
I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/opinion/sunday/ive-picked-my-job-over-my-kids.html
======
MRD85
I made the opposite choice. I'm a single father and I've prioritised my
children over my career. I'm not going to pretend it's an amazing lifestyle.
If you're intellectually driven then looking after two young children isn't
fascinating. However, I love them and they rely on me. I made a choice to
bring them into the world and I'm not going to neglect them. I have the kids
more than their mother does, and I also pay significant child support as I
earn far more than her.

It's affected my career choices. I started studying Comp Sci, as I felt it's a
field where I can have more flexibility than my current field. This degree is
getting closer and closer to completion and it's looking 95% likely that my
career will be changing in January.

It's affected my love life too but I won't go into detail here.

One thing this article misses the mark on is the quote " I also remind myself
that if I were a dad, I would be getting accolades for all the times I
scheduled a doctor’s appointment or arranged a play date.".

My experience as a dad is that people simply don't trust my parenting skills
or assume I'm simply helping the mum out. It's incredibly sexist and somewhat
hurtful. There has been times I've been battling with my workload and then
people drop innocent comments which feel like a knife in the back.

~~~
yomly
>If you're intellectually driven then looking after two young children isn't
fascinating.

I've never understood this viewpoint - children are simply the most
fascinating things!

They're born with next to no inborn knowledge and yet have the potential to
learn about quantum mechanics. Someone with the same potential would only have
learned about fire some hundred thousands of years ago.

In the early days you get to see a baby slowly mentally program the things we
take so for granted we forget that you actually have to learn them - how to
walk, how to speak, language.

YMMV but for me to see the world indirectly through the eyes of children is
like rediscovering everything there is to the world we live in!

~~~
jon-wood
On the scale of months and years children are amazing, and I agree it’s
fascinating to watch as they develop into their own people.

However, on the scale of hours and days they can be mind-numbingly boring, as
anyone who’s played hide and seek with a four year old who repeatedly goes and
hides in their bedroom cupboard can probably attest. I love my boy dearly, but
I am so, so, bored of playing the first hour of Minecraft now - he loves it
though, so every few days we start up a new world, and we mine our way down to
some diamonds, at which point he loses interest.

~~~
novok
I don’t think parents were ever meant to play hide and seek with their
children for hours on end, but to let them go play with the other 4 year olds
and relatives in the village, give them bandaids and hugs when they fall, have
them be back by sundown, feed them food and tuck them into bed by 8pm.

But in todays atomized and helicopter parenting with liability world, you
can’t do that and thus parenting is a lot more work than it should be.

------
EdwardDiego
I'm a single father of five who obtained full-time custody last year, and
trying to balance work and parenting is a never-ending challenge.

Some of my observations:

1) Kids have a great time with other kids, so don't feel bad about daycare.
Having them at home full-time past the age of 2 is, I think, more about the
parent than the child.

2) Sometimes kids just suck, and work can be a glorious escape.

3) School life in my culture (NZ) is still modelled like there's always one
stay at home parent, which means you'll never be able to be there for every
certificate, every kapa haka performance, and kids are okay about it so long
as you communicate, and do get to the occasional one.

4) You can fit a lot of effective parenting into dinner table discussions and
bedtime discussions

5) I'm really glad I'm a single Dad and not a single Mum because there are
very few cultural expectations of me beyond working, and everyone acts like
I'm amazing for just raising my kids. It's kinda insulting to both genders.

6) It's impossible to perfectly balance a 40 hour working week and family.
Best you can aim for is a kind of homeostasis where work suffers for family
one week and then family suffers a bit for work the next.

~~~
EdwardDiego
And because I left it too late to edit it in.

7) You will feel, at times, like you're letting down everyone equally,
workmates and children both. And you just have to ride with it.

And I've found that workmates will notice your child related late starts or
early finishes, and resent them. The only solution is communication. And a
decent employer.

Our work culture also assumes two people families to an extent.

~~~
tbyehl
> You will feel, at times, like you're letting down everyone equally

My girlfriend struggles with that quite a bit. And now that we're fully
cohabitated and my work-from-home / lack-of-commute situation allows me to
participate in more kids things that aren't accomodating to parents with
traditional work schedules and typical commutes... I get heaps of praise from
everyone, including her, for basically just not being a dick.

~~~
EdwardDiego
Eh, the bar is set low for men. Stick around, hold down a job, and actually
parent, and you're considered amazing.

It's the flip side of the "women with careers are neglecting their children"
and "men at the park are paedos!" mindset.

It's nice having positive feedback, but I'd prefer a society where it's
unremarked upon.

~~~
ovatsug25
Great! I find I might be in the same situation in the future. How do you do
parenting around the dinner table? Heck—how do you get dinner ready for 5?! If
you can, would love to hear more! :)

~~~
EdwardDiego
Everyone eats together, no screens, books, toys etc. Especially me, it's
always tempting to clean while they eat, but there's so much more value just
touching base.

And then we talk. Things that happened at school, on the bus, at work, in the
news. Any teachable moments come up, you use them - especially good for
reinforcing the values you're trying to impart by running through scenarios
based on what happened.

Bedtime is the important one. Having 15 minutes alone with them, in a muted
environment where they feel safe, is where they feel best able to express
emotional stuff. Once again, easy to skip and do the multitude of other tasks,
but too valuable.

And in terms of cooking, buying in bulk and cooking in bulk. Pastas, risottos,
pies etc. I like stuff that's quick for after work, or can be cooked the night
before and reheated. I'm not a very organised person so the last year has been
a definite learning experience.

~~~
rlonn
I think your kids are very lucky. You seem to know what's important and be
determined enough to get it. The only thing I can add that I didn't see on
your list is "Take care of yourself also". My dad died young because he didn't
take care of himself, and his four kids thought it kind of sucked. Perhaps see
yourself as just the eldest kid in the family. Easy to say, hard to do I
guess.

~~~
EdwardDiego
That is hard, but I try. My partner and I (we still run separate households)
cherish the time we get together - and I'm really lucky that my oldest son is
able and willing to watch the others, every Saturday, when my toddler is down
for her nap, my partner and I have lunch at a favourite restaurant.

------
jedberg
> I also remind myself that if I were a dad, I would be getting accolades for
> all the times I scheduled a doctor’s appointment or arranged a play date.

1000 times this. If I take the kids to the store, or through airport security,
or pretty much anywhere, women are practically running over to "help" me.
Thank you but I got it. Go help that poor mom over there with three meltdowns
to deal with, she needs it a lot more than me.

The other day we had a birthday party for my daughter, and some of the moms
saw me prepping food and doing work while I gave my wife a chance to relax and
talk to the guests. They actually told her they were surprised that I would
"allow" her to take a break like that. Seriously?! First of all, she is
"allowed" to do whatever they hell she wants, and secondly, how messed up is
it that their immediate expectation is that mom should be working the whole
time while dad gets to relax?

But my favorite story of all was I was in the bathroom at Newark airport,
changing my daughter's diaper. A man walks in wear the most "New Jersey"
outfit ever -- expensive suit, slicked hair, gold chains, etc. He said,
"Where's the mom?"

"Outside."

"Why isn't she changing the diaper then?"

I said, "She didn't want to?"

He didn't even know what to say after that, his mind was so blown.

~~~
lukego
This is very cultural too. Some places it's expected that dads take care of
kids equally with mums.

I heard a great anecdote about a Manhattanite visiting Stockholm on vacation.
Lots of men pushing prams all around town. "My goodness, look at all the young
male nannies in Sweden!"

~~~
rlonn
Yes, in Stockholm (and I guess most of Sweden) noone local raises an eyebrow
when a dad comes pushing a pram. I think there's been a change the past 10-15
years when new parental leave requirements has forced both parents to share
the parental leave (or they'll get less of it). This made it almost stupid for
many dads not to go on parental leave and it's accelerated a change that would
otherwise have taken some time.

------
drtillberg
> I had picked the [trial] date, not the judge, [to coincide with my kid's
> seventh birthday] because I knew that the other side wasn’t ready. Delaying
> even a few days would have meant losing a crucial advantage. I wasn’t going
> to risk it knowing what was on the line for my client.

I would just like to say that picking the most inconvenient time for all
counsel involved is one of those tactics you see in the practice of law too
often. And for what? So all the lawyers can miss every major holiday, and
their kids birthdays? To make the other lawyers beg for the time off everyone
else takes for granted? The article-writer lost me on this one, and I'm sad to
see this person is a professor teaching this same toolkit of antisocial
tactics to the next generation of lawyers.

~~~
jere
Call me extremely naive but I thought the point of a trial was to expose all
the facts and give both sides ample time to do so, not to try to win over a
"crucial advantage" by playing games. Seems like bad ethics in addition to bad
parenting.

~~~
cheez
Oh boy you should not ever go into a legal situation with that perspective.
It's about gaming every possible advantage.

------
rrggrr
Gosh. This is me. I sacrificed almost ten years of my career to be there for
my sons as a divorced dad. Work travel, sales, meetings - much of it missed so
the boys could have me as much as possible. Doctors, judges, lawyers, mom's
were hostile & cold throughout it all. It was the single biggest contributing
factor to the failure of my business this year. And... It was worth it. The
boys are turning out to be fantastic young adults, our relationship is strong,
and they both fought hard to get even more time with me. Hard road, great
destination. The courts are total shit btw.

------
dmje
We've made our lives around a "kids first" policy since they were born. We run
our own business (together) and consistently and deliberately put this second
to our children. We know it's going to hurt in a financial sense later - we
are very much living for now, knowing that the eldest who is 14 may be leaving
home in 4 years and the youngest who is 12 will be off in 6.

We're in a fortunate situation, in that the work we do is profitable and
relatively low stress, but we also make decisions frequently that keep our
work in balance. For instance, we could grow and take on employees, but have
chosen not to; we consistently say no to new work even if it's hugely
profitable if we know it is going to impact on holiday or family time - or our
sanity!

Kids seem to me to be the single, unequivocally most important thing in the
world. Creating them and nurturing them is after all what evolution is solely
interested in. Making a new generation who is loved, balanced, ready to step
out into the world on their own - this is, and will always be, more important
to me than work.

The subtext - and it's a really important one - in the article, is about the
empowerment of women. This is horribly unbalanced; for biological, social,
whatever reasons. This is broken, and women get a terrible deal: this needs
addressing.

But at the heart is just being with your kids and loving them, and for me that
means putting work second.

I should also just add: actually, we put _us_ as a couple high up in
importance too. Too many people forget this when raising children: you need
time to be you and to be a couple, and it's easy to forget this after years of
nurturing kids!

~~~
eertami
Even without kids I work like this. Just because I'm not a parent doesn't mean
I'm going to take on work that could potentially stress me out eat into
vacation time...

It seems like more of a work-life balance philosophy thing than parenting
thing, I simply couldn't imagine working more than 50% of the year but others
are content doing 60hr weeks with 2 week vacation.

If that's what makes them happy then power to them.

~~~
dmje
Totally agree. But I think the discussion / original article here posed the
question regarding kids. Totally up for workaholic-ism if that's your bag (and
it was mine when I was in my 20's and childless) - but in the case of this
article I'd question why have kids in the first place if your focus is going
to be entirely on work. I know sometimes this just happens but it feels
dangerous to the sanity and wellbeing of the kids involved.

------
rayiner
I love this article. Parents today spend more than twice as much time today
with their kids today than fifty years ago:
[https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2017/11/27/parents-...](https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2017/11/27/parents-now-spend-twice-as-much-time-with-their-children-
as-50-years-ago). Fat lot of good that did the last couple of generations.

Parents spend too much time apologizing for prioritizing their careers, and
it’s particularly unfair to women. Studies repeatedly fail to show significant
and durable results from different kinds of parenting styles. But you know
what is shown, in study after study, as highly correlated with children's’
long term prosperity? Parental income.

~~~
fooddood
What's the definition of a child's long term prosperity? Is it grades or does
it take into account emotional/physical well-being? And do those studies go
into adulthood?

~~~
rayiner
[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f239/63aabbc3053bba4c5a5e68...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f239/63aabbc3053bba4c5a5e68cfb8b0a7fd0464.pdf)

> This research examined the association between parenting style and life
> satisfaction in adulthood (N=112). Participants responded to an online
> survey, called the Parenting Style and Life Satisfaction Survey, which
> included questions pertaining to parenting style experienced in childhood,
> parenting style used in adulthood, and levels of life satisfaction. A chi-
> square test was conducted to determine if there was a relationship between
> parenting style experienced in childhood and the adult's own parenting
> style. Analysis of variance tests were conducted to determine how parenting
> style experienced in childhood was connected to life satisfaction in
> adulthood and how the adult's parenting style was related to their life
> satisfaction. Correlations revealed that there were no statistically
> significant relationships between parenting style and life satisfaction.
> Results were interpreted and implications were discussed.

~~~
nradov
Is life satisfaction the correct metric?

~~~
krageon
Yes, because that is how we determine whether or not someone needs help in the
first place. If you have a better alternative, I invite you to elaborate.

------
icu
"Pick your sacrifice" applies here. I think you need to know where your red
lines are in your career and family life. Having a schedule helps you keep on
track.

Other than that, my Dad once said something along the lines of, "Life is a
constant juggling act; you have your work ball, your family ball etc. However,
your family ball is made of glass, so if you drop it, it will shatter and you
may not be able to put it together again."

------
n1000
I am that child. My parents were very eager to make a great career. Today I
suffer from the emotional neglect with some issues such as ADHD.

Being a father myself today, I do think kids can do with relatively little
facetime. But the time that is devoted to them must be exclusive quality time
that makes it clear you love them and that you are present. There are studies
that have shown that if fathers take 30 minutes of exclusive attention for
their kids every day, it has great benefits for the child‘s development.

~~~
icu
It may be helpful to look into the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) test and
the research around it. It helped me gain an objective perspective and
overcome patterns of family dysfunction that impacted my psychology.

~~~
n1000
Interesting! Yes, childhood trauma can be one outcome of neglect. Any articles
you can recommend in particular?

------
zanny
If you have children and then choose to work over doing the legitimately full
time job of being a parent (full time being at least 40 hours a week, not that
you _can 't_ do anything else ever) you need to provide them at least _a_
parent to do that job or else you are neglecting them.

Psychology is pretty uniform in the observation that children need parents,
preferably both, but just one is a massive developmental influence. There are
minor benefits from they/them being biological but it isn't absolutely
necessary, but a care worker, teacher, etc is not filling the same social
niche with a child that a parent is. Its a job title in its own right that
also has by far the most impact on developing functioning healthy human beings
than any other. Its also a job you don't just quit or substitute for without
lasting consequences, the role of a parent is to anchor children and provide
an immovable stake upon their foundation.

You can absolutely hire a parent if you don't want to or have the time
yourself to parent the children you make, but it is substantively harmful to
deny them having parent(s) when they need them. If a mother wants to work a
full time job while a spouse or even just long term domestic partner? wants to
take on the job of being a (or more) parent(s) that works. If a father wants
to do the same, that works. But kids still need parent(s), preferably two, and
that is two full time positions to fill.

One quandary to think on is that society really doesn't organize or optimize
for parental efficiency. We organize schools to lecture and teach to try to
balance between quantity of children to a quality of education, but adults are
just en masse making new lives and mostly playing it by ear on fulfilling
parental responsibilities. We haven't tried to promote good parents to be
parents by getting them more children - biological or not - to parent. As a
civilization it feels backwards to me how what might be the most important job
there is - developing future generations - is the one that is the least
recognized for its value and importance. It isn't a career, it isn't
prestigious, it isn't treated with the same scrutiny you would want to see in
getting your plumbing fixed. But broken pipes are a much less substantive
issue than mental malaise or physiological complications brought about by poor
or absent parenting in the development of the billions to succeed us.

~~~
EdwardDiego
> you need to provide them at least a parent to do that job or else you are
> neglecting them.

When am I neglecting my kids exactly? In the two hours of after school care
between school ending and my coming home?

You're implying that there's a direct correlation between quantity and quality
of parenting, that's a bold claim.

~~~
kspacewalk
When it comes to panting, an important part of quality _is_ quantity. As much
as some people want to think that a day filled to the brim with exciting
activities is a substitute for a week of near-absence, it's just not. That's
not only my experience, but the experience of many of my friends with parents
who greatly prioritized their career over spending time with them.

~~~
kspacewalk
Well I certainly didn't mean "panting"... My bad.

------
proee
My mother was amazing in that no matter when I called her on the phone, it was
impossible to tell if she was in an important meeting.

I'd call her after school and chat for a while, only a to find out a bit later
that she was in the middle of closing a huge deal!

This made me feel like a million bucks - to know that even though she was very
busy, I was still important enough to have her full attention whenever I
called her.

I always "felt" like I was more important than her work.

------
musha68k
Coincidently I just saw a convincing interview with a father from the Greatest
Generation where he shares his regrets on being a famous yet absent father:

[https://youtu.be/GJMciK6xWrk](https://youtu.be/GJMciK6xWrk)

I'm not judging her preference on having a successful career - I'm the same
actually - yet I don't plan to have children because of that very reason...

I remember that Dr Gabor Maté also talks a lot about the scars and potential
trauma a child can be left with when neglected. I remember presence of _both_
parents to be of paramount importance. And that's not "only" a problem for the
child but for society at large.

------
milliondollar
I made the opposite choice. I left a 7 figure a year (but 70% travel) job to
take a few years off with my kids. I'm under no illusion that my kids will be
that much better for it, but I will be.

I am consuming this time with just absolute relish. A relationship is the sum
of small things. And driving them to school is part of that overall cumulative
time that ... just... matters. For me. I'm sure the kids would be great if
their mom did it without me. But I only have one shot here, only a few years
where the kids are 12 years old. So yeah, I'll spend my 7 figures a year for
this. (Bezos test: would I make the same choice on my death bed looking back?)

She is in a unique situation in that she could _choose_ to live any way she
wants; she's not some working stiff. And she is choosing something else. It's
not going to hurt her kids, but I think it's a tradeoff she may regret later.

------
tanakachen
I respect her choice but I wouldn’t want to be her kid

~~~
abledon
lol, my coworker always goes off on a rant about how much it would suck being
elon musk's kids. can't convince him its just a different upbringing

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Does Musk even have kids?

Dang, according to wiki, he has 5 living kids.

~~~
benatkin
Had to know what happened to the other kid(s) and whether it was just one:

"Their first son, Nevada Alexander Musk, died of sudden infant death syndrome
(SIDS) at the age of 10 weeks."

More interestingly, the five are two twins and three triplets.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Wouldn’t that mean fertility drugs were probably involved? Anyways, I guess he
really likes kids, which is a bit surprising.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Yes:

[https://www.asrm.org/topics/topics-index/multiple-births-
or-...](https://www.asrm.org/topics/topics-index/multiple-births-or-multiple-
gestation/)

------
hindsightbias
One morning, about 2am in one of the Mission Control rooms at JSC, I was
sitting next to two semi-retired flight controllers managing a simulation.
They went back to Apollo.

One of my 20-something peers walked back to our row where the pizza boxes lay,
ruffled through them, sighed “its all cold” and walked back to his terminal.

Now, we’d been doing this for weeks.

Old fart #1 turns to #2 and says under his breath “You know, I gave up my
marriage and kids to get us to the moon”

And so they did.

~~~
permatech
You know, I think we would have still made it to the moon if those two guys
spent time with their family

~~~
Jare
But it wasn't just about mankind making it to the moon. It was about getting
there "before the bad guys". About making a show of willpower. About proving
that no sacrifice is too large.

~~~
krageon
> About proving that no sacrifice is too large.

I would posit that this mindset is broadly a disease and not a cure.

~~~
hollerith
Any yet if Britain and France had made more of a show of willpower in 1937
then Germany probably would've decided against starting WWII and about 28
million lives would've been saved.

------
spiderfarmer
I sold my previous company and started a one man company mostly because now I
can now be at home when my kids get out of school. Best decision ever. I work
when they’re at school. And I work when they go to bed. No stress, no guilt,
no worries. It’s awesome.

I grew up on a farm. My parents were home 24/7\. I liked that.

~~~
electriclove
What kind of company?

~~~
vmurthy
Not OP, but his profile says this: "Allround developer, currently setting up a
large network of agricultural communities"

------
notacoward
I feel like the author is using one part of her story to excuse other
unrelated decisions. Sure, defending a man she believes was improperly
convicted and a victim of racism is important. _Very_ important. It seems
perfectly reasonable to weigh that responsibility against that she owes to her
kids (though I might still make the opposite choice myself). But another
student to teach? Another story to write? Nope. Other people can do one, and
the other might not need to be done at all. The incremental benefit to anyone
but the author herself is minimal, compared to the _major_ incremental benefit
of being there for her children. Which brings us to this.

> If I didn’t write and teach and litigate, a part of me would feel empty.

This sounds like the real reason, and _it 's not a bad one_. Self-care is
important. It's hard to be a good parent (or spouse BTW) if you're not a
healthy person. But that's a different argument from the one about all of
one's work being important to others. Some seems to be, and some less so. When
a facile reason is given, even if good reasons also exist, it seems like
unhealthy rationalization. But then, picking and promoting a most favorable
narrative is exactly what trial lawyers do. I guess it's an easy trap to fall
into. I just hope she's right that the choice to favor her career really will
prove most fulfilling in the longer term.

~~~
simonh
I don't think it's for us to pre-judge which rationalisations are good ones
and which aren't. Some of them seem pretty compelling, but for others such as
the student needing help we just don't know enough about the specific
circumstances to know.

Individually I can agree that yes this task is important enough to give up
that event with her children. They might all be reasonable. I think the
problem comes when you look at the aggregate.

One lawyer can't save every victim of injustice or teach every student. Does
she actually need to get into every one of these demanding situations one
after the other, with no gap? Even then, maybe the answer is yes if that's
what it takes to get ahead in her career to achieve the things she wants to,
but that's really the tradeoff not the individual instances.

------
m0zg
Prioritizing clients over kids seems misguided if there's a conscious choice
being made, but in my childhood I think I benefited a lot from benign neglect:
not having everything micromanaged by my parents who let me figure things out
on my own, just because they didn't feel like they had to help me the moment I
have the slightest hint of a problem. Thanks to this I could pursue things
that _I_ (rather than my parents) wanted to pursue, and I had vast stretches
of free time to do it. I joined a volleyball team on my own, I learned
electronics and programming on my own, I've read basically all of "golden age"
science fiction worth reading, I got our math teacher at school to give a few
of us extra lessons to prepare for the college entrance exam, etc.

This autonomy had two interesting effects. On the one hand it definitely
benefited me later in life, because I felt like I had a built-in direction. On
the other I don't like it when people tell me what to do, particularly if they
have an unearned position of power and don't really know what to do
themselves, but have to "lead", by hook or by crook.

~~~
ido
When given the opportunity, some kids will do what you did & others will watch
TV all day long.

~~~
m0zg
It's much easier to waste time nowadays, I agree (my son is a perfect example;
left to his own devices he'd do pretty much what you said). My father got rid
of our TV when I was 10 years old and haven't bought one since. Internet also
wasn't a thing back then.

------
minipci1321
The title should have been "I've picked getting unjustfully condemned people
out of prison, over my kids". It would make 2/3 of the comments irrelevant.

Prioritizing a more "normal" job over raising own kids is a very different
subject.

~~~
danielscrubs
If you are a bad lawyer and a good father it's way better to let someone else
do the work right? ;) /jk

------
Causality1
>I had picked the date, not the judge, because I knew that the other side
wasn’t ready. Delaying even a few days would have meant losing a crucial
advantage.

Doesn't our paradigm of adversarial justice require that lawyers subscribe to
an idea of fair competition? I don't see any difference between using the
trial date or venue setting to attack your opponent and, say, using trick
make-up and a wig to make your client look nothing like the person the
witnesses saw.

~~~
sokoloff
I would imagine that adversarial justice would work best when each side is
vigorously preparing and putting forth their strongest arguments.

We enumerate that a defendant is under no obligation to help the prosecution
as just an extreme example of this. That almost all patent infringement cases
were held in a backwater East Texas district is evidence that the system
doesn't work as that description of "fair competition" would suggest.

------
6cd6beb
Disheartening.

I grew up with absentee parents. This is an unwelcome spin on that situation.
I can't even give an opinion on this that doesn't immediately fly into rage. I
just hope I don't try to pair off with someone who ends up getting hoodwinked
by articles like this. This is disgusting.

~~~
rayiner
There is a difference between parents who are absent because they don’t care,
and parents who are absent because they have a lot of work to do. My dad
worked overseas and was gone for 30-40% of the year when I was a kid. Grew up
to have a great relationship with him, because when he was here he was always
attentive. (Not in the sense of spending a lot of time with us—he worked 60
hour weeks stateside. But in the sense of always calling when we got home from
school and generally being loving and supportive.)

~~~
macspoofing
>because when he was here he was always attentive.

That doesn't sounds like the author. Kids will understand if a parent is away
because they are working to make their (i.e. the kid's) life better. My father
worked long hours, sometimes multiple jobs, all his life for little money, as
did my mother. Even though they weren't around for some of my recitals or
Christmas pageants, I respect them both that much more because I knew why they
were doing it ... even as a kid. Kids aren't stupid though. If the parent is
absent for selfish reasons, in order to fulfil their life and their goals, it
will lead to bitterness and resentment. It will.

~~~
barry-cotter
Some people are bitter and resentful and would have had the exact same
childhood you did and think their parents weren’t there for them. People in
extremely similar circumstances feel very differently about them all the time,
often enough within the same family.

~~~
macspoofing
You're correct, and we're all speculating because we don't know their
situation. It could all be fine and the kids have other support systems ...
but it doesn't sound good as written.

------
ManlyBread
She sacrficed the well-being of her own children for the well-being of
complete strangers. There is enough attorneys that can do her job but there is
only one person that can be a mother to these two kids - and that's her.

------
remote_phone
People who say men wouldn’t face the same criticism are wrong. I’m almost 50
and all my friends have been guided by the song “Cats in the cradle” by Harry
Chaplin. It’s so prevalent even memes are based on it now.

I have sacrificed significant portions of my career to be there for my kids.
There are some of my male peers that are less attentive than me but
universally we would think they are simply bad fathers. I don’t know anyone
these days that wouldn’t think that an absentee dad was also a bad dad.

If you prioritize your job over your children then by definition you are a bad
parent. If you don’t have the means and are forced to work then I get it, you
have to do what you do. It doesn’t sound like this is the case for the author.
She has the privilege to chose her work over her kids which is different.

I hope she also didn’t selfishly choose to have joint custody with her ex-
husband only to neglect the kids for her job.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
> People who say men wouldn’t face the same criticism are wrong.

I'm going to challenge you on this one, especially since the post currently
right above yours is from a single father of 5 with this quote:

"I'm really glad I'm a single Dad and not a single Mum because there are very
few cultural expectations of me beyond working, and everyone acts like I'm
amazing for just raising my kids. It's kinda insulting to both genders."

I'm not saying fathers wouldn't experience any criticism, but I still believe
that there is a strong difference in cultural expectations and it would be a
mistake to if ignore it: women are "generally" expected to be the primary
caregivers, so sacrificing children for career is looked on relatively
negatively, while men are "generally" expected to be the primary breadwinners,
so any additional time spent with children is praised as being a great dad.

~~~
remote_phone
I’ll grant your point that maybe it’s cultural or depends on where you live. I
live in the SF Bay Area and it’s clear from the parent post that he lives in
Europe or Australia/NZ based on his use of “mum”. Given the author lives in
the SF Bay Area I think my point stands though.

Among my dozens of friends with children, there’s a couple of friends who
don’t spend very much time with their kids and they are universally looked on
as the “shitty” dads. One likes to do his sports on the weekends and regularly
abandons his children and wife to do that. The other plays video games all the
time “to unwind” and his children are basically ignored.

The rest of the dads I know feel a lot of pressure trying to be good dads (and
husbands) and split child duties. I don’t know many females who would accept
it, since they have demanding careers as well. I don’t know very many dads who
thinks it’s okay that the mom does most of the child rearing and I’m probably
15-20 years older than the average HN reader.

Maybe at lower income levels or lower costs areas it’s more true that women
take more of the child rearing duties. In expensive areas like SF Bay Area,
most women work except among the very rich, so you will see a complete split
of duties most of the time.

At least at the same income level as the author in the same area, I don’t
believe that women are still considered the primary child rearer. And given
the author’s successes and writings, I highly doubt she would have chosen a
mate who would assume that she would do most of the child rearing.

------
vitro
So many I's.

~~~
musha68k
Your short comment rings very true to me and reminded me of Adam Curtis'
"Century of the Self" theory which in his latest documentary
"Hypernormalization" gets developed even further. I guess you might know it
but for those who don't - both freely available on youtube.

Century of the Self:
[https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s](https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s)

Hypernormalization
[https://youtu.be/F8YqRaZSZWo](https://youtu.be/F8YqRaZSZWo)

Adam Curtis:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis)

------
noisy_boy
Kids are not kids forever. People feel like they have infinite time when they
are young/in their prime. They don't and it is too late by the time the
realization dawns in. By then, they have grown and moved out and that work
which feels so intellectually stimulating/meaningful now does not necessarily
feel the same way then.

I love programming and that is why I got into my choice of career. However,
that program I spent so much time writing/crafting, at the expense of family
time, will be obsolete/decomissioned before long. Hell even I won't care about
it after a while.

The kids are not going to be decommissioned though. If we don't care about
them now, they don't have any obligation to care about us then.

~~~
lonelappde
This is the fallacy of regret. No matter what you do, you can regret what you
didn't do

~~~
noisy_boy
I have never seen anyone regret not spending more time in office instead. I'll
take my chances with ungrateful kids than having missed the chance of spending
more time with them.

------
Spooky23
What a sad article.

It sounds like this person is like any other distant parent. She’s responsible
and no doubt her kids will be ok. But for her, despite her bluster and the
importance of her work, I’m sad for her, and if she is like most attorneys
like this, she will be too.

------
zhyder
Lots of judgemental responses here. I realize cultural expectations from women
are very skewed, but I'd hope for more open-mindedness from HN users.

This choice isn't unreasonable when, as in this article:

1\. There are other loving caregivers to help fill in any gaps

2\. The job has very high value-add to others, i.e. it's not just about
selfish value-capture

------
TheOperator
So has most of western society. Thus the birthrate cratering. Since this woman
has two kids she's picking kids over job more than most people. She's simply
more honest than most about the whole thing.

I find the western disinterest in raising their own children (and having them)
fascinating. There seems to be a widespread ideal of trying to leave a legacy
through deeds rather than through your own children. Much of the right wing is
agitated at the whole thing because this is gradually reducing the population
of an ethnic group they're quite fond of.

------
jeffrallen
I'm happy for her, she seems to know what she wants. I'm grateful my parents
prioritised me, and that I've followed the example in my career choices.

Good luck lady, and good luck kids. We all bumble through this life as best we
can, hope it's good enough for your family...

------
vitro
On one dad's workshop I came across nice ideal to strive for: Be with your kid
one hour a day.

Be with your kid one whole day a week.

Be with your kid one weekend a month.

Be with your kid one week a year.

And by being with your kid it is meant really to be there, fully present,
attentive.

------
projectileboy
I have a lot of respect for the author for writing this. I think anyone who
has kids and also cares about their work finds themselves on this spectrum,
and they have to decide where they’re going to live on that spectrum. I’m
further in the direction of kids than the author probably is, but I’m also not
freeing wrongly convicted criminals. In any case, I’m very reluctant to judge
another parent’s choice of how to juggle work and family.

------
dirtylowprofile
I’m a dad of a 10 month little dude and sacrificed a high paying Senior job so
I can focus on him growing up and help with my wife with all the baby and
house chores.

Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice because finding part time or
freelance gigs are kinda hard right now. But at the end of the day I know I
made the right decision because my little boy is just gonna be young once and
I don’t want to miss out on his milestones and growth.

------
mynameishere
I wish my mother had spent less time hanging around. Why do people think their
presence benefits their children? Think again.

~~~
lonelappde
We think that because decades of research shows how parents benefit children
on average.

------
bulka
It is hard to say from the article what kind of relationship author realy has
with her kids. She seems to feel guilty, focusing on low moments. For some
people the amount of time spent with family counts, others factor in the
"intensity" as well.

Her comment about playing the advantage by choosing early date is a bit
worring.

------
jumelles
Not everyone needs to have kids. We've got more than enough humans already!

Parenting would also be easier on people if the US had sensible
maternity/paternity policies and free childcare like we ought to have.

------
RocketSyntax
Starting a new job is hard. You have to learn the organization, the client
base, and the processes.

Providing for your kids is important.

I hope that you find a rhythm in your role and are able to make more time for
your family.

------
kleiba
"Neither of us pays the other support."

And why would you, if you both have jobs. However, the father should pay
support _to his kids_ for sure.

~~~
kgwgk
She says in the previous sentence that they have joint custody. So it seems
they both support them directly on their own and not through payments to the
other.

------
zcid
I don't want to be too harsh, but I can't respect her decision. It's selfish,
and not properly caring for the next generation is a dead giveaway of a sick
society.

~~~
kgwgk
Unlike your father? You say in another comment the you "wouldn't ever
disparage him" for work-related absences.

~~~
zcid
It's not apparent to me from the article that this woman is making a serious
attempt to make up for those absences. That she wrote this almost seems like a
celebration of her choice to de-prioritize them. My father would be gone for a
week, but then home for a week. When he was home, he was 100% available to us.

------
bubblewrap
Typical New York Times, and typical for that kind of discussion.

In such discussions, the image is always of a mother resigning from an
interesting and important academic job. Presumably it is mostly academics who
discuss such things, and NYT readers are also mostly academics. So when they
think of mothers and careers, they think of interesting academic jobs.

In reality, most women (and men) don't have such interesting jobs. The most
common job for women is shop assistant, followed by nurse (or vice versa,
don't remember for sure - numbers from Germany a couple of years ago). Now
nurse might be reasonably interesting, but not irreplaceable like that lawyer.
And arguably, you would be doing the same job as at home (changing diapers),
only not with your children.

Sorry it annoys me that this women styles herself like some sort of hero, when
other people are forced to make that choice out of financial necessity.

Obviously it is a valid choice to prioritize her job, like she did. The
annoying part is the claim between the lines that she is somehow special and
going against the societal pressure.

~~~
GordonS
> Now nurse might be reasonably interesting, but not irreplaceable like that
> lawyer. And arguably, you would be doing the same job as at home (changing
> diapers), only not with your children

Did you seriously just equate the work that nurses do with changing diapers?

~~~
rapsey
Or trivialize the job of parenting down to changing diapers..

------
Dayshine
If you don't want to prioritise your kids over your job... _don 't have kids_.

Contraception is pretty damn effective, and people often have children for
entirely selfish reasons.

A dog isn't for christmas, and your kids aren't just cute toys until you get
bored of raising them.

There are plenty of people who are willing, enough that we won't have
population problems.

~~~
rayiner
That’s terrible advice. Kids are great (they’re also not, at societal scale,
really optional). According to a Pew study, about 7% of people who had kids
would, if they did it over again, have had no kids. By contrast, more than
half of those who didn’t have kids would’ve chosen to not have kids again:
[https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-
norm.asp...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.aspx).
Indeed, out of people who didn’t have kids, a greater proportion wish they
would’ve had 3+ kids than people who had kids who wish they had no kids.

If you impose artificially high hurdles for parenting, you’re encouraging
people to possible forgo a fulfilling life choice, because they fear they
can’t live up to artificially inflated expectations for parenting. And that’s
damaging.

~~~
yulaow
A thing is "inflated expectations for parenting", another thing is the person
who wrote the article which has three different jobs (she could easily drop
two and still manage to bring home more than enough money, but she doesn't
want to for selfish reasons... Which are totally ok if you are not a divorced
parent of two very young kids) and, as she herself said, prioritize all of
them over her children because she prefers that way.

~~~
rayiner
The “selfish” remark rings pretty hollow when you’re talking about someone
that is literally spending her time freeing wrongfully convicted people.

What Ms. Bazelon is doing is the opposite of selfish. She’s providing for her
family, serving her profession, and serving her community. She’s teaching her
kids good morals by example: hard work and service. What kind of terrible
lesson would it be to her children if she taught them that their school
camping trip was more important than those things?

~~~
wishinghand
> What kind of terrible lesson would it be to her children if she taught them
> that their school camping trip was more important than those things?

That you can rationalize anything to fit your choices.

~~~
AstralStorm
The more important part will the kids both understand it rationally and handle
it emotionally.

Nobody can really know that without being an oracle. Neither choice is clearly
superior but one is considered natural and the other is not.

------
throwaway4378
Few days ago I saw something about “Men’s rights” movement and my first
reaction was to think of it as parody and laugh it off. But then I looked at
few stories and videos and it was eye opening. Many people don’t understand
how badly some of the men are being exploited and even driven to suicide.
Current laws in Western world are heavily tilted towards perceiving men as
guilty party, someone who must always be making sacrifice. A women, for
example, can call in police at anytime and put her husband in jail by claiming
domestic violence however other way around almost never work. Women can
threaten her husband of divorce and take away house, car and half of the bank
savings even if she has contributed negatively by causing lot of stress or
performing large spending sprees. Courts tend to give women custody of
children and in some states women can claim it any way by citing reasons such
as husband has (non-existent) violent behavior. Judge and jury almost always
will take side with women.

I understand above are rare cases and that women gets sharp end of rope far
more often. However still this would be like saying that it’s ok to sacrifice
those minority men who lose everything including their life’s work and even
their children when women simply decides to wave magic wand of law.

I don’t want to derail the conversation but Western society has only accepted
one side of view and sexism on other side gets laughed off to oblivion.

~~~
untog
IMO there's nothing wrong with Men's Rights as a cause, but if you look at,
for example, /r/mensrights on Reddit an absolutely toxic hatred of women
pervades the place. It's not healthy.

But yes, suicide, custody in divorce etc are issues where men deserve
recourse. That said, historically women have been on the receiving end of
physical violence from men far, far more often than vice versa and were told
to suffer in silence. They still suffer far more but can at least talk about
it now.

When people mock Men's Rights they aren't mocking men who campaign for divorce
law reform. They mock men who sit around in online communities and say "but
muh feminists!"

> Western society has only accepted one side of view and sexism on other side
> gets laughed off to oblivion.

Western society had tried to rectify the unfair treatment women have received
for hundreds (thousands?) of years. And in areas it has overcorrected. That's
fixable. It doesn't mean the entire endeavour is misguided.

~~~
cheez
> That said, historically women have been on the receiving end of physical
> violence from men far, far more often than vice versa and were told to
> suffer in silence

Statistically, this is not true. In relationships where there is one-sided
violence, the violence is (something like) 70/30 with the woman initiating the
violence. In relationships where there is two-sided violence, the woman
initiates the violence more than half of the time. These studies are hard to
find and often have no funding because they get shouted out of the mainstream
consciousness.

Here is a study that covers part of this:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/)

Ask yourself why you've never heard of it.

If you are speaking historically, surely you are not suggesting incarceration
of men as reparations for things we didn't do?

~~~
hyperpape
It doesn't seem impossible that women are just as likely to shove or slap a
man they're in a partnership with, though I'd like to see more followup than
this article to be convinced.

However, the statistics on murder are pretty fucking clear:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/homicides...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/homicides-
women/534306/). Given the frequency with which murder is preceded by a string
of violence requiring medical attention, I'd wager that's similarly
unbalanced.

~~~
cheez
Don't conflate the murdering men with men who have done nothing. This is the
entire problem. All men don't rape, all men don't murder.

~~~
hyperpape
> All men don’t rape, all men don’t murder

As a man, I’m well aware of this! However, your comment is a non-sequitur.

~~~
cheez
Then why are you so loose in your response? Why do you conflate murder with a
loose definition of domestic violence? With the looser definition, women are
MORE violent than men.

------
Dayshine
> 6) It's impossible to perfectly balance a 40 hour working week and family.
> Best you can aim for is a kind of homeostasis where work suffers for family
> one week and then family suffers a bit for work the next.

The article refers to things like:

> But there is always another client to defend, story to write or struggling
> student who just can’t wait. Here are things I have missed: my daughter’s
> seventh birthday, my son’s 10th birthday party, two family vacations, three
> Halloweens, every school camping trip.

She didn't even try to balance...

~~~
rayiner
Americans assign a silly and unjustified sentimental value to things like
birthday parties and school outings. Part of my wife’s family is Jehovah’s
witnesses, who don’t even celebrate birthdays. Are those kids somehow missing
out? Do you think the immigrant parents that own a Chinese restaurant open
seven days a week make it to any of their kids school functions or camping
trips? Are they being irreparably damaged?

~~~
lotsofpulp
I had immigrant parents who had to work all the time to build and grow their
business, so I didn’t have birthdays and that kind of stuff. I don’t care
about that kind of stuff at all, not to say that I hate it or anything.

I haven’t studied other children, so I can only make statements about myself.
The only negative of my childhood regarding the lack of birthdays and whatnot
is the inability to feign excitement for others’ celebrations as much as might
be expected, simply because I don’t care about it for myself in the first
place. It probably has hampered my ability to socialize or make networking
connections in some situations where I wasn’t able to fit in.

~~~
pergadad
Be happy that others are happy. That's the key to empathy and sharing the
pleasure. You don't have to understand why they are happy, and you don't have
to agree with the cause. But you can still find joy in the fact that others
are feeling wonderful.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Yes, I wish I had learned that earlier.

------
codesternews
Well I was watching this video of Jordson Peterson yesterday.
[https://youtu.be/44f3mxcsI50?t=2537](https://youtu.be/44f3mxcsI50?t=2537)

It has some great ideas and pretty much somesup every thing. Watch little bit
longer as he goes from one subject to another and then come back to point.

~~~
te_chris
If you’re going to link a video at least summarise the arguments so we have
some idea of whether it’s worth watching.

~~~
codesternews
First It's not my thoughts and secondly Jordon has very profound deep
understanding and I think I am not capable of summarising his thoughts as I am
also trying to decipher and get.

He is clinical physiologist and he has good depth of this kind of subject and
I'm not right person to translate his views. But what I get is this

"Life is sacrifice at every level (He quotes and decipher bibles story) and
you have to sacrifice the some things for your family and loved ones"

But I feel these above lines do not do justice for the video as I said it has
so much to get and everyone has their own perspective to get the things.

Sure you might disagree with me or him but you have your own perspective and
you should decipher the meaning by yourself.

~~~
lonelappde
Jordan Peterson uses his psychology degree to give false authority to his
political musings, to inspire a profit from his fandom of hateful harassers.
There are 7 billion people on this Earth and Jordan Peterson is not more
worthy of study than the othets.

~~~
lm28469
> There are 7 billion people on this Earth and Jordan Peterson is not more
> worthy of study than the othets.

How does that bring anything to the table ? I doubt 99% of the population
would be as interesting if they gave speeches.

There are only a handful of people knowing their shit and sharing it in public
for free. I don't see many people running around saying "Yoh Plato is shit no
one should ever listen to him" even if they don't agree with his views.

Did you actually study him, as you seem to imply by making such strong
statements ? I don't agree with a lot of his points but I have to admit that
he has very interesting things to say about postmodernism, personal meaning,
religions, &c. and as far as I know no one else is addressing these issues
with that kind of depth in these days.

