Comments on: Nurturing a Baby AND a Startup Business

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:29:31 +0000

Michelle36: Two questions. How does loading the planet down with more people than it can sustain support survival of the species? If the species doesn’t survive, who will care?

Mindless adherence to biological impulses is not a strong moral argument, in my view. It’s the same argument that men use when they say they just “can’t help themselves.” Third question. Do you want to be on the receiving end of that argument?

By: Helen

Helen — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:15:30 +0000

Michelle 36: “ultimately, the main purpose of men and women on this Earth is to procreate, that’s why we are here.”

I guess this is the difference between those who believe that “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and those who don’t believe that. Personally, I believe human life is more precious than simply following the dictates of biology. But I am not casting any judgments on who believes what. Even philosophers don’t agree on this: Rousseau would cast sides with you. But I cast sides with Socrates.

Basically, I agree with everything Mia said in 22, except two things: First, Mia, if you decide later that you do not want children, you shouldn’t feel obligated to adopt just because some people believe that every woman should have children. Only do it if you think this is what you really want. Second, it’s only been recently that women have been outranking men in education up to the undergraduate level (but not beyond), so this may be why you haven’t seen more professional women at high ranks. We’re decades older than this newest group of women. Give it some time, for the impacts of improved women’s education to percolate to the top.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 00:33:40 +0000

#25. I wasn't sure if this referred to something I mentioned, if it was, it was not read correctly. In the world I live in, the children of today are going to grow up and run institutions, governments, businesses, schools, etc., etc. in the future. #34 The original post is about a woman who CHOOSES to start a start-up, in this case, it wasn't thrust upon her. #22, As I understand it, ultimately, the main purpose of men and women on this Earth is to procreate, that's why we are here. If someone doesn't procreate, then how does the species survive? We're also biologically built to do that. It's NOT the only thing we do throughout life, but the main one. HOWEVER, we are lucky enough to have a choice if we want to do that or not.

By: Daphne

Daphne — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:12:21 +0000

@Evan: You appear to give the same advice to men considering dating Alpha women that you have given to women considering dating Alpha men. Be careful because they’re always first.
Do you believe that hyper-successful women are basically the same as hyper-successful men in terms of relationships ?

By: sarahrahrah!

sarahrahrah! — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:38:39 +0000

@ Ruby #27

“Really, this notion of “having it all”, is laughable when “it all” is thrust upon so many people who don’t really have a choice.”

Well said, Ruby. As a single parent by circumstance and not by choice, I couldn’t agree more.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:50:28 +0000

SS31: I would assume that the person who minimized child rearing was expressing her own values.

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 13:26:03 +0000

Much as I dislike Lori Gottlieb’s strident tone (there was no need to compare Ms Slaughter to a bratty kindergartner), I agree with her completely again. No one can have it all. It isn’t a feminist thing. Men can’t have it all either.

The difference is – forgive me if it’s politically incorrect to say - I believe that today, women expect more than men do. We expect more of ourselves, and we expect more from the world. Partly it’s because we think we need to fulfill others’ expectations. There’s a huge amount of pressure on us to be “good mothers,” whatever that means to us; but especially if we received a lot of education and training, we also expect a high-powered career and believe that others expect it of us too.

The truth of the matter is, we probably need to lower our expectations on BOTH fronts – parenthood and career. Or, we can make a conscious choice to focus on one or the other, but not both. NYTimes ran an article near Father’s Day about how both fathers and mothers are spending more one-on-one time with their children than back in the 1960s-80s, but somehow we’re harder on ourselves (women, at least) about not devoting enough time to them. At the same time, more women are moving into increasingly powerful careers. What do we expect? Something has to give. We can’t do MORE parenting than others did in the past AND devote more time to career simultaneously.

So I think it’s time for women to stop being so hard on ourselves (and others) and face the fact that life is about choices, and we can’t have it all. We should decide, based on our life circumstances, how much we want to devote to each activity given time and energy constraints – and BE AT PEACE with that decision, whatever voices may say from outside.

By: SS

SS — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:56:41 +0000

Actually Jon, I don’t have any children yet, but I’ve always felt this way.
Creating and nurturing life and completing material endeavors aren’t comparable concepts, as far as I’m concerned. If you noticed in my post, I said that one can’t rank them on the same levels of importance… that goes both ways.

If raising a child is not someone’s desire, that’s perfectly fine. Then I say those people don’t get to make the comparison to raising human life because it’s something they haven’t done.
I certainly can’t say my material achievements are more important than having a child and raising one, because I haven’t done the latter. And even if I had, I really couldn’t compare the two because that would be like comparing apples and oranges… who’s really to say that starting a company is more meaningful than having a child? (Or vice versa if one doesn’t want children?)
The value judgment was made when the original statement was typed that minimized child-rearing.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:19:42 +0000

SS28: There are many life experiences that are unique and meaningful, that nothing else compares to. These are personal value judgments, by their nature intangible. I can respect that raising a child is the most meaningful experience for you (if that’s what you’re saying), but please respect that for others it is not.

To bring the moral puzzle to the forefront here: If giving birth to and raising 1 child is meaningful, is giving birth to and raising 10 children more meaningful? I’m imagining that most people would think that at some point having kids loses its meaningfulness. Who decides where that line is?

SS28: There are many ways to nurture human life–material endeavors among them. There’s just a lot of work to be done.

By: Goldie

Goldie — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:08:30 +0000

@ Jon #25, excellent point, I was going to comment on it too! So many things wrong with that statement, “your children will take care of you when you’re old”. In addition to your points, here are a few of mine.

1) A child is a person, not an investment that the parents expect to pay off in 30 years with interest. That’s a pretty utilitarian way to look at a human being, your close family member no less.

2) Our children have no obligation to support us in our old age. If they don’t want to, we can’t make them. They will however have obligations to support their own families, and that comes first. I certainly wouldn’t want my grown children to take resources from their own families and give them to me.

3) Bad things happen. It’s possible that our children won’t physically or financially be able to support us in our old age, even if they want to. Heck, what if my son marries a woman who wants to be a stay-at-home mom to fifteen kids? There’s no way he’ll be able to support me then, even if he’s so inclined. I do not have the financial resources to support my own parents right now, fortunately they love being self-sufficient and I’d have had the hardest time forcing my money on them anyway.

Basically, having children for the reason that they will support you in your old age is same as marrying a man for the reason that you don’t want to work outside of home… a recipe for disaster.