How are you advising your daughters on career/working motherhood?

[Anonymous]

I have three daughters. The only thing we've really talked about is my choice to work FT when they were really young, with an eye to more flexibility when they hit late ES. The amount of stuff in MS and HS (especially if your kid does any sport) that occurs before 5:00 is amazing. If I hadn't put in the time to now be in a position to dictate my schedule, they couldn't do a lot of things

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As we start to look at colleges and majors and future careers, I'm at a loss on how to advise my girls on this. I was a teacher who then SAH a long time and then went back. This worked out for us due to my husband's income, but he doesn't really like his job (lawyer) and I can't really recommend teaching honestly. Both my girls know they want to be mothers, but also want to have careers. One in particular is considering med school but is definitely undecided.

How are you talking to your daughters about what they should consider for the future. I'm thinking in terms of work-life balance, monetary and non-monetary contributions to household from both spouses, childcare, etc. I honestly just don't even know how to advise them. I have never bought into the "have it all" notion, which is why I chose to SAH with a spouse whose career was demanding and a non-flexible teaching schedule. What is the ideal for working motherhood going forward?

Does that make any sense?

I tell mine they should plan to be financially independent and not rely on a partner. Marriage can become a prison if you don't have the financial ability to leave, if necessary. That means planning for retirement, and means not having more children than she can afford to support on her on. That doesn't mean divorce. I had a friend whose husband was a blue collar worker, and broke his back (not on the job). He was done for in terms of earning ability at age 40. Have a plan, and have a back-up plan.

[Anonymous]

And ideally, find a partner who is willing to split child care much closer to 50/50. I had a work colleague who had a very demanding, high level job, but he and his wife "always" split child care. They'd switch off every other time, when a child had to stay home sick, get picked up for being sick, had sports obligations, etc. Real life may not make that division possible. But a partner should be willing to work toward it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My advice for anyone is either to become a doctor in a specialty that has good flexibility/ability to make your own schedule OR get a job where you are paid for some combo of judgement/connections vs where you are paid to work hard and churn out work. I think that will become most true in a post-chatGPT world.

This is true. Many jobs in IT, banking, law are just going to go away. I do think medicine will be protected, and there are a lot of options for flexible schedules with good income if you aren't trying to make 700k in private practice.

[Anonymous]

Pain management in medicine is number one need in US. But you can’t really go by what makes you the most money in life you all realize this right? I make a ton and am bored out of my mind and hate what I do. I hate that people force kids to go for the money because it never works out right selling your soul for the cash. I’m being honest. It’s got to be something they at least have interest in and aligns with their personality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice for anyone is either to become a doctor in a specialty that has good flexibility/ability to make your own schedule OR get a job where you are paid for some combo of judgement/connections vs where you are paid to work hard and churn out work. I think that will become most true in a post-chatGPT world.

This is true. Many jobs in IT, banking, law are just going to go away. I do think medicine will be protected, and there are a lot of options for flexible schedules with good income if you aren't trying to make 700k in private practice.

I do not think this is true at the top and the bottom of the professions. In law -- top end big law is not going anywhere. At the bottom store front solos who can do your DUI and will are not going anywhere. The middle will fall.

[Anonymous]

Teach them that a man is not a plan. No women should be financially dependent on a man.

[Anonymous]

Tell your daughter to shoot for the stars. Isn’t that what you would tell your son? Life works itself out - you will have to deal with all types of ups and downs but with a good attitude, you will figure out how to work through all of it. Talking to a teen about how motherhood might limit your career is meaningless at this stage at best and limiting/creating artificial limits at worst.

When your daughter is actually navigating what she should do - thats the time to brainstorm options. Maybe you are living close by and can offer rides/after school pick up. Maybe you have money you can give her to take a sabbatical. If she has put herself in a place where she is killing it on something she loves, the range of options open to her will be much broader than you can possibly imagine.

Many on this thread have talked about how important your choice of partner is - and really that’s the key. If you have kids with someone who wants what you do for yourself, for your partner and for your kids, you have a much better chance of being able to figure things out.

We need the creativity and passion of all our young people, to include all of our daughters. Don’t pull yours out of the game!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have four adult daughters. They’re all fine. We never “advised” them on any of this BS. All we’ve ever done is support them on whatever they want to do. You’re overthinking this, OP. It’s almost as if you’re projecting your own regrets on to them.

Lol, are you daughters 50+ years old, if not you don't really know how it will all "work out".

They’re all well into their 30s. All four have master’s degrees. Three are married, all to great guys. Two have children. The other two don’t and don’t plan to.

Yes, it’s all worked out. They’ve taken different paths and taken different amounts of time to arrive to different places and we’ve supported them all along the way without “advising” them on anything unless they ask first. You model behavior for them. You don’t tell them what to do.

not impressed.

Whatever. I don’t care if you’re impressed or not. I am just sharing actually experience. You sound jealous. Typical snarky DCUM knee jerk and defensive reaction to hearing advice that you disagree with or that hits too close to home.

[Anonymous]

Being a parent is not easy. You have to walk the walk too.

I have advised, guided and supported her from education, career, dating, money etc. But, before you advice, you have to be the kind of discerning parent who has some moral authority and trust that your kids will listen to you.

[Anonymous]

I’m a doctor - had my kids in medical school and residency. It’s doable and most female doctors become moms. It’s definitely a sacrifice in training but after training it can be a really nice gig. You can work part time and make decent money. You can also choose different types of practice like emergency medicine shift work Vs radiology at home reading slides making bank! There is such a demand that you can call the shots. I wouldn’t be against my daughter being a doctor - it’s more so that I have mixed feelings about having kids during training (which is inflexible and tough) but most people start young enough to wait until most of their training is done to have kids (I started med school in my late 20s so I didn’t have a choice if I wanted a family younger). It’s also nice because you can ramp up and ramp down whenever so you never have to give up your career.

[Anonymous]

Also re:NP / PA - I think if you have a daughter able to do med school (not everyone can do the MCAT and science classes) just become a doctor. There is going to be a major oversupply of NP and PA and no one will question you once you have achieved an MD with training. At least you won’t have regrets but that’s my opinion. I’ve met a lot of pas who picked the field for family life and over the years they get jaded because you aren’t able to advance like an MD and they make less and they see the most MDs become moms anyway so I’d think through that trade off.

[Anonymous]

Just as my mother and my grandmother did, you teach your kids to support themselves and always maintain an ability to be independent. Anything else would be foolish.

[Anonymous]

I just finished reading “the defining decade” by Meg Jay. Lots of insights in that book. Too many to discuss but 1) who to marry is a very important decision, 2) if you want to be a professional woman you need to plan ahead with regards to having children. Although everyone knows someone who had their kids at 40, many more became childless not by choice.
Also 25 is not “too young” to make life decisions. The 20s go very fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do not waste your college and especially grad school years. Shop for a husband.

Although I hope you are being sarcastic, I (unfortunately) think that half of the DCUM posts pushing nursing careers are so that their daughters meet a doctor to marry. smh

Some of the best advice on here. College and grad school are the place to meet men. Still looking at 30? A lot harder.