Family vs. Career is Not a Trade Off
All these people talking about relationships and what not got me thinking.
There seems to be this notion that there is a definite trade off between career and family. I personally don't understand why this is such a widely accepted notion. So I ask, why? why? why?
I grew up surrounded by people who did both - my mother got married and had 2 kids before she turned 30. Yet she raised a family while working as a business woman. Now she's some bigwig at a multinational corporation and a great mother. My grandmother was a medical doctor (can you believe that a woman was allowed to go to medical school in the 40s?) who had 3 kids.
I have couple friends who their grandmother or mother are successful businesswomen, lawyers, or doctors and still raised 2+ successful kids.
I always grew up hearing how having a stable and happy family is the key behind any successful and well-grounded person.
Have people gotten soft? Are we just bunch of complacent pu**ies who don't want to do anything difficult? Unless you're pulling 100 hrs a week, what's so difficult about working hard during the day and being a good family person at home, however brief that might be?
Interested
Some people don't want to come home after their kids are asleep and go to work before they wake up. My dad had a career like this but my mom stayed home for the latter part of my childhood. I definitely wished that he could toss a ball with me or wished that he could come to games. Looking back, he sacrificed a lot but at the time I didn't understand why he wasn't around. He would work on weekends or have no energy to do anything. I do feel that I missed bonding experiences with him, and I don't want my future kids to experience something like that.
You realize there are 18-ish years after you push them out where you're supposed to raise them right? Yeah you can try to do both and some are better than balancing it than others but anything that requires time and attention from your day is always in direct competition with one another.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. Are we that big of pussies that we don't want to have kids because "wE dOn'T hAvE tHe TiMe?". Our parents and grandparents had it worse than we did. Seems like we're just bunch of entitled brats.
I think the answer is pretty trivial no? People want to wait to have kids when they feel like they can give them the love and attention they deserve rather than responding to the cultural dogma of needing to have kids in order to become "proper" adults.
My parents had me when they were very young and while I "turned out alright", they themselves have said that they wished they had waited till they were in a more stable time in their lives to have kids.
you hit the nail on the head.
Our parents didn't have it worse off, in fact they had it far, far better off on average (assuming we're talking about the USA). Massive cost inflation in housing, education, and healthcare and stagnant wages (by comparison) have demolished the American Dream for nearly everyone outside of the top 5-10% of graduating students. Also, say goodbye to one-income households - you need two working parents just to get by in any major city. This trend applied to the population has deleterious effects.
interesting how the burden seems to fall on the women. Undoubtedly it is harder to raise a family and work a demanding job.
Tbh. I used to think paternity leaves were bunch of nonsense. But now I actually understand it.
With modern families where the both parents are working, either the dad or the mom needs to stay home for some time.
I get your point, but these are clearly the upper bounds of what are normal otherwise you wouldn’t be highlighting them. The level of organization and discipline it would take to do the two is massive, and most people can’t do it. I don’t think that’s new, it’s a highly desired skill in society because it’s never been common.
Even for the people that can work, however, there is still a trade off. You might know people who had successful kids while working as lawyers, great! I’m honestly glad that it worked out for them. But what about during the day? Those kids would have to have a babysitter look after them before they were able to go to school, and even when they were at school they couldn’t get picked up or have a parent drop by and say hi for lunch.
For some people that is a trade off, and no time management can change the fact that you can’t be there for your kids while you’re at work.
No people haven't become substantially "softer," the world has become extremely competitive. If anything it has become far tougher to live a fulfilling life and frankly it doesn't matter how many libertarians or whatever come in here and yell about how televisions and computers are cheaper than ever. It doesn't matter what your parents did. They also could have flipped burgers and made enough to raise a family or gone to college for a few hundred bucks.
Yeah, I think people have gotten soft. We're still justifying things like participation awards and ribbons for the last place. People certainly want it handed to them, no actual effort in obtaining something or even figuring out how to manage time.
Why is everyone here talking about society becoming "soft" when women were supposed to stay home for the last thousand years?
Besides, after seeing how these last generations have turned out, maybe it wouldn't hurt if people spent more time with their family.
I don't understand why so many people believe that. You think over the last thousand years, where the average person was a farmer, children were expected to work from a young age and everyone was a couple days away from starving to death, women sat at home watching TV on stone tablets?
Huh? That's what you got out of my comment? Wow
It was referencing that women would stay home all day, taking care of the house and kids. They weren't off having careers.
Time is a finite resource and some people want to use theirs differently than others. I don't see the big issue with people striving for a certain career path that they think will make them happy. Supply and demand will take care of what they get as opposed to what they want.
The only difference between the past and the present is that now you see everybody's opinion on the internet. People get mad when others have different views on life and they project this onto some naive and nostalgic statement like "people have become softer".
I'm too young to have kids, although that's the plan eventually. But my parents are great role models for this very topic:
My father was a foster kid, absolutely horrible childhood. He joined the military out of high school and got the discipline he needed, then has done government work since his Honorable Discharge. He met my mom, an immigrant who also had an awful childhood and never knew her own mother. The saved up money to buy a house, then had 3 kids (myself and my two sisters). My dad worked 60 hours per week, went to college, and helped raise three kids. My mom also enrolled in college while raising us. I went to my dad's graduation when I was a kid, I remember being in awe that he graduated valedictorian of his class with two majors and a perfect 4.0. My dad is crazy. My mom graduated shortly thereafter, with high honors, even in spite of all that she had to handle.
My parents were awesome. There were times I attended my mom's college courses because she couldn't afford a nanny, times I went to work with my dad. They weren't always perfect, but I think I won the lottery being born to both of them. Frequently when I'm tired and don't feel like doing much more, I remember their work ethics to create a better life for us, and am able to push forward. Now they're self made millionaires, have 0 debt (paid off the house a few years back), have pensions- they're completely fine financially, they're happy, and they made it work.
Some big shoes for me to fill, but I absolutely believe it's possible to do both.
Did your parents make time to spend with you?
Yes, I definitely think so. Maybe not as much quantity as some of my friends had growing up, but I think the quality was there. I was an angry teenager especially about my dad missing a lot of events, but when I hit 20-21 I understood things better and my relationship with him got better.
I think it is worth mentioning that before the past 20-25 years your work didn’t follow you home. Sure you might spend more time in the office, but once you’re home, you’re home. With the internet, smartphones, outlook, IM, etc, you’re always on call regardless of how high up the food chain you are. Work Life Balance is no longer a balance but has meshed together making it much harder for people even when home to focus on family and other thing.
Semi-agree with this. I think that people have just felt like they cannot set boundaries. Which if you have 10,000 people chasing after your spot is understandable.
NO, you can't have it all.
No, but if you are not a pshyco you can have a family.
It's absolutely a trade-off. Time is a finite and extremely valuable resource. The time you spend on your career is less time you spend with your family. With modern technology essentially making all white-collar workers "on-call" all the time, it can get very difficult to draw the line between work time and family time. Anecdotally speaking, I find many of my most successful colleagues and friends are those who aren't very family-oriented (i.e., they don't spend much time with their spouse and kids, and their parents also didn't/don't spend much time with them). It's a lot easier to work long hours and advance your career when you don't feel the desire (or pressure) to hang out with family.
You can do both but there is some trade off. My wife and I work, have kids but we both work for ourselves. We rarely travel for business and we go to an office that is very close to our home. Every industry is different but a lot of people here work in IB and have very demanding jobs. It would be difficult to raise kids if both parents are working 80 hours per week. Many high paying careers require long hours and travel. If you are working long hours and travel a lot, you need to hire a nanny.
I do find myself questioning 100% commitment to work while having young children. Research often--veryyyyyy often--will cite time and attention as the most critical component to children's development. It's pretty consistent no matter what angle you look at this from--race, education, lifetime earnings, achievement, etc.--so, it really suggests you're a bad parent if you simply aren't home enough completely focused on your children. And, the modern way we do things where women are in the workforce as much as men vs back in a time where kids were more likely to at least have their mother present doesn't make things any easier. For myself, I do feel like having more time to be with children is the best way to go. Hoping this new Zoom world creates better dynamics so that is more of a realistic possibility.
Well most people think of kids as an afterthought. They’re window dressing instead of the best engaging parts of life that they can be.
Most young ppl areused to coming home and taking the work hat off. Older generation is less specialized but willing to get off their ass.
Think about how many people know how to cook who are young- yes we’re all busy but we could all take time to make homemade meals or cook when we get home. But if we have money, we’ll go to that healthy spot and pay $15 for double protein bowl (I mean dinner is comped usually but you know what I mean— too lazy to shop, cook, and clean after even if we do have the time).
Every time I think about laziness and entitlement I think of ‘making things happen’ that we don’t have to- whether thatsm going to the gym on 3 hrs sleep or cooking my own food because it’s better for me and something I should know. How about ‘fixing the sink’ and shit like that - things our parents would just figure out that we would pay to get fixed cause we’re too lazy.
In some sense, I think it’s because we’ve become overly specialized but also that we hug what’s comfortable and safe and unwilling to do tough things that don’t have tangible value in the short term that are good long term. Good values and good habits, those are going out the window.
I hear what you're saying, but I have a different perspective. I look at this less as being lazy and more as trading money for time. I work 80 hours a week. The last thing I want to do on the weekend is spend 40 minutes buying groceries, 40 minutes cooking, and another 20 cleaning afterwards. I'll gladly buy the $15 protein bowl and use the hour + I saved to see friends, relax, or hit the gym. Same logic applies to fixing the sink. I trade all my time during the week for more money than what I know what to do with - on the weekends I'll always spend money to get some of my precious time back.
That perspective is not different or unique, that's what most people (finance at least) think. That is the baseline perspective.
The question is whether you could be doing all of the above, instead of thinking it's actually a tradeoff if you understand what I mean. You think it's a tradeoff (and obviously most finance people make that assessment) but that it's framed that way and not "I can work 80 hours, and do this as well" and then only after a much higher threshold think about tradeoffs. That conversation, might come too early for some people. Like, that 2 hour prep time for cooking-- if you did it consistently, would it cut down to avg. prep+cook, etc. of 30-45 mins, or fixing the sink be a 5 minute fix that saves you $200. Know what I mean? Simply writing things off early can be somewhat negative, but it is fine (if you make enough money to do so).
The tough part is understanding where to draw the line, because there might be a skill curve in what you're forgoing. By doing so, over a long period of time that adds up.
For a second year analyst, you sound like such an old guy.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the elephant in the room here. You don't work in IB/PE. Based off your comments, I assume you don't have kids either. Based off your activity in this site you seem to get off at reasonable hours (6PM ET!) and the work isn't continuous. I have no doubt as a quant your job is probably intellectually difficult. But my point is its not the same. Using a few anecdotal experiences from your lifestyle isn't enough to gain a conclusion. I myself can point to single mom families where the kids turned out nice and hardworking. Statistics dictate ,however, that two parent homes are far more likely to produce successful kids (although there might be a correlation here not a causation).
Until you've undergone those experiences yourself you don't have merit to call other people "soft". I don't know how it feels to be a FT banker but many analysts on this site have alluded to the fact that no matter how much you read about the lifestyle, there's no way to prepare in advance. Let's extend that to being a director in IB and having kids. We don't know how it feels to
(1) Be burnt out from being in a high pressure role for so long
(2) Be stressed out trying to bring in client revenue
(3) Constantly be on the hook for pressing work
(4) Exhaustion spilling over into family life
(5) Dealing with (often spoiled) kids after coming home
This isn't a math equation. You can't just say assume Mr. W works for X hours a day, spends time with kids and family for Y hours, and sleeps for Z hours, then life will turn out fine.
For one even if X + Y + Z < 24, the human body doesn't work that way. Mr. W may simply not have the energy level required to achieve all the tasks or be really "there" for his kids.
There is a danger in extrapolating your family situation (or more likely your child view of your own family situation) and applying it to all people everywhere. Family situations are different and complex.
the whole comment on “have we gone soft” struck me as a bit done deaf. No, people aren’t soft but not every family situation mirrors yours. There are complex differences.
I didn’t really care a lot about family life in my 20s. I just wanted a big career and parties.
Then in my 30s I have devoted a lot of time to family life and taking care of each other and it’s been the best decision of my life.
I still have career aspirations, but family is a priority for me. I am locked down into my current city, otherwise would be in NYC or SoCal.
What are you doing nowadays Isaiah_53_5 💎🙌💎🙌💎? I remember that you were a caretaker? for your parents last I read your posts.
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