Unfortunately, they aren’t hiring women. The trend in IT is overseas oursourcing. Can’t get your brains cheap enough at home? Get ‘em in India.

It’s not a cop out when it’s your reality. It’s like abortion … a lot easier to point fingers and admonish and demand the theoretically better choices when it isn’t personal.

I think my point was simply that the wage gap does exacerbate the problem of men versus women leaving work to take on the role of primary caregiver for however long they do it for… and that it’s not trivial when it’s your mortgage or your health insurance on the line. Amp actually did a fabulous cartoon on this, but I can’t find it in the archives :-(

Now I have a 7 year old who checks in once in a while between playing with the neighbor children and is perfectly content to be away from my supervision, as long as I manage her life to her specifications. I suppose if you have many children the moments when you despair last for more years. But thank Margaret Sanger I have one child and raising her has been a blast- plus she saved me from a cubicle job when she was a baby, because I couldn’t bear to be away from her for ten hours a day.

Hire women.

The people, united, provide a bigger target.

Copout. My (male) boss demands work flexibility for his children. If a whole generation of male employees did that, what could the employers do about it? But sure, rebuilding the exchange server is a bit more glam to talk about. Think some women wouldn’t rather have a turn doing that?

I traded one high stress job (computer software) for another high stress job (entrepreneur), largely so I could give my kids the time, attention and structure they needed. But secretly, I wanted to do that anyway. The kids provide the excuse needed to keep the wife off my back, frankly. (”I want security!” “OK, honey. I’ll go back to Microsoft. Now, I’ll be working 60+ hours a week and taking a lot of trips. That means that it’ll be you doing the homeschooling and the meal prep and putting them to bed every night, and of course, going solo for a five to ten days each month.” “Um, never mind. So how’s the entrepeneur thing coming?”)

Whatever my original motives, however, working at home and being the primary caregiver for our youngest (the older two are now living in another home) has been basically a joy. (It wasn’t a joy when the older two were here.) So there’s a LOT of individual variation; I’d be hating life under one work + caregiving scenario, and loving it under the same scenario but with different kids. YMMV, in other words.

But at least in IT you don’t get vomited on nearly as often.

On the other hand, babies are a lot cuter than computers.

Speaking of which, Nick, have you had time during all this to take any pictures? (/blatant attempt to get an extra baby blobbing episode)

“Lots of men who work long hours in high-stress jobs would give anything to spend more time with their children.”

One thing I find encouraging though is that some men are starting to actually give up the high-stress jobs in order to spend more time with their children. Some of them have even become the primary caregivers of their children or at least some of the men I know have.

Yeah, Ledasmom. I was able to bail out of a hateful job and spend some time at home because of my husband’s generosity. But with a kid or two, his generosity wouldn’t have mattered, because it wouldn’t have been enough to cover even a temporary breather. I would be eating my heart out in that fucking hellhole until retirement or until they fired me, whichever came first. >:

It’s just cemented my belief that not having kids was the correct thing for me to do, which is value of a sort as the big 4-0 looms and I brace for yet another round of “You don’t have a BABY yet ? What’s WRONG with you ?!”

Yeah, Ledasmom. I was able to bail out of a hateful job and spend some time at home because of my husband’s generosity. But with a kid or two, his generosity wouldn’t have mattered, because it wouldn’t have been enough to cover even a temporary breather. I would be eating my heart out in that fucking hellhole until retirement or until they fired me, whichever came first. >:

It’s just cemented my belief that not having kids was the correct thing for me to do, which is value of a sort as the big 4-0 looms and I brace for yet another round of “You don’t have a BABY yet ? What’s WRONG with you ?!”

Well, exactly. If those men *were* doing the childcare they wouldn’t be in those high-stress high-pay jobs. Because women *generally* do the childcare they don’t get those high-stress high-pay jobs. Chickens & eggs. And it’s impossible to change this because it would be irresponsible to not give your family *as much money as is humanly possible regardless of the consequences.*

I’m sorry. It is, I am sure, why some men *think* they don’t do primary childcare or even a biggish portion of secondary childcare. I doubt it myself.

Meanwhile, “I childproofed my house. But they still get in!”

As a single person, you hate your job and walk out or look for something else, and it falls through or things are tough, well, that’s just you eating kraft dinner and sleeping on a friends couch because you can’t pay your rent.

You put kids in the picture and suddenly it’s not good enough to CHOOSE to do that… I mean hell, sometimes things go badly and you end up on the nubs and the whole family suffers, despite your best efforts. But when we look at choosing (as a family member) to take an action that increases your probability of not being able to pay your rent/mortgate, that, in my mind, is irresponsible at best.

Hang in there, Nick… it does get a little easier as time goes on.

nexyjo said: if only this were true. that really should be changed to “in some jobs…”, or perhaps “in most jobs…”. in my old job, i used to get calls late into the night, some in the middle of the night. as far as i was concerned, my time was never my own.

I expressed it loosely. Fair point.

Although I knew it in theory, living with Sydney and Maddox has really make me appreciate how awe-inspiring the 24/7 coverage needed to grow an infant is. And they have two parents plus a few aunts and uncles to help! This is no help, but for what it’s worth, I think what you’re doing is amazing.