Please stop assuming women with lower salaries are un- or under-educated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"All so that you don't have to think about the uncomfortable reality that socially critical professions such as teaching don't pay a locally-reasonable salary."

I thought about it when I was 17 and decided to let other people do those socially critically jobs.

"Because if you thought about it, you might have to DO something about it, like quit bitching about taxes and levies and whatnot, and oh my no... that won't do."

What should anyone do about it? Why should something be done?

Okay, I don't believe you are honest anymore. No one could be this ridiculous. You complain about stay-at-home moms being not as valuable to society as working moms, yet you say something as hypocritical as the fact that you "decided to let other people do... socially crticially jobs"? Well, same here. I know it's important for women to stay in the workforce, but I just decided to let other people do it. How much sense does that argument make? Work for you?

I don't think you are for real. You can't be. Good try, though. You've had me going.

[Anonymous]

To 7/2 17:06

"Most people in their 20s don't really think much about the logistics of juggling career and family."

Women do. Men don't have to.

Who in their right minds thinks they can work 60 hours a week and parent? I knew even before I met my future DH at age 27 that I would have to downshift just to be successfully married, much less a parent. It ain't rocket science. Similarly, kids and life in general are expensive. People are in incredible denial about college costs and retirement. Seems to me when you start college you should be looking for some occupation that allows you to combine parenting and work at all of your kids' ages. I can't believe I'm the only one who planned my life that way.

[Anonymous]

To 7/2 17:23 -

"Having a flexible schedule is more important right now than making a ton of money. "

Meaning you have $200,00 for each kid for college all sewn up so you don't need to make a ton of money? I think you need a good teenage supervision plan that still allows the parents to make lots of money. Unless you are in your 30s when you have teenagers, so you won't be in your peak earning years when your children are in college.

[Anonymous]

to 7/3 16:06

Of course you can do a better job watching your kids than any nanny or preschool you'd hire. I totally agree. Why is that a reason to SAH? It's not like WOHPs don't raise their kids, and you give up so much just to SAH.

[Anonymous]

To 7/3 18:55 - yup, I'm real and these are my real beliefs.

I believe that having a modern military force is valuable, yet my children will serve only over my dead body.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To 7/3 18:55 - yup, I'm real and these are my real beliefs.

I believe that having a modern military force is valuable, yet my children will serve only over my dead body.

That's funny. My mother said that, too--yet here I am, 20 yrs later, still a Navy officer. Good luck with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To 7/2 17:06

"Most people in their 20s don't really think much about the logistics of juggling career and family."

Women do. Men don't have to.

Who in their right minds thinks they can work 60 hours a week and parent? I knew even before I met my future DH at age 27 that I would have to downshift just to be successfully married, much less a parent. It ain't rocket science. Similarly, kids and life in general are expensive. People are in incredible denial about college costs and retirement. Seems to me when you start college you should be looking for some occupation that allows you to combine parenting and work at all of your kids' ages. I can't believe I'm the only one who planned my life that way.

Sure, but no one in their 20s knows what the future holds in terms of flexibility. I'm in a field where a whole bunch of my female colleagues felt pushed out of the workforce. In this area, it is competitive, and many people LIKE working hard. When you have kids, your priorities may change, and sometimes the priorities of your workplace don't. To think that every mom can just choose to "downshift" on their time line is ignoring a huge reality. I was able to, and if you were, that's great, but not everyone is. It's just not how the workforce is designed for many.

Also, I know many women who changed their minds about kids, or ended up having twins, or faced infertility. You can plan, but life doesn't always follow your wishes.

[Anonymous]

To PP:

"Sure, but no one in their 20s knows what the future holds in terms of flexibility."

Again, this confuses me. Why wouldn't a woman in college talk to people and do some research on flexibility, among other attributes, in a potential career? I took the least flexible job in my industry first, to build up experience and credibility so I could downshift after getting my ticket punched.

I'd assume no particular profession would be offering flexibility to a new mother in her 30s unless that mother had researched the industry and particular occupation carefully. Somehow, through a combination of having a flexible job, a spouse having a flexible or planning to have a HHI high enough so that both parents can continue to work inflexible jobs after having kids, it can be planned for in advance.

Do people face unexpected adversity in the form of job loss, multiples, special needs children, etc.? Of course. But how many people have their first child and then it's all of a sudden a big conundrum how to combine parenting and working? That's what I just don't get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To PP:

"Sure, but no one in their 20s knows what the future holds in terms of flexibility."

Again, this confuses me. Why wouldn't a woman in college talk to people and do some research on flexibility, among other attributes, in a potential career? I took the least flexible job in my industry first, to build up experience and credibility so I could downshift after getting my ticket punched.

I'd assume no particular profession would be offering flexibility to a new mother in her 30s unless that mother had researched the industry and particular occupation carefully. Somehow, through a combination of having a flexible job, a spouse having a flexible or planning to have a HHI high enough so that both parents can continue to work inflexible jobs after having kids, it can be planned for in advance.

Do people face unexpected adversity in the form of job loss, multiples, special needs children, etc.? Of course. But how many people have their first child and then it's all of a sudden a big conundrum how to combine parenting and working? That's what I just don't get.

In many ways we are arguing the same point since I work and have a flexible job. Of course I knew that public health in many ways would give me more flexibity than say, becoming a lawyer, getting an MBA, working on wall street, etc. But there are many paths your career takes and trying to really predict what your career and path will hold is hard. I ended up getting a fair amount of flexibility and being able to work a reduced schedule even though I work for a traditionally large, very DC, very fast-paced organization. My good friend in grad school took what I would call a very family friendly job in public health, much less "DC" and much more "grassroots" but ended up working 60 hour weeks and not being able to handle work and children. That coupled with her husband taking a path that led to 80 hour work weeks helped her decide to stay home even though she would prefer a family friendly job. She has pieced together some consulting work and teaching jobs but it's not exactly what she wanted.

Often times 10 years prior you are not sure that equation is what life holds. Things happen.

What works for us is that I knew before kids, I wanted to work and I wanted my DH to work as hard as me at raising our kids. So he was forced to think about all this too. We live 10 minutes from his job, we do daycare at his work, and he is home by 5 every night. So yeah, he thought about it too. But clearly there are folks in this area who may want that but don't have that.

What I have a real problem with is when people imply this is an individual problem. An individual mom's problem. As if any mom with an inflexible job who either suffers through and is miserable, or ends up just quitting to stay home, just didn't plan ahead. Such bullshit. It's a workforce problem, a societal problem, a policy problem. I've read too much and looked into this issue too deeply to fall for any other line.

[Anonymous]

"It's a workforce problem, a societal problem, a policy problem."

Right now, for the rest of the working lives of anyone who's in her 30s, it IS an individual and family problem. I don't see things improving dramatically - there's no money for anything and no real impetus. I think the best course of action is to assume each family has to chart its own course on work life balance for now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"It's a workforce problem, a societal problem, a policy problem."

Right now, for the rest of the working lives of anyone who's in her 30s, it IS an individual and family problem. I don't see things improving dramatically - there's no money for anything and no real impetus. I think the best course of action is to assume each family has to chart its own course on work life balance for now.

Fine - I'm doing my part by proposing an alternative and reduced schedule (first one in my division), and making it work 2.5 years later, as well as paying attention and acting on any legislative issues that could support positive changes. In the meantime, I refuse to get on message boards for moms and smugly lecture other moms that there poor-planning during college and in their 20s is the reason they are dissatisified, overwhelmed, or frazzled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"It's a workforce problem, a societal problem, a policy problem."

Right now, for the rest of the working lives of anyone who's in her 30s, it IS an individual and family problem. I don't see things improving dramatically - there's no money for anything and no real impetus. I think the best course of action is to assume each family has to chart its own course on work life balance for now.

And this is precisely why things don't change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To PP:

"Sure, but no one in their 20s knows what the future holds in terms of flexibility."

Again, this confuses me. Why wouldn't a woman in college talk to people and do some research on flexibility, among other attributes, in a potential career? I took the least flexible job in my industry first, to build up experience and credibility so I could downshift after getting my ticket punched.

I'd assume no particular profession would be offering flexibility to a new mother in her 30s unless that mother had researched the industry and particular occupation carefully. Somehow, through a combination of having a flexible job, a spouse having a flexible or planning to have a HHI high enough so that both parents can continue to work inflexible jobs after having kids, it can be planned for in advance.

Do people face unexpected adversity in the form of job loss, multiples, special needs children, etc.? Of course. But how many people have their first child and then it's all of a sudden a big conundrum how to combine parenting and working? That's what I just don't get.

Because some people -many, right now- are coming out of college just needing a job. Any job. And those types of luxuries are secondary to pure income. And, yes, flexibility is a luxury right now. It isn't an entitlement or viewed as a positive thing in many jobs. Luckily -very luckily- my job is not one of those and I have an incredibly flexible work routine. Not everyone is so lucky. I would even go as far to say as most people are not that lucky. But, my boss is smart. He knows that -even if the job isn't very soul fulfilling- I'm staying put. I'm loyal to them for giving me such a good work-life balance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I've also been in DC long enough to know that there are tons of lawyers who would love to be in Big Law, earning Big Law salaries, but they didn't graduate from top law schools in the top 1% of their classes, or do any of the other things that are usually required to get there--and that some of the "I'd much rather be here doing this for $72k a year" is a lot of ego-defense. Plenty of both types.

Hellooooo. From what rock did you climb out of? There are tons of lawyers -- tons of them -- being hired at BigLaw from students that did not make law review at schools well outside the second tier. They are everywhere. Sour grapes my a$$.

Yeah, this. The PP's post made no sense to me, either. Big Law hires plenty of people from second and third tier law schools, and it most definitely goes below the top 1% of the class. (I'm not even sure what that means - most law schools don't even tell you what percentage of the class you are in.) I'm guessing the person who posted that was not a lawyer.

Funny, a previous poster got it, as did I. I'm guessing the two of you are examples of the not-too-bright lawyers mentioned that couldn't cut it, since as you rightly pointed out there are TONS of lawyers in DC. Many of them are now unemployed--and unemployable--perhaps even you?

Although I'm sure you'll come firing right back to assure us all that you're making extremely high salaries somewhere while toiling for the common good--always so believable on an anonymous board.

Hey. Whatever rationalizations get you through those long nights and weekends, buddy. You're entitled to them.

[Anonymous]

I work in BigLaw and we don't hire outside of top 10 law schools and only give offers to A students, preferably former federal clerks. There are a lot of assholes here.