I hope my words did not sound as a judgment of people, who like you, ended up having kids a bit late. I'm not judging, just expressing a mathematical statement ^^
No offense taken. Unplanned things happen in life and parental age is quite a wide spectrum. I agree with you entirely though that promoting older parenthood in the furtherance of a career is not a sound proposal on multiple levels.
Because people are too stupid to have children NOW. You want them to have children when they're experiencing Alzheimer's? Or Dementia? Wait. That may be a good idea...
I think 'organic' family building is a quaint idea... right up there with 'wired' telephones, telegraphs instead of emails, and men with ties and pocket protectors feeding cards into the mainframe, and then coming home to their college educated stay at home wife, having a couple of manhattans and having sex watching Johnny Carson.
In other words, juussst a bit old-fashioned.
other random thoughts...
0) sperm doesn't degrade like eggs with age... and sperm banks are a constant (or drop your blank shooting man for a new virile model... all are good options for a smart woman ;-)
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">1) getting pregnant does hurt their careers if you're in a constantly changing workspace. A software engineer missing 6 weeks to 6 months of a project basically puts you 'back on the bench' for Apple's dev cycle (Gruber</span> @DaringFireBall <span style="line-height:1.4em;">did some mental math in his last Talk Show, and figured that there are only 3-6 months of 'new development' for each OS release (3 months of beta, and 3 months of prod Support to get to .1 and .2 releases). If you're out during a critical cycle, you may not get back in [and with day care demands, soccer and karate classes, PTA meetings, you may never gett fully back in] to the 'hot dev teams' and spend your days patching crap code someone half your skill set </span>
spent<span style="line-height:1.4em;"> all night coding while you were on FMLA.</span>
2) work/life balance. 45-60 work weeks are not great for kids or spouses. Even if you get to work from home, the demands are great to shut the door. (you just save the commute, so the 70 hours away from home is now just 60). Rise to a manager position, where there is less demands to 'be there 7x24' and you can still make the occasional PTA meeting, instead of 'coding like there is no tomorrow'
3) Energy. Apple takes energy, So do rug rats. It may be better to be older and 'retired' from Apple... and live off those exercised stock options... But Old eggs aren't a great option.
4) uterine/ovarian failures happen with age.
Ovarian Cancer sucks [Think Teal, Ovarian Cancer Research needs more money!!!!], but it sucks less if you catch it early and take out all the female plumbing. Odds are women [there are genetic markers, and other conditions, such as HPV and Herpes that raise your risks] with a family history of ovarian cancer may want to harvest some good eggs, and then get rid of the ovaries prophylatically.
Lots of reasons why this is a good thing for any working woman. Get a stock pile, just in case.
Either way, I'd rather be plucking eggs 'for later' and putting on the triple layer condom/diaphragm/pill defense than aborting fetuses because 'now is not the best time' (The best 'choice' is a 'planned pregnancy' and this is about as planned as it can be).
You lost me when you said heterosexual procreation is old-fashioned. It is the easiest and cheapest means in getting pregnant and giving a successful birth. If you delay getting pregnant there is less opportunity to spend time with children and especially grandchildren.
That said, why are there more female nurses than males? Why have males been more interested in coding? My guess is coding is more impersonal (less social). There are probably more male geeks than female geeks.
This concept is silly and to make it "equal" should it not apply to the spouses of the male employees too?
[...]
This is simply deranged thinking. Apple can simply pay ALL their employees $20k extra a year so at least it would be fair... And then STAY OUT OF THE PREGNANCY MANAGEMENT BUSINESD.
On the first part, I tend to agree with you, if the spouse is covered under the health plan
(the issue probably is it's not a health benefit, it's a career benefit, and the spouse isn't employed).
On the 2nd, you're extrapolating a limited benefit (harvesting eggs once) to an annual benefit.
Your premise is false which makes your 'solution' look stupid.
if Apple pays one person 100K for a snowboarding accident and 3 months rehab in surgical and Short Term Disability
Every employee should get 3 months off and 100K? Every Year?
Fair is White people's 'I want mine' word. Fair is a 'balance the pain/reward' across all parties. It's a Fantasy of the American Dream
The problem is, the real world isn't fair.
Quote:
"Life isn't fair, Bill. we tell our children that it is, but it's a terrible thing to do. It's not only a lie, it's a cruel lie. Life is not fair, and it never has been, and it's never going to be. - The Princess Bride (the book)
If the real world was 'fair,' Every apple employee would earn the same salary. Man/woman/programmer/CFO/Jonny Ive/John Q GeniusBar.
The operative term is here is 'what is "right"' and Right meaning correct or 'just', not a human right.
Sounds exactly like the reasoning of people advocating for biological engineering for their offspring.
Thankfully, until now, the State, which means, the collective wisdom of humans (hopefully, at least) has decided that unless there is serious medical benefits (solving a potential genetic illness), we're not going to play around with biological engineering.
My opinion, worth exactly that and no more, but no less, is that we're having an identical moral conundrum here.
Are "the women" (who may potentially be influenced by family or social pressure) the best people to decide, or should medical peers, or should legislators?
I'm not bringing a solution, but I do believe there is a complicated question there.
Also, in the end, no rule is done for "the women" or "the men". Rules are done for the benefit of the People, which is made up of men and women, as well as other types of people (if we're going this way, let's not forget anyone). Is a world where kids enjoy only 20 to 30 years of their parents's presence something beneficial to society? It seems like a social regression to me. My point, all in all, is double: first, rules are made for the good of the whole of society, not a particular subset (at least if they're done right), and second, leaving "women" or "men" or anyone totally free to choose is not a choice humans have made. Have you noticed that not everyone can drive a car, that planes are not landing where it pleases the pilot, that hard drugs are illegal almost everywhere apart from very strict medical situations? We don't let people decide what is right and wrong in these situations. I may be missing something huge, but it seems to me babies, being the future of society, are on the grand scheme of things way more important than the occasional use of hard drugs, a Cessna landing on the Red Square or people deciding for themselves if driving is something they should do. Therefore, it should not be "women", but "society" that rules on this issue.
However, I'm just human, and I'm possibly entirely wrong on this.
The state does a poor job of representing its population. At least in the United States.
But this has nothing to do with artificially creating a human in any context. It is about a woman choosing to preserve her option to have children through her own biologically generated eggs.
Lawmakers are the last people who should have a say in this. These are the same group of clowns who like to talk about how we need less government in our lives but jump at the opportunity to put the government into the lives of women. This is also lawmakers enforcing religious ideals upon those women. Much of this decision's authority should also fall on the woman because it is in her body that a child is created.
It's not a complicated question. If a woman wants to preserve her option to have a child later in her life—and this later in life can happen much sooner than 50—great for her. If she wants to focus on career now and family ten years down the road, great for her. It is and should be her choice. Keep in mind that not everyone's body is the same—not everyone has so long a period of time to have a child, and not everyone has a person they want to have that child with while they are still able to do so. And any argument to say that maybe she won't be an idea mother at 40, 45, 50—it's ludicrous and disingenuous. There's nothing stopping her from being a fantastic mother—much more fantastic than many much younger mothers happen to be themselves (which is not to say younger mothers are necessarily bad mothers in the slightest).
There's nothing stopping rules from looking out for individuals. No rule that a rule must necessarily reflect the best interests of society. We have numerous rules on the rulebooks that allow individuals rights and opportunities which can be quite damaging to their fellow man.
And finally, a woman's decision to have a child a little later in life is not going to do harm to society on any appreciable scale.
You lost me when you said heterosexual procreation is old-fashioned. It is the easiest and cheapest means in getting pregnant and giving a successful birth. If you delay getting pregnant there is less opportunity to spend time with children and especially grandchildren.
That said, why are there more female nurses than males? Why have males been more interested in coding? My guess is coding is more impersonal (less social). There are probably more male geeks than female geeks.
easy and cheap doesn't mean best for all women. stamps and envelopes and paper and pencils are cheap and easy, but we're not using them for this conversation are we... because our current desire is 'time sensitive,' and we spend $1000 of dollars (Device software, Internet, electricity, repairs etc.) to gain that advantage. Well women's pregnancies are time sensitive in a couple dimensions. This allows them to address their career side, and their biological side.
women live almost 15 year longer now than in the 50's, and wealthy (above median household income), non-blue color women even longer (3-4 years longer). They may see their grandchildren more because of age and technology (heck, I FaceTime with my grand nephews all the time, I saw my great uncles 2 times a year growing up).
on your last point, sexual stereotyping in middle and high school steering women away from STEM.
In a couple of generations this will change, but remember, (in the US) teachers in the 60s and 70s were almost all women until high school where it flipped to mostly men in the math and sciences. 50 years before that, most women didn't even go to high school.
Because people are too stupid to have children NOW. You want them to have children when they're experiencing Alzheimer's? Or Dementia? Wait. That may be a good idea...
Are you joking or do you really think I mean for them to wait until they are retired and on Medicare?
Everyone's assuming that it only benefits women in the latter stages of their lives, when there are many different reasons that a woman might suddenly lose the ability to have a child.
“Separate, but equal.” Men and women are utterly different, but who’s to say they’re not equal in their differences?
That's how it should be treated. Embrace the strengths of each gender. The message that some groups try to put out makes it seem like men have all conspired together to keep women down and that there needs to be a fight to rectify the situation. It's nothing like that, it's about understanding and inclusion and not treating differences as weaknesses.
One example that women take issue with is being regarded as emotional. Everybody knows this is the case:
[VIDEO]
but it's taboo to say it. It's not a way of putting women down, it's a nice thing that women are emotional. It means we can get away with doing all sorts of things:
[VIDEO]
Look how cute this is, the little guy isn't bothered and his sister is crying about him growing up:
What some groups want to do is say that everyone is the same and behaves the same but it's because they've made the conclusion first and are trying to force facts to fit. The reason they do this is flawed. They for example make assumptions that not being as physically strong is a weakness and by definition it is but men don't see it as a negative if women aren't physically strong so it's a non-issue. It's actually an advantage when taking care of children or nursing.
Some women try to put forward the idea that sexuality is a negative as it's only empowerment by submission. Again, this is a totally wrong way of thinking about it.
Pregnancy here is being treated as though it's a weakness holding women back and women are made to feel ashamed at looking after their kids instead of working. They are trying to fight their own bodies:
The chance of a child having Down's Syndrome goes from 1 in 1500 at age 20 to 1 in 100 at age 40 - 15x more likely. The woman is also more at risk of developing long-term problems.
I think women should embrace their sexuality, not make an agenda of outclassing men, employers shouldn't try to artificially equalize numbers (although there's nothing wrong with promoting inclusion) and women shouldn't be ashamed to have children when their bodies are best suited for it (20-35) and everyone should try to be more accepting of differences rather than trying to eliminate or dismiss them as perceived weaknesses.
On the first part, I tend to agree with you, if the spouse is covered under the health plan
(the issue probably is it's not a health benefit, it's a career benefit, and the spouse isn't employed).
On the 2nd, you're extrapolating a limited benefit (harvesting eggs once) to an annual benefit.
Your premise is false which makes your 'solution' look stupid.
if Apple pays one person 100K for a snowboarding accident and 3 months rehab in surgical and Short Term Disability
Every employee should get 3 months off and 100K? Every Year?
Fair is White people's 'I want mine' word. Fair is a 'balance the pain/reward' across all parties. It's a Fantasy of the American Dream
The problem is, the real world isn't fair.
If the real world was 'fair,' Every apple employee would earn the same salary. Man/woman/programmer/CFO/Jonny Ive/John Q GeniusBar.
The operative term is here is 'what is "right"' and Right meaning correct or 'just', not a human right.
I agree that life is never fair.
However any/every employee could potentially take advantage of a $100k medical bill, 3 months of rehab, and short term disability being paid for by Apple. So it makes sense for everyone to pay into that benefit, even though they may not take advantage of it, because any/every employee could need that benefit.
However no male employee, and any female employee that may not meet the requirements for egg freezing (I'd imagine there are some) could NEVER take advantage of this benefit. No way, no how. Why is it "just" to ask all employees to pay for it then? (if the employees aren't paying for it then the argument changes, but in the end someone is paying for it somewhere).
Also, when it comes to work/life balance...life is full of tough choices and consequences. Why is it so taboo for one of those decisions to be career vs. family? I agree that companies should do reasonable things to accommodate those who want both, and I'm not advocating a return to the 1950s "Mad Men" era. However at some point in time a company has done everything reasonable and it's up to the employee to decide what's in their best interest. And yes this does by and large affect women more than men, but you have to accept there is a clear biological difference between men and women, our roles in the reproduction process, and the impact that has on our lives. Unless you're advocating for babies grown in a lab there's no way around it.
In the end it comes down to what someone considers "reasonable". And everyone's going to have a different opinion on it.
Because people are too stupid to have children NOW. You want them to have children when they're experiencing Alzheimer's? Or Dementia? Wait. That may be a good idea...
Are you joking or do you really think I mean for them to wait until they are retired and on Medicare?
Yet some women have become mothers in their 60s. Doesn't mean it's a good idea.
If you are going to have children, I think you should do it early and learn to juggle parenting and career. Plenty of families manage it. It is less traumatic for the children to learn to cope with childcare, preschool, grandma babysitting than it is to deal with retirement age parents while they are only young adults.
It is up to each individual, but $20K doesn't go too far these days.
If you are going to have children, I think you should do it early and learn to juggle parenting and career. Plenty of families manage it. It is less traumatic for the children to learn to cope with childcare, preschool, grandma babysitting than it is to deal with retirement age parents while they are only young adults.
It is up to each individual, but $20K doesn't go too far these days.
So you think it's better to have children before you have an education, career, stability, or money? I don't. I think people should only have children when it's feasible, not because of a mistake, to save their failing relationship, to trap a guy, because you're lonely, you thought it would be cool, you think it will make you more mature, or any other reason. This is a new life were talking about not a gym membership! If you're goal for having a child is to satisfy your own biological desires with little to no concern for the child or society at large then you shouldn't be having children.
Comments
No offense taken. Unplanned things happen in life and parental age is quite a wide spectrum. I agree with you entirely though that promoting older parenthood in the furtherance of a career is not a sound proposal on multiple levels.
Why not?
Because people are too stupid to have children NOW. You want them to have children when they're experiencing Alzheimer's? Or Dementia? Wait. That may be a good idea...
That said, why are there more female nurses than males? Why have males been more interested in coding? My guess is coding is more impersonal (less social). There are probably more male geeks than female geeks.
This concept is silly and to make it "equal" should it not apply to the spouses of the male employees too?
[...]
This is simply deranged thinking. Apple can simply pay ALL their employees $20k extra a year so at least it would be fair... And then STAY OUT OF THE PREGNANCY MANAGEMENT BUSINESD.
On the first part, I tend to agree with you, if the spouse is covered under the health plan
(the issue probably is it's not a health benefit, it's a career benefit, and the spouse isn't employed).
On the 2nd, you're extrapolating a limited benefit (harvesting eggs once) to an annual benefit.
Your premise is false which makes your 'solution' look stupid.
if Apple pays one person 100K for a snowboarding accident and 3 months rehab in surgical and Short Term Disability
Every employee should get 3 months off and 100K? Every Year?
Fair is White people's 'I want mine' word. Fair is a 'balance the pain/reward' across all parties. It's a Fantasy of the American Dream
The problem is, the real world isn't fair.
If the real world was 'fair,' Every apple employee would earn the same salary. Man/woman/programmer/CFO/Jonny Ive/John Q GeniusBar.
The operative term is here is 'what is "right"' and Right meaning correct or 'just', not a human right.
The state does a poor job of representing its population. At least in the United States.
But this has nothing to do with artificially creating a human in any context. It is about a woman choosing to preserve her option to have children through her own biologically generated eggs.
Lawmakers are the last people who should have a say in this. These are the same group of clowns who like to talk about how we need less government in our lives but jump at the opportunity to put the government into the lives of women. This is also lawmakers enforcing religious ideals upon those women. Much of this decision's authority should also fall on the woman because it is in her body that a child is created.
It's not a complicated question. If a woman wants to preserve her option to have a child later in her life—and this later in life can happen much sooner than 50—great for her. If she wants to focus on career now and family ten years down the road, great for her. It is and should be her choice. Keep in mind that not everyone's body is the same—not everyone has so long a period of time to have a child, and not everyone has a person they want to have that child with while they are still able to do so. And any argument to say that maybe she won't be an idea mother at 40, 45, 50—it's ludicrous and disingenuous. There's nothing stopping her from being a fantastic mother—much more fantastic than many much younger mothers happen to be themselves (which is not to say younger mothers are necessarily bad mothers in the slightest).
There's nothing stopping rules from looking out for individuals. No rule that a rule must necessarily reflect the best interests of society. We have numerous rules on the rulebooks that allow individuals rights and opportunities which can be quite damaging to their fellow man.
And finally, a woman's decision to have a child a little later in life is not going to do harm to society on any appreciable scale.
You lost me when you said heterosexual procreation is old-fashioned. It is the easiest and cheapest means in getting pregnant and giving a successful birth. If you delay getting pregnant there is less opportunity to spend time with children and especially grandchildren.
That said, why are there more female nurses than males? Why have males been more interested in coding? My guess is coding is more impersonal (less social). There are probably more male geeks than female geeks.
easy and cheap doesn't mean best for all women. stamps and envelopes and paper and pencils are cheap and easy, but we're not using them for this conversation are we... because our current desire is 'time sensitive,' and we spend $1000 of dollars (Device software, Internet, electricity, repairs etc.) to gain that advantage. Well women's pregnancies are time sensitive in a couple dimensions. This allows them to address their career side, and their biological side.
women live almost 15 year longer now than in the 50's, and wealthy (above median household income), non-blue color women even longer (3-4 years longer). They may see their grandchildren more because of age and technology (heck, I FaceTime with my grand nephews all the time, I saw my great uncles 2 times a year growing up).
on your last point, sexual stereotyping in middle and high school steering women away from STEM.
In a couple of generations this will change, but remember, (in the US) teachers in the 60s and 70s were almost all women until high school where it flipped to mostly men in the math and sciences. 50 years before that, most women didn't even go to high school.
Are you joking or do you really think I mean for them to wait until they are retired and on Medicare?
When will you ever write a bad post?
It's long overdue.
On the first part, I tend to agree with you, if the spouse is covered under the health plan
(the issue probably is it's not a health benefit, it's a career benefit, and the spouse isn't employed).
On the 2nd, you're extrapolating a limited benefit (harvesting eggs once) to an annual benefit.
Your premise is false which makes your 'solution' look stupid.
if Apple pays one person 100K for a snowboarding accident and 3 months rehab in surgical and Short Term Disability
Every employee should get 3 months off and 100K? Every Year?
Fair is White people's 'I want mine' word. Fair is a 'balance the pain/reward' across all parties. It's a Fantasy of the American Dream
The problem is, the real world isn't fair.
If the real world was 'fair,' Every apple employee would earn the same salary. Man/woman/programmer/CFO/Jonny Ive/John Q GeniusBar.
The operative term is here is 'what is "right"' and Right meaning correct or 'just', not a human right.
I agree that life is never fair.
However any/every employee could potentially take advantage of a $100k medical bill, 3 months of rehab, and short term disability being paid for by Apple. So it makes sense for everyone to pay into that benefit, even though they may not take advantage of it, because any/every employee could need that benefit.
However no male employee, and any female employee that may not meet the requirements for egg freezing (I'd imagine there are some) could NEVER take advantage of this benefit. No way, no how. Why is it "just" to ask all employees to pay for it then? (if the employees aren't paying for it then the argument changes, but in the end someone is paying for it somewhere).
Also, when it comes to work/life balance...life is full of tough choices and consequences. Why is it so taboo for one of those decisions to be career vs. family? I agree that companies should do reasonable things to accommodate those who want both, and I'm not advocating a return to the 1950s "Mad Men" era. However at some point in time a company has done everything reasonable and it's up to the employee to decide what's in their best interest. And yes this does by and large affect women more than men, but you have to accept there is a clear biological difference between men and women, our roles in the reproduction process, and the impact that has on our lives. Unless you're advocating for babies grown in a lab there's no way around it.
In the end it comes down to what someone considers "reasonable". And everyone's going to have a different opinion on it.
Yet some women have become mothers in their 60s. Doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Brilliant way to build a future workforce.
As a general rule it doesn't seem to be a good idea but I would say it's a better idea than a girl getting pregnant at 15yo.
Creating a new life is seldom a bad idea. SJ wasn't born from an ideal situation.
A 15 year old girl is much closer to her prime breeding age than a 60 year old woman, so I would disagree.
Sure, but I think that going by your natural biological clock is the most sensible thing to do. Those old women all had artificial help.
What do you think is the prime breeding age?
If you are going to have children, I think you should do it early and learn to juggle parenting and career. Plenty of families manage it. It is less traumatic for the children to learn to cope with childcare, preschool, grandma babysitting than it is to deal with retirement age parents while they are only young adults.
It is up to each individual, but $20K doesn't go too far these days.
So you think it's better to have children before you have an education, career, stability, or money? I don't. I think people should only have children when it's feasible, not because of a mistake, to save their failing relationship, to trap a guy, because you're lonely, you thought it would be cool, you think it will make you more mature, or any other reason. This is a new life were talking about not a gym membership! If you're goal for having a child is to satisfy your own biological desires with little to no concern for the child or society at large then you shouldn't be having children.