What I’m noticing from millennial high achieving moms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marathon running and new construction homes.

-another “high credential” millennial mom (1989)

Just wait until their kids are in high school and college and you are hearing all about them running marathons WITH their kids or attending their D1 athletics or whatever.

If this is triggering for you (it is for me) you need to mute or develop a strong level of detachment from social media generally early on.

Why does this trigger you? Serious question. Why do you care so much what other people do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marathon running and new construction homes.

-another “high credential” millennial mom (1989)

Just wait until their kids are in high school and college and you are hearing all about them running marathons WITH their kids or attending their D1 athletics or whatever.

If this is triggering for you (it is for me) you need to mute or develop a strong level of detachment from social media generally early on.

Why does this trigger you? Serious question. Why do you care so much what other people do?

Low self esteem duh

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Like attracts like, people. Such high-achievers, whether men or women, are not the norm. You are perhaps most likely to run across them in educated and wealthy areas, of course, but if you're so intelligent, surely you understand that you belong to a rarified strata of society?

I agree about like attracts like. The OP has a group of friends who are all very similar. At the same time as her friends are working day and night to keep up materially, there are at-home super moms out there who had no intention of working full time when their children were born. That’s my “cohort”. We occasionally travel together, we take our kids to do things they wouldn’t be able to do if we worked. We carpool in the summer when a lot of our kids go to arts camp. We live our lives in a way that feminists scoffed at. OP and her friends decided to work and have children which is not unusual.

Looks like the OP is trying to make “high achieving millennials” happen as if it’s some new phenomenon.

Umm... I don't know only SAHMs, except high school acquaintances who went to state schools. OP is talking about the generations of women born around 1990 who went to elite schools. Pretty much all of us are working. And those of us who are non-religoous never dreamed about staying at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yes and it's precisely that because the men are equal partners that no one really wants more (3+) kids. Turns out that parenting is hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yes and it's precisely that because the men are equal partners that no one really wants more (3+) kids. Turns out that parenting is hard.

Haha! And I think that wanting to keep the men as equal partners in the home is keeping women at work when they thought they would be SAHMs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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 really think that younger women aren’t doing this because they don’t want to shift the equal home responsibilities. It’s hard to shift back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Add local, relatively young grandparents who are swooping in to do a ton of childcare (in some cases, basically full-time parenting) to make all of the above possible.

+100
And shamed if they don’t do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Posts like this make me glad I could only afford the exurbs anyway (I suppose I'm not high achieving despite a PhD and a senior job in my field, as it doesn't pay a lot for this area). I will admit my 9 year old is not the most poised or impressive in the room, but at least he's not under any pressure to be. This sort of proves the PP's point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in that group and pretty open about the positive and negative I've experienced- domestic assault, becoming a single Mom, parent to a medically disabled child, losing many many pregnancies. I've also talked about wins - successful career.

Some friends have been open about their struggles. One lost two babies and her uterus. Super high achieving person. Another is a famous tech owner that essentially is a recluse ans paranoid.

The bolded is actually something I do NOT see in this group unless the street goes can be framed as another accomplishment. So like medical issues that got resolved they will share about, but a divorce will happen very quietly with no acknowledgement on social media. A kid with an LD or other SN that they overcome to do well will be highlighted, a child with behavioral issues that are persistent will never be mentioned.

If these women were open about struggles in a way that indicated they don't have all the answers, they would be relatable. But when it's all wins, all the time, I just feel like I can't relate and would rather keep my distance. I don't want my more normal life compared to theirs negatively, and I really don't want to be lectured on how to "fix" my life to be more like theirs (truthfully I don't want the big successful career because I like having a lot of balance and I decided a long time ago that trying to look and be perfect all the time was bad for my mental health so I embrace my mediocrity as a sign that I'm in a good head space).

I like you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1990 here, also Ivy grad. I've observed One And Done -OR- no kids actually. I had a kid at 30 and was the earliest one in my friend group.

I don't think of one and done or no kids as a flex. Three kids is very common in my area (Greenwich). That's the flex. Everything on the initial list is accurate. The running marathons is not something that I see (and I'm a former college runner so these are my people) but being very fit is definitely a flex.

It’s very telling that you see everything as either “a flex” or not. Some people are just living their lives. They are not living their lives AT you. They don’t care about you or what you think at all.

[Anonymous]

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.

The grandparents are with the kid 24/7, so it doesn’t matter. You will be with your grandkids in the same way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marathon running and new construction homes.

-another “high credential” millennial mom (1989)

Just wait until their kids are in high school and college and you are hearing all about them running marathons WITH their kids or attending their D1 athletics or whatever.

If this is triggering for you (it is for me) you need to mute or develop a strong level of detachment from social media generally early on.

Why does this trigger you? Serious question. Why do you care so much what other people do?

Are you really this dense?

Look, life is not a menu everyone is handed and gets to order off. So this is not a function of looking at someone else's plate and thinking "I should have ordered that." People have limitations and challenges and yes, sometimes it's triggering to see someone without those limitations or challenges because it reminds you of what you can't have.

Like I am triggered by social media posts of people with their parents, especially anything showing a close relationship between their kids and parents. That's not something I have access to or ever will so it makes me feel a bit sad when I see others who have that. I mute accounts where that kind of post is common because I don't like thinking about it.

If statements like this bother you, maybe you should avoid going on DCUM threads where people talk about it, which is clearly triggering *for you.*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Posts like this make me glad I could only afford the exurbs anyway (I suppose I'm not high achieving despite a PhD and a senior job in my field, as it doesn't pay a lot for this area). I will admit my 9 year old is not the most poised or impressive in the room, but at least he's not under any pressure to be. This sort of proves the PP's point.

Op here. I’d ignore that prior poster. Such a troll. I’m a doctor and I’m not sure how any doctor can be home for 8 years and just resume work again lol. Look up “the op out generation wants make in”a not so easy. Anyway, I agree with all of you about leave helping in this way. My husband has taken 10-12 weeks with each of our kids to help extend daycare start to 5 months. He’s also the primary parent despite a big job himself.

Re poster about being a SAHM despite not being religious- I think it’s more that during college in the early 2000s, we truly could not imagine being good parents and having two “big” jobs. So even if someone wasn’t religious the assumption was that something had to give. But I think work from home/ flexible work etc has really just made it so that most people I know are working despite two “big” jobs. I also think the stigma of daycare has lessened. I know that I use daycare and several of my friends use daycare despite being able to afford a nanny and we really have felt like our kids are thriving.