hugely effective. http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/12/facebooks-sheryl-sandb...

Ixiaus2• 14 years ago

I would argue the path to syzygy isn't "giving up" anything but "integrating". Instead of giving up "man" as an identity (complex in the psyche) why are we not "integrating woman" as an identity to be a stabilized, whole, pairing with "man"?

Our western society is very out-of-touch (IMHO) with how people's inner landscape is configured (through years of cultural stimulation, parents, western symbols, etc...).

The quick reaction is to "give up" or "repress" what you are in the present to be able to "see your true self" (ie, enlightenment); this process can work, but it is a distinctly Eastern way and their psychological configuration is very different from the Western one. The answer for the Western psyche is "integration".

How many men in our society have embraced both their masculine and feminine aspects without giving up or compromising either? Very few (I've only met one or two). The same is said for women, I have never met a single woman that has actually embraced BOTH their masculine and feminine aspects - feminists and lesbians are short circuiting it, they aren't actually integrating; gay men and metros are also short circuiting it, they aren't actually integrating.

Once the Mother and Father within are recognized and "given light" (enlightenment) will the true Self be evident and present.

rmc11• 14 years ago

But as a society, we refuse to let our male CEO's work less. Why?

There are people fighting traditional gender roles. But then you get called a feminazi by people who don't want change.

Come over to feminism. We're fighting for everyone to have the same opertunities.

NotMyMorals8• 14 years ago

>There are people fighting traditional gender roles. But then you get called a feminazi by people who don't want change.

People who embrace our traditions get called "troglodytes" "fascists" "nazis" "sexists" and the like by cultural Marxists, moralistic activists, and other fanatics.

>Come over to feminism. We're fighting for everyone to have the same opertunities.

No thanks. Feminism, like religion, should be kept to one's self. Stop trying to proselytize. You may be surprised to learn how little many people care about your 20th century social ideologies.

mtoddh7• 14 years ago

With feminists like Hanna Rosin writing articles like "The End of Men" [1], perhaps men can be forgiven for a little skepticism as to whether the fight "is for everyone."

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-...

Arelius3• 14 years ago

> Come over to feminism. We're fighting for everyone to have the same opertunities.

The problem is feminism doesn't actually do a particularly good job at making it clear that is what they are fighting for, and perhaps because there is a particularly vocal minority that doesn't believe that to be the true and proper goal of feminism.

anamax• 14 years ago

> Come over to feminism. We're fighting for everyone to have the same opertunities.

No, you're not.

For the most part, feminism is aimed at giving privileged women some of the same opportunities that privileged men have.

As a "not very privileged" man....

And, in many cases, the result of "same" has been (at best) marginal increases for women accompanied by huge decreases for men. It's unclear why that's an improvement.

And, we've yet to see feminists address female privileges, except, of course, to defend them.

prodigal_erik• 14 years ago

I would prefer that balance only apply to average people. Not maximizing unique and valuable contributions, in return for more of the grunt work that 3.5 billion couples are already covering, is not a win.

run4yourlives3• 14 years ago

> But as a society, we refuse to let our male CEO's work less.

Society is not choosing how you live your life - you are.

Your point is valid, but the real solution is to simply not play the game.

freshhawk4• 14 years ago

If you have a way to become a CEO or any position that's highly competitive without playing the game I'm sure everyone would like to hear it.

crusso5• 14 years ago

The solution is healther, more balanced workweeks for everyone.

Why do some even feel the need to have such a strong opinion on what "balance" means to different people and where they draw that line?

If you want more money and financial success, focus on your work. If you want more attention to your parenting and to devote more time to parental interaction, then focus more time on your family life.

The idea that we're going to decide as a society what a "balanced workweek" is and what that balance means between parents is alien to me. It's a topic that's so subjective and so based upon individual goals, situations, and preferences that to discuss it in the aggregate is meaningless. Worse, once people start talking about having a "balanced workweek" or a "living wage", the next step always seems to be, "Well now we need to legislate a lowest-common-denominator norm."

josephlord• 14 years ago

On the other hand unhealthy unproductive competition to work the longest doesn't do anybody any good at all.

Sometimes individual incentives don't lead to the best societal outcome and it can be beneficial to try to change the situation by setting examples, incentives or even sometimes with rules.

lmm2• 14 years ago

Without legislation we'd all be on 16-hour days. Like it or not, employment is not an equal partnership between free agents.

gms2• 14 years ago

Society doesn't refuse anything. If a male CEO wants to work less, he can do so. If another male potential CEO can perform better by working more, he will probably replace him.

The only solution to this is to mandate working hours for CEOs, an idea that rather impractical to say the least.

lmm2• 14 years ago

>Society doesn't refuse anything. If a male CEO wants to work less, he can do so. If another male potential CEO can perform better by working more, he will probably replace him.

If another male potential CEO can perform worse by working more, he will probably replace him. And that's a societal/cultural problem; we need to get over the idea that someone who puts in longer hours must be contributing more.

moskie• 14 years ago

The thing he doesn't seem to touch on is the fact that the barriers to being a good parent and the barriers to being a successful professional are different, and different per gender.

The only thing he claims is preventing men from being good parents are societal expectations. Which I agree should be different. But, still, any man, myself included, could decide to become a stay-at-home dad and successfully raise children to the best of their abilities, and nothing could stop that.

And that's substantively different from what can prevent women from being successful in the professional world. That success can be halted by tangible external forces, like institutional sexism.

macey• 14 years ago

agreed. very well written though, and to be honest, if we (as a society) right some wrongs in the area of male family roles, some of this will balance out on its own.

honestly i think that could be a really effective approach to battling institutional sexism. i think entitlement and empowerment are very different, and male entitlement is behind a lot of institutional sexism IMO. empowering men is an important factor here. a man empowered to be a great, engaged, responsible father will help to alleviate societal pressures on women--at least it'll be a wonderful start. don't you think?

in any case, this article was definitely refreshing! cool point of view.

rmc11• 14 years ago

This is a great article. This is what feminism is about. We should not hold modern people to out dated, and wrong ideas of what people can and can't do just because of their gender. Society has moved on a bit and we now no longer have discussions about whether a woman can be a CEO, we're starting to move towards this way with men & parenting.

If you're a man and you agree with this article, just watch for the next person to complain about "feminists" or "feminazis" or "political correctness gone mad". That person wants to keep you in a box and doesn't think you can be a father.

s_baby• 14 years ago

I agree with your sentiment about what feminism is at its best but you're sugar coating the historical facts. 2nd wave feminism approaches gender roles as a zero sum game. They systematically marginalize any perspective on males that doesn't frame men as oppressors.

Yes, there are authentic strands of feminism and yes they can be inclusive of the male perspective. But these strands also co-exist in the context of hateful ideologies. Worse, good feminists form in-group social cohesion with hateful zealots in the hope of "supporting their sisters". There's really no room for men in such a hostile environment.

rmc11• 14 years ago

You sure about "2nd wave"? '2nd wave' feminism is usually for things like "It should be illegal to pay men and women differently for the same work", etc. Most of that battle has been won to most people. What's currently going on is sometimes called "3rd wave feminism".

As for your theory that 'good feminists' stick with 'hateful zealots' in solidatory, that's not borne out by evidence. There is loads of infighting within all groups, including feminists. Some feminist groups are pro-prostitution and pro-pornography, some think pornography and prostitution should be banned. Some feminist groups welcome trans women, some ban them (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Womyns_Music_Festival ).

(This infighting isn't unique to feminism, it happens in lots of communities. Just look at why we have both 'Open Source' and 'Free Software' (i.e. a split))

jseims• 14 years ago

I recently had an experience that dovetails with this article.

This summer, I moved my family over to London for two months. I intended to work while there, but I was having RSI issues. So instead, I spent two months full time with my kids, the oldest one being a girl of almost 4.

This transition from work to family time was reluctant, but in retrospect was the best thing that happened to me this year. My relationship with my oldest daughter developed and deepened... we are now so much closer than before, she's matured so much since I've been able to focus on her development.

And I was never aware that this deeper relationship was a possibility, and that I was neglecting it in favor of work.

michelleclsun• 14 years ago

Thanks Peter Chin for a thoughtful piece. I have come across so many friends who grew up in a family where "my dad was never really there". Society seems to put more pressure on males (and increasingly, females) to succeed (and make more money for corporations) than to be good parents.

arturadib• 14 years ago

> Now, tell me how that is any different or less insulting than telling a women the opposite: "Sure, you're a good mother, but you're not cut out to be a CEO."

This is disingenuous. The answer is because modern men don't aspire to become good parents nearly as much as modern women aspire to holding top-level positions.

I do agree with the necessity to change the stereotype of the clumsy dad, but to bring that to the same level as that of women fighting for equality in the workplace is utterly unfair - it is by far a much Bigger Deal for modern women.

PS: If you have never seen a competent woman having frequent nervous breakdowns after putting in a disproportionate amount of work just to climb a ladder that most average men do with ease, you probably won't understand the difference.

perlgeek• 14 years ago

Other countries are ahead of the USA in this matter. For example in Norway the parents' money is reduced if the father refuses to stay at home for a certain time.

That's quite an effective measure, people actually do expect both parents to stay at home for a while.

slurgfest3• 14 years ago

This is a Christian evangelical magazine. I find the trend of increasing evangelism on HN to be mildly disturbing. Can we please refrain from using HN for religious evangelism? This does not constitute a form of repression for Christians, rather it preserves freedom for everyone who isn't Christian or who is Christian but doesn't believe in evangelism through every channel available.

heironimus• 14 years ago

Is the type of magazine more important than the article content? The subject of male bias in programming, work balance, brogrammers, etc. comes up here all the time. This article fits right in.

mahyarm2• 14 years ago

That is an ad hominem attack. The article mentions nothing of religion, it stands alone. How many articles that you read are written by the religious, probably more than you realize.

slurgfest3• 14 years ago

No, I was talking about the publication. "Ad hominem" means "to the man." Your implication that I am bigoted against religious people is an example of ad hominem.

I am a religious person. That religion happens not to be Christianity. Obviously, I have no problem with religious people and I have no problem with reading things written by religious people.

I am asking for HN to not be used as a channel for evangelism. We don't see Muslims posting da'wah here or Scientologists offering their pitches, so I don't know why Christianity is the exception (except that it is the cultural majority).

electronous• 14 years ago

I don't understand the strong insistence on having children that so many people have. Can anyone explain why this is such a big deal?

erichocean2• 14 years ago

Similarly, I don't understand the strong insistence on having sex that so many people have. Can anyone explain why this is such a big deal?

/sarc

geebee• 14 years ago

I remember reading the original article and thinking that we're slowly moving toward a situation where you could just replace "women" with "men". I've scaled back on my career because I have two small children, and I can't leave the house before 7:30 or get home much after 6pm if I want to stay involved to the extent I choose to be as a father. I want to help them with homework, music practice, sports, and just spend some time with them.

Now a lot of people may notice that I (very deliberately) used the word choose. Not everyone will make this choice, and some people have a tougher time with a choice than others. But as I remember from the Atlantic article, the author did have a husband who was available and willing to provide a very high level of domestic support. She wrote, with some hesitation, that she things women may be less inclined to spend time away from their families and at the office even when they do have this level of support (she cited both social conditioning as well as the possibility of basic biology as a factor in this).

I don't know if I'm unusual. I actually argued about this with my wife, who insists that I'm unusually at ease, as a male, with stepping back from my career to do domestic things. Personally, I have trouble believing that I am especially unusual, and I definitely know plenty of men who have made the same choice I did. Yeah, I can't have it all. If I want to limit work to 8:30am to 5:30pm, and at times have to shorten even those hours, that will affect my career. At times, I do look at other people's achievements with some envy, but I'm clear that this was my choice. I can't have it all, of course I can't. There are trade-offs in life.

There are of course still some big differences for women - I do think that it's probably harder for a woman to find a male partner who will fill the domestic gap than it is for a man to find a woman who will do this (though even if they do, they'll still have to accept the "understudy" role as a parent as they spend more time at the office than their husbands). If there truly is a deeper, biological pull here for women on average, then maybe we should look into better "on ramps" for people in their 40s (the author said she is frequently asked about this, and her honest answer is that there aren't really any good on ramps for middle aged people, at least not in her field).

I still see differences between men and women around the question of whether we can "have it all", but this does seem to be converging - and ultimately the answer will be "no, you can't."

FeministHacker• 14 years ago

"it’s patriarchy that says men are stupid and monolithic and unchanging and incapable. It’s patriarchy that says men have animalistic instincts and just can’t stop themselves from harassing and assaulting. It’s patriarchy that says men can only be attracted by certain qualities, can only have particular kinds of responses, can only experience the world in narrow ways. Feminism holds that men are capable of more - are more than that. Feminism says that men are better than that"

(The source, http://zeroatthebone.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/on-claiming-to..., isn't entirely relevent, although it's conculsion is)

ten_fingers• 14 years ago

I tried: My wife and I both got Ph.D. degrees intending to have two careers, do well financially, and, with money in the bank, have a family.

In four words, it did not work.

A longer description is, eventually the evidence became overwhelming: Mother Nature and Darwin were there long before we were and very much did not want us doing that, and they were very strong minded about this: She struggled and struggled; the struggles caused stress, eventually the stress caused depression; the depression made the struggles and stress worse and caused severe depression; and that was fatal. No joke. Her Ph.D. had been a big investment that got 'written off'.

Or couples that could have done what we tried just were not among our ancestors. All this is in spite of what is commonly said would, could, and should be.

Thus, I suggest: In simple terms, Mother Nature and Darwin have arranged that without certainty but with high probability in practice and significantly on average a 'professional woman' is a weak, sick, or dead limb on the tree. Sorry 'bout that. Wish I'd known that earlier.

How could this "weak, sick, dead" stuff be? Here's a guess: In our 'culture' from the past few thousand or ten thousand years, women nearly never had opportunities to pursue a 'profession' and became wives and mommies whether they really, consciously or otherwise, wanted to or not. So, our 'nature', 'nurture'. 'social and psychological capital', and 'culture', or whatever, from the past kept the tree growing while, still, a significant fraction of the women didn't want to be just wives and mommies.

So, what's different now? Now the US society and economy have changed giving many women an opportunity to pursue a career or profession, and, with significantly high probability, these women are removing their genes from the gene pool.

E.g., in Finland, women are encouraged to pursue careers, and on average the number of children born to a woman in Finland is about 1.5. So, let's see: For some simple arithmetic, with one generation of 25 years, after 150 years the population will fall by

     100 * (1 - ( 1.5 / 2 ) ** 6 ) = 82.2%

So in the last 150 years or so Finland beat back the Swedes, Nazis, and Soviets but in the next 150 years are on track to lose out to careers for women!

This situation is common across Europe: The gene pool is being severely pruned. In simple terms, Europe is rapidly going extinct.

My guess is that the European gene pool is now in the period of most rapid change in at least the last 10,000 years.

Darwin stands to win this one: What will be left will be women who really, REALLY want to be mommies in good families.

Darwin has more to say: The situation for men is not easy, either: For the tree to do well, men have to be good providers, good enough that their wives can concentrate on doing well in motherhood. Some men are successful, and some are not -- Darwin again!

Without some big and chancy changes in work and families, thoughts about would, could, and should be pale to insignificance as Darwin wins again.

Or, it's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature!

Maybe in Finland and most of Europe, by the time the population falls by, say, 75% from now the new gene pool, 'culture', etc. that emphasizes motherhood along with the more favorable ratio of land to people will cause the population to stabilize and, then, start to grow again. Maybe.

AgathaTheWitch• 14 years ago

I see a few flaws with the author's analysis:

The first is the premise that that which a father does for his family outside of the home does not count toward "caregiving". Being successful in a career puts a roof over a child's head, provides him with material comforts, creates educational opportunities, and establishes a positive role-model. It may not be a romantic sentiment, but I wouldn't exchange all that my father provided for me growing up (nice home, good schools, help with tuition, good example of professionalism, etc) for him changing my diapers or playing catch with me a few more times than he did.

In many ways, a man does right by his family by focusing on his career. The same can be true of a woman. Ultimately, there is a set of requirements for raising a child - among these, physical proximity with a caregiver, instruction, affection, socialization, and all of the material necessities, such as housing, food, and health care. How parents divvy up the provisioning of these things is up to each couple, however in my experience, a division of labor (as opposed to doing everything 50-50) is often more practical.

This whole conversation is sort of silly since no gender and no individual can ever "have it all". Life requires compromise - saying no to some things we want in exchange for a higher value. No man or woman can put in 100 hours of work as a CEO captain of industry, and simultaneously spend 8 hours a day reading to their kids. Both spheres of life demand time, a finite resource, and thus it is up to parents to strike a balance.

The other issue I have with the author's analysis is the "ought." The "ought" is the idea that 50-50 (fathers and mothers having an equal focus on child-rearing and career) is a thing to aspire to for our society. This relies on the assumption that there is no meaningful difference between men and women that should allow for this, or at least the assumption that if such a difference exists, it ought to be resisted. I disagree. There are benefits to many of our biologically and culturally based gender norms, and we should embrace the productive ones that relate to child-rearing.

johngalt2• 14 years ago

Men have been making this trade-off for centuries. It's self evident to us that the world works this way. That's why we don't write articles about it. When reading similar articles from women lamenting this trade-off, the response is a resounding "what did you expect?"

enraged_camel• 14 years ago

Yes, it is self-evident to us men that the world works this way, because we as men designed it that way. The vast majority of societies in human history have been patriarchal, with men making the rules. These rules have, until recently, included things like "women cannot work" and "women cannot vote." And because this has been like this for a long time, we (men) have accepted it as normal and don't see a need to write articles about it.

But times are changing. Gender equality has huge societal and economic benefits, and is a goal worth striving for. To make progress in this arena, we must challenge the status quo. Articles like this are a good way of raising public awareness about the issues that come up.

goggles99• 14 years ago

Fighting against natures clear and obvious intent of gender roles will not ever lead to a happier and more fulfilled life.

Why Men Can't Have It All

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