Why Women Still Can’t Have It All

I think there used to be an expectation that the young people would serve their time helping the ones with families, and then they'd get the same benefit when it's their turn and there's another crop of young people. But that has gone away for a lot of reasons, one of them being the rarity of a person actually sticking around at the same company to reap that benefit anyway.

But on the whole it is a better policy for the company not to get into refereeing such matters. As much as I love my kids and believe there is nothing more important in the world, there's really no reason for a workplace to prioritize my son's baseball tournament over my co-worker's mountain biking trip.

 

A 21st century definition:

Sacrifice: 1. something for which I cannot take time out of my busy schedule. 2. a tired notion occasionally performed by people who don't get it

 

That sense of "We're all in this together" used to apply to a lot of things. Now we're all rugged individualists who recognize that working for the common good is a socialist Trojan horse.

 

Yep. I get this a lot as a single person when I'm the one asked to work weekends, holidays, etc. Normally I don't mind, but then I expect the favor to be returned when there is something I want to do on a given day.

 

As a philosophical topic, you're right on point. In practical terms, though, anyone who has ever had kids realizes there's a cost. The USDA's dollar figure is $235,000 for kids born in 2011:
http://usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2012/06/0197.xml&navid=NEWS_RELEASE&navtype=RT&parentnav=LATEST_RELEASES&edeployment_action=retrievecontent

 

OK, so which is it?

Are the families spending "only" $169,080 ignoring the "necessities" of their child (kind of hard to believe).

Or are tens of thousands of these expenses --- the ones that raise the figures to $235,000 and $389,670 --- not really necessities?

 

Private schools and gymnastics lessons don't fall into the necessities category.

 

Well, I guess everyone now knows I'm no movie buff.

Regardless, I think you've misinterpreted--or at least exaggerated--what I wrote. "To have ambition is to not have a soul" is certainly not equivalent to "the more you have of one, the less you have of the other."

I also don't believe ambition is about "seeking more security." Or if it is, it's rare.

 

My advice to parents is quit torturing yourselves about college. Based on the annual tuition hikes and incomes in this profession even for the success stories, it's quite likely (or at least quite possible) that you will not be able to afford to foot the bill for your kids to attend college entirely on your dime.

But I think so many of the people who post here worked in college, often full-time, that I think our desire to protect and provide for our kids blurs our vision of what is possible and reasonable.

I think it's a lot more realistic and less stressful to just focus on being able to provide some things, rather than to feel like a failure because you don't have 200k now or 1.3 trillion in 18 years to let your kid(s) have an easy path through college.

I think many of us who worked throughout college (and high school, in many cases) would do it again even if we didn't HAVE to.

Just trying to put a positive spin.

 

This is a good idea and a good point.

You can only do what you can do. Your kid (and his job(s)), and scholarships and grants and savings or loans may have to contribute to the rest of it. Assuming, that is, that your kid even really wants to go to college at the typical time for it. (I think a lot of kids waste a lot of time going to college at that age, and all they end up doing is taking a lot of classes, but the real interest in being a student isn't there, and they don't get anywhere, all while they probably could and would be much more productive and just as happy just going to work).

I know I worked all through college -- part-time for most of it but full-time at times, as well. It took me longer than four years to get through, but I didn't mind or consider working (or college) to be an imposition. It was just the way it was, and the way it had to be if I wanted to do what I wanted to do.

Parents may want to do everything for their kids, but they don't have to, and kids should learn that their parents shouldn't be expected to, either, particularly at that age. The kids are young adults, and, well, it's time for them to start acting like it.

As for the thread's original premise, people can have it all -- over the course of their lives.

They cannot necessarily have it all, all of the time, or all at the same time.

 

Even female superheroes can't have it all:

Why Black Widow can't have it all - Vox