What I’m noticing from millennial high achieving moms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Cost benefit. Depends how invested they are in their careers, how deeply involved the mother wants to be in their children’s lives. Even if you have a flexible wfh job, you will still not be able to spend as much time with DCs as a SAH. I like to spend my time in each aspect with my kids (tutoring, making sure they’re high achievers in school and activities, taking my time to make them healthy meals, etc) and pass on everything I know to them, so SAH works. Others need a job to be fulfilled so their choice works for them. I personally think my mode of SAH confers more advantage for my kids, but to each their own.

This is actually the #1 reason I choose to work. I could quit tomorrow and we would be just fine financially, but then I would be tempted to make my children my new "project". Better to model high achievement than to snowplow your way to it.

For you maybe.

I have a longer range perspective as an older GenX who runs in the professionally elite circles of Ward 3. The kids whose mom took some time off when they were young — say 0-8 — are more impressive as a cohort, generally. Smarter, better personalities, more poise.

Having a low-education nanny for years, then Lord of the Flies aftercare, has a more durable and negative impact on the youngest minds than striver parents care to admit.

And we all went back to work or resumed full time. Medicine, law, nonprofit and corporate real estate.

I think you have a vested interest in maintaining this point of view.

I think I watched these kids grow up, because they all attended the same private preschools then k-12 in NWDC. This is not a parenting group that uses daycare fwiw, because it’s not really available around here. We aren’t feds who can use their daycares, snd there isn’t a Bright Horizons on every corner

Anyway, it’s just common sense that having a primary caretaker during 85% of your 0-4 waking hours will yield different outcomes when the caretaker is functionally illiterate with a 3rd grade education vs. a graduate degree from an elite school. Not talking about kindness and safety considerations.

To OP, the doctor in our group dropped back to one day/ week for several years, then ramped back up when kids basically needed just an afternoon driver. The lawyers went of counsel or similar. The WaPo editor dropped to a very part time mommy track job temporarily. Some just quit altogether for a few years.

Most people I know that you describe are quite awkward or intense. In no way could they impart “poise” to their children. Just look around at DCUM. It’s not a socially adept crowd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1985. One child, SAHM married into extreme wealth. No interest in working and not at all ashamed. Don’t use social media. Yes to marathon running.

Extreme wealth? Like over $10m? Sad just one kid though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:End of gen x here (younger end) and I do think we are the last gen of the stay at home mom. With flex work it just makes no sense to minimize income that will affect kids financially down the line.

I admit that I’m jealous and wish my job allowed flex work. A lot of people don’t have that option in their line of work!

Switch your career. Flex is a godsend and I wouldn't go into a line of work that didn't allow for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1985. One child, SAHM married into extreme wealth. No interest in working and not at all ashamed. Don’t use social media. Yes to marathon running.

What does this mean? Obviously you're on DCUM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1985. One child, SAHM married into extreme wealth. No interest in working and not at all ashamed. Don’t use social media. Yes to marathon running.

Do you contribute ANYTHING to the world?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1985. One child, SAHM married into extreme wealth. No interest in working and not at all ashamed. Don’t use social media. Yes to marathon running.

What does this mean? Obviously you're on DCUM?

DCUM is not social media. For social media you need a handle, if not your actual identity. This is all just anonymous blathering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:End of gen x here (younger end) and I do think we are the last gen of the stay at home mom. With flex work it just makes no sense to minimize income that will affect kids financially down the line.

I admit that I’m jealous and wish my job allowed flex work. A lot of people don’t have that option in their line of work!

Yes this is especially an issue in teaching which is dominated by women. 20 years ago teaching was viewed as a great job for moms because you could have the same schedule as your kids and potentially even have your kids in the same school as you at some point which would ease childcare burdens and simplify the challenge of a dual income family. I remember having several friends with teacher moms when I was a kid and I was jealous that their moms were around in the summer. I also remember friends who would just go to their mom's classroom after school to do homework and hang out until she wrapped up at 4pm. It was also nice to have a parent who knew the lay of the land in the school or the district.

But now teaching is viewed as a lot less family friendly and there are an increasing number of teachers who choose to leave the profession when they have kids or choose not to have kids. Even though real incomes for teachers have not really increased versus inflation they are asked to do much more including more work after hours and with the school community. Teachers often don't really get summers off anymore -- in many districts it's more like 6 weeks and they have to attend a lot of PD days or records days during days their kids are off school so they are still turning to camps and other forms of childcare and not just hanging with kids all summer.

But the biggest thing is that since Covid a lot of other jobs have become more flexible with WFH options and teaching is one of those jobs that really cannot be done WFH. And that realization has hit a lot of teachers hard. WFH is a huge boon for working parents -- I WFH full time and my DH has two days a week at home and this flexiblity is life changing. It eases commutes and dinner times and makes it possible for kids to attend after school activities some days and makes morning drop off easy. It reduces marital stress and tension and enables us both to have better and closer relationships with our kids. Teachers know this better than anyone because they spend all day with kids and know what they need. But the job of teaching is no longer very conducive to being that kind of parent and it's really unfortunate (and is also contributing to the teacher shortage just FYI because teaching is not high paid nor prestigious so if it's also not family friendly then you are going to eliminate many potential teachers because what exactly is the value proposition there).

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m reminded of when we lived in Scarsdale, where dual high-income families were commonplace. I was eavesdropping on some high school boys having lunch in a local deli. They were talking about another boy, and how his mom is a doctor who works overnights at a hospital so he never sees her. And they all had such genuine sadness for him over that fact. I just have to wonder what’s the point of having such a big job that you don’t ever see your kids.

I’m a mom who works overnights in a hospital so that I CAN be there for my kids. I’m sleeping, but home during the day if there is any kind of emergency at school or sick child who needs to stay home. I pick my kids up at school every day, drive them to extracurriculars, help with homework, make dinner, and read them stories before bed. Then I take a quick nap and go in to work at midnight.

Working nights is not a “big job.” No one is working nights and doing hospital administration or getting big research dollars. Doctors working nights are taking care of sick people who need emergent care. I don’t know how you can’t see the point of that.

Sorry about the rant.

I agree with you, OP. My sister is 10 years younger than I am, and she is about your age. I have noticed that there are very different expectations of her husband at home. I’ve seen this with my residents too. I’m not a surgeon or in any high intensity field, but over the last 10 years or so, I’ve started seeing expectations shift, and men with kids are expected to take leave when their babies are born, to need to leave on time, and to take occasional sick days to take care of children. 10-15 years ago, the expectation was that men had no responsibilities outside of work, and their wives (or someone?) would handle everything.

Old millennial here. Culture has changed but so have workplace policies. With my first, who's almost 10, my husband got 3 weeks paternity leave and only took 2 so he could have one "just in case" when I went back to work. He had just switched jobs, and when we were previously at the same employer, the benefit was 8 weeks...for the primary parent only. As in, we had to declare one of us "primary" and only that person got the crappy leave.

Then I was a fed when I had #2, less than a year before paid parental leave passed. We have only had paid parental leave for government employees for 3 years. That's a HUGE change. The culture has changed around it too. New parents I know try to use their paid leave plus vacation/sick time to extend leave to 4-6 months. Anyone who tried to do this with unpaid FMLA before got a really hard time about it and sometimes outright rejection.

Anyway, I think generous leave policies for both parents are part of the shift, and they're REALLY recent.

Agree. This has been a huge change, and my kids are 10 and 13 years old. My DH took 2 weeks of sick leave with each new baby (which was considered generous). I was a fed and could only have 12 weeks off total (mostly unpaid).

+3 (or 4?).
There is also a change of generation in administration. 15 years ago it was all boomers and older Gen X who had a chip on their shoulder about young mother’s being in the workforce. Even, or maybe especially, other women. It was like they wanted to prove that you couldn’t hack it.

LOL, most of my managers have been childless Gen X scared to touch any discussion of leave with a 10 foot pole. I've been horrified by how little HR knows about how benefits work though, I've literally had to quote and send them links to OPM guidance when they've said "I don't know if you can do that" (e.g. take intermitten FMLA, a thing I would think most HR people had gotten training in). We have to be our own best advocates.

I think one of the major differences now vs 10 years ago, or 20, is that we CAN do that, whereas the older Gen X and Boomers didn't have the benefits and had a lot more likelihood of retaliation or being passed over for opportunities. If men use their benefits too, then it makes discrimination based on parental status less likely as well.

This is such a great point, and I remember thinking this as a young woman as well. Every time I interviewed for a job, I know they were wondering if I was going to get pregnant and ask for leave.

I wonder if some of the younger women on this thread can chime in on whether that has gotten better.

Definitely better. Men are now expected to take their paid full leaves which is often between 4-12 weeks in white collar jobs sometimes more.

Using facts instead of crap made up by the pp, there are more American companies offering longer amounts of paid paternity leave and it increases every year. Most companies still offer 12 weeks of paid or unpaid leave.

Some of the most generous employers are - Netflix, Etsy, Hewlett-Packard, Lululemon, Spotify, plus. They are offering 26 weeks or more of paid leave. Netflix offers 12 months. All employees are covered and white collar jobs don’t get more weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also see high achieving women doing mostly natural births.

I see the opposite. Esp now that it’s been shown that epidurals are safer and better than going without and thus the shame has been stripped away.

It is like marathon training, though. It's about proving to yourself and others that you can do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also see high achieving women doing mostly natural births.

I see the opposite. Esp now that it’s been shown that epidurals are safer and better than going without and thus the shame has been stripped away.

It is like marathon training, though. It's about proving to yourself and others that you can do it.

I see a lot of pro-natural birth chatter online but IRL I only know one person who actually wanted to try it (it was not successful). There seems to be a lot of misinformation spouted about epidurals too, like overstating the risk of complications and suggesting that you won’t be able to move or have control over your body.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cost benefit. Depends how invested they are in their careers, how deeply involved the mother wants to be in their children’s lives. Even if you have a flexible wfh job, you will still not be able to spend as much time with DCs as a SAH. I like to spend my time in each aspect with my kids (tutoring, making sure they’re high achievers in school and activities, taking my time to make them healthy meals, etc) and pass on everything I know to them, so SAH works. Others need a job to be fulfilled so their choice works for them. I personally think my mode of SAH confers more advantage for my kids, but to each their own.

This is actually the #1 reason I choose to work. I could quit tomorrow and we would be just fine financially, but then I would be tempted to make my children my new "project". Better to model high achievement than to snowplow your way to it.

For you maybe.

I have a longer range perspective as an older GenX who runs in the professionally elite circles of Ward 3. The kids whose mom took some time off when they were young — say 0-8 — are more impressive as a cohort, generally. Smarter, better personalities, more poise.

Having a low-education nanny for years, then Lord of the Flies aftercare, has a more durable and negative impact on the youngest minds than striver parents care to admit.

And we all went back to work or resumed full time. Medicine, law, nonprofit and corporate real estate.

I think you have a vested interest in maintaining this point of view.

I think I watched these kids grow up, because they all attended the same private preschools then k-12 in NWDC. This is not a parenting group that uses daycare fwiw, because it’s not really available around here. We aren’t feds who can use their daycares, snd there isn’t a Bright Horizons on every corner

Anyway, it’s just common sense that having a primary caretaker during 85% of your 0-4 waking hours will yield different outcomes when the caretaker is functionally illiterate with a 3rd grade education vs. a graduate degree from an elite school. Not talking about kindness and safety considerations.

To OP, the doctor in our group dropped back to one day/ week for several years, then ramped back up when kids basically needed just an afternoon driver. The lawyers went of counsel or similar. The WaPo editor dropped to a very part time mommy track job temporarily. Some just quit altogether for a few years.

Why do you assume every nanny is an illiterate person with no education?! I had two nannies for my children when they were 0-5 years old. Both were American girls, with college educations. They weren’t Ivy League level schools or anything like that but my children’s nannies were far from illiterate!

Exactly and why is a mom better equip than someone who actually has a degree in early childhood education? I’m educated but not in that! I wouldnt know how to handle my 2 year old at home- she was way better off with people who knew how to entertain her / teach her with age appropriate lessons at preschool.

Moms for tens of millenia learned on the job (or by watching other people in the tribe/clan and taking care of kids from age about 7, but you know...we don't do that any more). ECE degrees aren't required to parent, they really aren't. I know plenty of kids at top colleges whose mothers and fathers had merely bachelors degrees from SLACs.

I think my degree (MD) I’ve worked for is better served with me fulfilling that purpose while my daughter is cared for lovingly and thriving. Also you act like work is 24/7- you know that after daycare/ before school and on weekends parents are generally around right?

PP here. The PP I quoted said "wouldn't know how to handle my 2 year old at home." That sounds like a person who doesn't trust themselves weekends and before/after school or daycare. That's what I was reacting to. I'm a WOHM. I still trust myself to parent.

What is a WOHM? So many abbreviations. I would worry about a parent who claims not to know how to handle a two year old at home. That’s a red flag for possible child abuse or neglect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:End of gen x here (younger end) and I do think we are the last gen of the stay at home mom. With flex work it just makes no sense to minimize income that will affect kids financially down the line.

I admit that I’m jealous and wish my job allowed flex work. A lot of people don’t have that option in their line of work!

Yes this is especially an issue in teaching which is dominated by women. 20 years ago teaching was viewed as a great job for moms because you could have the same schedule as your kids and potentially even have your kids in the same school as you at some point which would ease childcare burdens and simplify the challenge of a dual income family. I remember having several friends with teacher moms when I was a kid and I was jealous that their moms were around in the summer. I also remember friends who would just go to their mom's classroom after school to do homework and hang out until she wrapped up at 4pm. It was also nice to have a parent who knew the lay of the land in the school or the district.

But now teaching is viewed as a lot less family friendly and there are an increasing number of teachers who choose to leave the profession when they have kids or choose not to have kids. Even though real incomes for teachers have not really increased versus inflation they are asked to do much more including more work after hours and with the school community. Teachers often don't really get summers off anymore -- in many districts it's more like 6 weeks and they have to attend a lot of PD days or records days during days their kids are off school so they are still turning to camps and other forms of childcare and not just hanging with kids all summer.

But the biggest thing is that since Covid a lot of other jobs have become more flexible with WFH options and teaching is one of those jobs that really cannot be done WFH. And that realization has hit a lot of teachers hard. WFH is a huge boon for working parents -- I WFH full time and my DH has two days a week at home and this flexiblity is life changing. It eases commutes and dinner times and makes it possible for kids to attend after school activities some days and makes morning drop off easy. It reduces marital stress and tension and enables us both to have better and closer relationships with our kids. Teachers know this better than anyone because they spend all day with kids and know what they need. But the job of teaching is no longer very conducive to being that kind of parent and it's really unfortunate (and is also contributing to the teacher shortage just FYI because teaching is not high paid nor prestigious so if it's also not family friendly then you are going to eliminate many potential teachers because what exactly is the value proposition there).

Teaching is still a good option for moms who don’t need to be in a high earning career - same schedule as your kids and summers off. In my affluent world, many moms work at private schools, where they get reduced tuition for their kids (despite having husbands in finance) and have a pretty decent schedule. It may not be wfh but certainly has other perks.

[Anonymous]

I haven't read all 11 pages but for I am a millenial mom from an Ivy as well. I generally agree with what you posted OP but I found 2 kids to still be the norm in my circles. One big difference I see in millennial high achieving women is that all of our partners are sharing the burden -- of child care, home life, everything. We can have big jobs because dad is willing to take the kids to the doctor or to soccer practice just as much as we are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:End of gen x here (younger end) and I do think we are the last gen of the stay at home mom. With flex work it just makes no sense to minimize income that will affect kids financially down the line.

You are wrong.

“Nearly a quarter of American mothers now identify as stay-at-home parents—a sharp rise from the 15% in 2022, according to a large survey of US women conducted by Motherly, an advocacy group. The 2023 statistic—24%—means that nine percent of mothers have given up their jobs over the past year.”

Hopefully there will always be a choice for mothers to either work or stay home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Millennial SAHD who graduated from UVA, but my wife is a transplant surgeon. Once she eventually became an attending, my time was better spent with our kids than working. No I could have never seen myself being a SAHD, but it's the best option for our family.

I do also run marathons lol, but a fast 5k/10k is better than just finishing a marathon imo

Hopefully you were able to ignore the insults of people from state schools. Just some trolls. Your wife is lucky to have you.