Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, are you married? Did your partner work full time out of the house? What childcare did you use for your kids, and can you quickly check if it's still open? Relevant to the discussion.

FWIW, I'm 45 and have WFH (hybrid) since my early 30s: a lot of our generation actually did use WFH to make our childcare work. Mostly not the dudes, though.

As a family we decided to raise our kids with my wife staying at home until the youngest was 13 then she joined the work force with me. We are a very traditional household where in the husband provides and the wife nurtures. We are a team just as the QB does not try to block a DE...we stay in our lanes and do what we do best. Wife cooks cleans, I cut fire wood, fix appliances, cut grass, we both share with the kids.

The point I was trying to make earlier is not that I am magical, its that my co-workers right now think they are entitled to live a lifestyle of luxury and its someone else's problem that they need day care, or mortgage rates are high, or housing costs are high, yeah no crap dum dum...I got to buy a house in 2007 at 350K watch its value go down to 150K get trapped in a mortgage, raising 2 kids, and be the only income feeling as if I was stuck....but I worked hard and somehow both myself and family survived and now I hear people younger than me cry about how hard it is to buy a house, and how lucky I am....no I put in hard work for 17 years and now I am in a better position to handle the challenges of 2025, because of the hard work I did for the last 17.

Here is an idea, go get some friends and rent a 4 BR apt for $3,000 and boom you now have a rent of 750...figure it out, stop crying life is hard and expensive....its hard and expensive for everyone...get a clue

and yeah I was trying to stir some stuff up...but that's what message boards are for...I may have mis spoke and my co-workers I am talking about may be GEN Z...21-28 yo whatever they are

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just a few years younger than you are. When my kids were little, my husband’s work more or less expected that I would handle everything at home, and he would be available at work. (It didn’t matter that I also worked for the same hospital and knew is boss and coworkers.)

My sister is 35, and things are so different. Her husband does close to half, and that’s what’s expected. He took paternity leave when the kids were born, takes time off when they are sick half the time, goes to the doctor with them half the time, etc.

As a working woman, I think this is good.

I'm 45 with the same set up as your sister. My husband does more doctor and dentist appointments than I do, he does half the work around the house, and he takes them to their sports half the time. He also gets them ready for school and puts them to bed half the time. Same with cooking. We alternate days on this stuff so I know he actually is doing half, it's not something I'm trying to convince myself of. He also took the first four weeks off, then another four after I went back to work after 16 weeks. He dealt with kids in the morning because my commute was worse so I left before they got up and I got home earlier in the afternoons so we each had them alone for the same amount of time M-F and neither of us has ever worked weekends. Now they're older and take the bus to and from school and we both work from home so things are much easier, but he has always been 50% responsible for everything related to the family.

It sounds like you were older when you had your kids and rather than being the parent of older teens, you are more in the millennial group that the OP is complaining about. You and your husband both take time off, won’t work weekends ever, come in late after dropping kids off, leave early for daycare pickup and to make dinner, etc.

Anonymous wrote:I am a 48 yo father of 2 teenage girls. I somehow found a way to raise both of these girls and work at the same time.

I am 100% tired of seeing people complain about daycare and how they are going to handle going back to the office...GTFOH man up and figure it our somehow my generation found a way to raise their children before remote work....

I guess I am officially the old grumpy GenX guy, but I am done dealing with this mentally weaker generation!!!

Anonymous wrote:I am totally with you. I raised 2 D1 athletes, and 1 top 10 college admit. Lots of practices, lots of trips, lots of debates, lots of band things... while working full time. You can do it - GTFU.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:40 something year old gen Xer here and I think it’s great that Millennials and gen Zers have made it socially acceptable to take so much time off of work! I’m a bit of a slacker and wish it was ok to do that when I was young. We put so many hours into work to the detriment of the rest of our lives.

Agree, but it’s not great when they take more time off than their managers, who are left picking up their slack. The hardworking among them will not face as much competition in advancing their careers as we did.

They are entitled to use their leave. Period. And if they have a reasonable
and understanding workplace-like mine- that wont affect career progression. But you assume everyone wants the Big Job and Big Title. Not everyone does.

Entitlement, poor work ethic + failure to meet expectations will affect your career path in any well-managed for-profit company. Happy to send our entitled twenty-something your way soon.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, are you married? Did your partner work full time out of the house? What childcare did you use for your kids, and can you quickly check if it's still open? Relevant to the discussion.

FWIW, I'm 45 and have WFH (hybrid) since my early 30s: a lot of our generation actually did use WFH to make our childcare work. Mostly not the dudes, though.

As a family we decided to raise our kids with my wife staying at home until the youngest was 13 then she joined the work force with me. We are a very traditional household where in the husband provides and the wife nurtures. We are a team just as the QB does not try to block a DE...we stay in our lanes and do what we do best. Wife cooks cleans, I cut fire wood, fix appliances, cut grass, we both share with the kids.

The point I was trying to make earlier is not that I am magical, its that my co-workers right now think they are entitled to live a lifestyle of luxury and its someone else's problem that they need day care, or mortgage rates are high, or housing costs are high, yeah no crap dum dum...I got to buy a house in 2007 at 350K watch its value go down to 150K get trapped in a mortgage, raising 2 kids, and be the only income feeling as if I was stuck....but I worked hard and somehow both myself and family survived and now I hear people younger than me cry about how hard it is to buy a house, and how lucky I am....no I put in hard work for 17 years and now I am in a better position to handle the challenges of 2025, because of the hard work I did for the last 17.

Here is an idea, go get some friends and rent a 4 BR apt for $3,000 and boom you now have a rent of 750...figure it out, stop crying life is hard and expensive....its hard and expensive for everyone...get a clue

and yeah I was trying to stir some stuff up...but that's what message boards are for...I may have mis spoke and my co-workers I am talking about may be GEN Z...21-28 yo whatever they are

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, are you married? Did your partner work full time out of the house? What childcare did you use for your kids, and can you quickly check if it's still open? Relevant to the discussion.

FWIW, I'm 45 and have WFH (hybrid) since my early 30s: a lot of our generation actually did use WFH to make our childcare work. Mostly not the dudes, though.

As a family we decided to raise our kids with my wife staying at home until the youngest was 13 then she joined the work force with me. We are a very traditional household where in the husband provides and the wife nurtures. We are a team just as the QB does not try to block a DE...we stay in our lanes and do what we do best. Wife cooks cleans, I cut fire wood, fix appliances, cut grass, we both share with the kids.

The point I was trying to make earlier is not that I am magical, its that my co-workers right now think they are entitled to live a lifestyle of luxury and its someone else's problem that they need day care, or mortgage rates are high, or housing costs are high, yeah no crap dum dum...I got to buy a house in 2007 at 350K watch its value go down to 150K get trapped in a mortgage, raising 2 kids, and be the only income feeling as if I was stuck....but I worked hard and somehow both myself and family survived and now I hear people younger than me cry about how hard it is to buy a house, and how lucky I am....no I put in hard work for 17 years and now I am in a better position to handle the challenges of 2025, because of the hard work I did for the last 17.

Here is an idea, go get some friends and rent a 4 BR apt for $3,000 and boom you now have a rent of 750...figure it out, stop crying life is hard and expensive....its hard and expensive for everyone...get a clue

and yeah I was trying to stir some stuff up...but that's what message boards are for...I may have mis spoke and my co-workers I am talking about may be GEN Z...21-28 yo whatever they are

This is going to blow your mind. Women want the same things you want. They want a paycheck and a retirement account. That’s great your wife stayed home but many women don’t want to do that just like you likely would not have.

This is ignoring many men aren’t supportive of a woman staying home and won’t support her. Then there are divorces.

This means women are forced to work and to make it work, they need flexibility and their spouse does too for dual income families.

It seems you might be a little jealous that there are couples where both spouses work since they benefit tremendously from this.

Your wife being able to reenter the workforce after 13 years is unusual.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, are you married? Did your partner work full time out of the house? What childcare did you use for your kids, and can you quickly check if it's still open? Relevant to the discussion.

FWIW, I'm 45 and have WFH (hybrid) since my early 30s: a lot of our generation actually did use WFH to make our childcare work. Mostly not the dudes, though.

As a family we decided to raise our kids with my wife staying at home until the youngest was 13 then she joined the work force with me. We are a very traditional household where in the husband provides and the wife nurtures. We are a team just as the QB does not try to block a DE...we stay in our lanes and do what we do best. Wife cooks cleans, I cut fire wood, fix appliances, cut grass, we both share with the kids.

The point I was trying to make earlier is not that I am magical, its that my co-workers right now think they are entitled to live a lifestyle of luxury and its someone else's problem that they need day care, or mortgage rates are high, or housing costs are high, yeah no crap dum dum...I got to buy a house in 2007 at 350K watch its value go down to 150K get trapped in a mortgage, raising 2 kids, and be the only income feeling as if I was stuck....but I worked hard and somehow both myself and family survived and now I hear people younger than me cry about how hard it is to buy a house, and how lucky I am....no I put in hard work for 17 years and now I am in a better position to handle the challenges of 2025, because of the hard work I did for the last 17.

Here is an idea, go get some friends and rent a 4 BR apt for $3,000 and boom you now have a rent of 750...figure it out, stop crying life is hard and expensive....its hard and expensive for everyone...get a clue

and yeah I was trying to stir some stuff up...but that's what message boards are for...I may have mis spoke and my co-workers I am talking about may be GEN Z...21-28 yo whatever they are

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Considering how GenZ is shaping out, I would reserve crowing about it.

Oh, and you are the DAD? Who did pickups and drop offs, or took to the 430 gymnastics class twice a week?

I’m guessing you dropped them off at 830 and went to work, and coached soccer once a week. Your DW did all the pickup and afternoon activities 4x a week which is career nightmare fuel.

^^this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, are you married? Did your partner work full time out of the house? What childcare did you use for your kids, and can you quickly check if it's still open? Relevant to the discussion.

FWIW, I'm 45 and have WFH (hybrid) since my early 30s: a lot of our generation actually did use WFH to make our childcare work. Mostly not the dudes, though.

As a family we decided to raise our kids with my wife staying at home until the youngest was 13 then she joined the work force with me. We are a very traditional household where in the husband provides and the wife nurtures. We are a team just as the QB does not try to block a DE...we stay in our lanes and do what we do best. Wife cooks cleans, I cut fire wood, fix appliances, cut grass, we both share with the kids.

The point I was trying to make earlier is not that I am magical, its that my co-workers right now think they are entitled to live a lifestyle of luxury and its someone else's problem that they need day care, or mortgage rates are high, or housing costs are high, yeah no crap dum dum...I got to buy a house in 2007 at 350K watch its value go down to 150K get trapped in a mortgage, raising 2 kids, and be the only income feeling as if I was stuck....but I worked hard and somehow both myself and family survived and now I hear people younger than me cry about how hard it is to buy a house, and how lucky I am....no I put in hard work for 17 years and now I am in a better position to handle the challenges of 2025, because of the hard work I did for the last 17.

Here is an idea, go get some friends and rent a 4 BR apt for $3,000 and boom you now have a rent of 750...figure it out, stop crying life is hard and expensive....its hard and expensive for everyone...get a clue

and yeah I was trying to stir some stuff up...but that's what message boards are for...I may have mis spoke and my co-workers I am talking about may be GEN Z...21-28 yo whatever they are

Anonymous wrote:OP, are you married? Did your partner work full time out of the house? What childcare did you use for your kids, and can you quickly check if it's still open? Relevant to the discussion.

FWIW, I'm 45 and have WFH (hybrid) since my early 30s: a lot of our generation actually did use WFH to make our childcare work. Mostly not the dudes, though.

Anonymous wrote:I am a 48 yo father of 2 teenage girls. I somehow found a way to raise both of these girls and work at the same time.

I am 100% tired of seeing people complain about daycare and how they are going to handle going back to the office...GTFOH man up and figure it our somehow my generation found a way to raise their children before remote work....

I guess I am officially the old grumpy GenX guy, but I am done dealing with this mentally weaker generation!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just a few years younger than you are. When my kids were little, my husband’s work more or less expected that I would handle everything at home, and he would be available at work. (It didn’t matter that I also worked for the same hospital and knew is boss and coworkers.)

My sister is 35, and things are so different. Her husband does close to half, and that’s what’s expected. He took paternity leave when the kids were born, takes time off when they are sick half the time, goes to the doctor with them half the time, etc.

As a working woman, I think this is good.

I'm 45 with the same set up as your sister. My husband does more doctor and dentist appointments than I do, he does half the work around the house, and he takes them to their sports half the time. He also gets them ready for school and puts them to bed half the time. Same with cooking. We alternate days on this stuff so I know he actually is doing half, it's not something I'm trying to convince myself of. He also took the first four weeks off, then another four after I went back to work after 16 weeks. He dealt with kids in the morning because my commute was worse so I left before they got up and I got home earlier in the afternoons so we each had them alone for the same amount of time M-F and neither of us has ever worked weekends. Now they're older and take the bus to and from school and we both work from home so things are much easier, but he has always been 50% responsible for everything related to the family.