Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Monday, November 10, 2014

You Won't Make It Big Young (So Have a Kid)

You've probably seen the articles going around about how Apple and Facebook (as well as other hot tech companies) are offering egg freezing coverage for their female employees in order to "free" them to focus on their careers while young without giving up the chance to have a family. There are moral and medical problems with the increasing consumerization of human reproduction. Freezing eggs may get around certain issues related to age-based infertility, but it doesn't change the fact that the human body is simply older when you're in your forties or fifties, and pregnancy is hard on bodies. At the moral level, this is yet another example of our modern culture seeking to bend humanity in order to "have it all", in this case treating children as something we deserve to have on our own timetable, even if that means completely separating sex and reproduction.

I have to wonder, though, if this even makes sense on its own terms. The theory is that people will want to be totally focused on their careers in their twenties and early thirties (when it's easier to reproduce in the way that worked for grandma, grandpa, the birds, and the bees. And yes, all other things being equal, taking a couple of three month leaves (and making sure you get off work right on time so that you can pick your kid up on time at daycare) can slow down your promotion path a bit in your twenties and thirties.

However, in most people's careers, even among those that make it into executive management, their twenties and thirties are times when they can more easily afford to go slow than their forties and fifties. Yes, we've all heard about the wunderkinds who found companies at 20 and are leading billion dollar companies before their thirty. However, the number of people who do that is about as small as the number of people who are composing violin sonatas and symphonies in their teens. Most people who make it into the executive offices don't hit the vice president level until their forties, and don't hit the C-suite until their fifties. Nor does this only apply to those with exalted careers. Pretty much across the income spectrum, on average people have their highest earning years in their fifties.

So even if you're thinking of this issue totally from a career point of view, it seems like you're more likely to miss out on important career opportunities by taking time off to have kids unusually late, than you would doing so at a more natural time of life. At thirty to thirty-five, which in these late marrying days seems to be when a lot of people in the upper middle class are having their kids, your peak earning years are still twenty years off. Taking things slow for a few years probably won't have as big an effect as doing so ten or fifteen year later.

Why then this idea that you should be utterly focused on your career at these comparatively young ages? I think it's in part significant that this is coming out of tech companies, which tend to be younger (at least in image if not in actuality), but even more widely there seems to be an excessive focus among the ambitious on a script that most people simply don't follow: the brilliant young success story who makes it big at a very young age.

Perhaps part of the problem is that, when we're young, we're not very good at thinking about the future. Just a year or two away seems like forever. Certainly, I know that when I was twenty-five thinking about goals for five years in the future seemed like thinking way, way down the line. Five years away, why I would be old then. I'd practically be nearing the end of my career. I wanted to know what I needed to do right now, this year, to advance at work.

But while people who are wildly successful while still very young make great stories, and thus are the focus of an inordinate share of the news articles and business biographies that you can read, their stories are interesting precisely because they are the exception rather than the rule. It's normal to be impatient when we're young, but it would help if people at least heard a bit more in their twenties and thirties what a normal career path normally looks like. For most people, you're laying the groundwork at that age: getting into a line of work that you're good at and building some expertise. The biggest years for you are still a long way off, even if you work at Apple or Facebook. Chill out and have a kid the natural way, rather than telling yourself it will somehow be easier when you're fifty. If there's one thing that is absolutely not going to be easy for anyone it's running after a toddler in your fifties and dealing with a high schooler in our mid to late sixties. There's a reason why nature has you reproducing while you're still comparatively vigorous.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Every grandmother is laughing at these people. God gives children to the young so the old can enjoy them (quoth my mother).

Rob

bearing said...

I get what you're saying, but I think you underestimate the strength of a certain kind of pressure that weighs heavily on younger women: the threat of the mommy track.

There is a lingering idea, not entirely divorced from reality, that once you give away your hand by bearing a child, you've demonstrated to the company that your future career development is not worth investing in. Especially if you have the temerity to bear a second child just when you seem to be getting back on your feet after the first one. Really? This again? The pressure is therefore to demonstrate your value early, so that people who will make decisions about your career can regard the childbearing as a temporary aberration against a background of reliability and competence, instead of the other way around.

Considering that few women who work white-collar jobs have more than 2 or 3 children, it would make buckets of sense for companies to expect less economic output from women in the early years of childbearing and more in the later years, as you suggest, but since these women are literally competing against people who will do no childbearing at all, and that competition is in the present, the pressure is not going away.

bearing said...

Or, to quote from your piece, "You're laying the groundwork at that age." Trouble is, many people believe (with reason) that a groundwork of spotty attendance, lots of sick days, and leaving at 5 pm sharp doesn't make for being compensated as if you are highly valuable during the "biggest years."

Literacy-chic said...

Don't forget the myth of "how much $$ it takes to raise a child." That plays into it, too. It's considered downright financially irresponsible to bear children before you 1) make a certain amount of money, 2) own a home, and 3) have major investments.

Jenny said...

While you are approaching this subject rationally and I agree with what you say, bearing nails it here. The problem is not the actual time it takes to have children, but the perception of your priorities. Having children young or even youngish hangs a mommy label around your neck and escaping it is quite hard, even when there is no discernible difference in your work product.

"Especially if you have the temerity to bear a second child just when you seem to be getting back on your feet after the first one. Really? This again?"

And if you have more than two or three, you pretty much doom your career.

The hostility at work towards my last pregnancy was palpable. In past pregnancies they have usually done something nice for me like take me to lunch or buy a small baby gift or something to acknowledge the baby. They certainly do not owe me these things, but it does make for a comparison when they have done it in the past. This last pregnancy I didn't get a single card, gift, lunch, nada. They were angry that I had the gall to get pregnant again and didn't try very hard to hide it.

"Trouble is, many people believe (with reason) that a groundwork of spotty attendance, lots of sick days, and leaving at 5 pm sharp doesn't make for being compensated as if you are highly valuable during the 'biggest years.'"

Or even if you don't actually do those things, but have the perception that you might, your "biggest years" probably aren't coming.

Darwin said...

I get what you're saying, but I think you underestimate the strength of a certain kind of pressure that weighs heavily on younger women: the threat of the mommy track.

There is a lingering idea, not entirely divorced from reality, that once you give away your hand by bearing a child, you've demonstrated to the company that your future career development is not worth investing in.


I certainly agree that this is a common perception and fear, and I'm sure that it happens a certain amount of the time. How much it comes into play probably varies from company to company and industry to industry, and I know that there are fields (law, medicine, consulting) where you're expected to put in massive numbers of hours early on and then you hit some point where you can pull back a bit and not be putting in 60+ hour weeks. My experience is in your more standard Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000 corporate environment.

In that context, though, I'd note that all the female VPs and Senior VPs whom I can think of at the moment that I've known have had kids, and they mostly did so in their thirties well before hitting executive rank in their 40s. I've also known a number of female directors and managers who've had kids, and it doesn't necessarily slow them down, though styles vary. Some women do explicitly dial things back for a few years and seek out less demanding jobs, shorter hours, etc. That may slow you down on the promotion schedule in the short term.

However, I think the two big things that people forget are:

1) Corporate memory is very short term. People often change jobs within the company every 1-2 years, and change companies every 5-7 years. So if you have a "slow" period in your mid thirties, no one is going to remember ten years later when you're potentially up for an executive slow.

2) For the vast majority of careers, there is a big time cap on how quickly you can move up. Sitting in conversations about who becomes a manger and who becomes a director, there's a lot of talk around "she's only been in that role for a year, she should do a couple more rotations before she's eligible for promotion." So even if you put off all family and human ties and focus totally on work, outside of a few superstar careers most people (even those who really will eventually make executive rank) are going to progress pretty gradually anyway. And, let's be honest, most of us are going to cap out before we become executives anyway.

None of this is to say that women don't often get treated badly at work over having kids. Obviously, that happens a lot. And I can even imagine that, at the margins, if you decide to be a total corporate automaton and never have a family life, that focus does speed your career a tiny bit. My main responses will be:

- People who take the time to have a family will (outside of a few insane fields) not actually see their careers slowed all that much compared to what they would otherwise have been.

- If (and a big if) you're destined for the executive suite at all, you'll be less able to afford big blocks of time on leave in your 40s or 50s than you will in your 20s or 30s. Things may seem like a big deal then, but you're mostly not eligible for executive ranks anyway, and after a couple job changes no one will really remember whether you took maternity leave a few times back then. They'll just look at the pictures on your desk of your 2.3 kids in soccer uniforms and commiserate on how hard it is to afford a house in the best school district.

Jenny said...

My work experience is in a large, progressive! institution filled with lifers. The institutional memory is very long. I don't know how a more corporate environment works when it comes to promotions, but here employees get slotted into job trees that have strictly enforced salary ranges and they essentially work their way up the tree until they hit the top. Your income potential is critically tied to which job tree you are in. The only way to get promoted up your tree or to jump over to a different, better paying tree is an opening in the org chart. If your work group calls for a manager, two level 2 workers from this tree and one level 1 worker from that tree, the level 1 worker will not get promoted up to the level 2 pay until one of the level 2 employees leave. It is very inflexible. This is a long tangent to explain that if you miss this window because you had a baby that year, it could be years before it opens up again.

***

"and after a couple job changes no one will really remember whether you took maternity leave a few times back then. "

This may be true for your standard corporate job hopper, but if you already work for Apple or Facebook, where is it you are going to want to go? If not being penalized for bearing children requires you to change jobs to a place where they can't remember you bearing children, the employees of the Facebooks of the world have a strong incentive to not have children.

***

"People who take the time to have a family will (outside of a few insane fields) not actually see their careers slowed all that much compared to what they would otherwise have been."

I pretty much agree here. Most workers have a steady state of ambition. Some are driven to be executives and children are not going to get in the way of that, generally speaking. I think what you are missing here is the marginal differences in career slopes. Are your annual career earnings going to top out at 50K or 75K? Income brackets tend to group those together, but there is a world of difference in a family budget with an extra 25K a year. So you can end up generally where you were always going to end up and still have harmed your earning potential by bearing children. This is where others' perception of you makes a big difference. If you are perceived as a mother, that little extra pay bump probably isn't coming.

I'm pulling this out of my head and haven't gone to research to verify what I am remembering, but I seem to remember some article or study that said professional women get good jobs, but professional men get family supporting jobs and this dynamic doesn't change even when it is the woman supporting the family. I can't remember if there was an explanation for why this happens or not, but it is an interesting phenomenon.

Darwin said...

I don't know how a more corporate environment works when it comes to promotions, but here employees get slotted into job trees that have strictly enforced salary ranges and they essentially work their way up the tree until they hit the top.

That's probably one of the biggest differences here. The promotion process is very fluid and tends to be based on recent performance. Also, people change jobs a lot within the company. I've been in my current role for just over two years, and that gives me more tenure in role than just about anyone I deal with. So, you may spend your whole career here in Finance, but by going from corporate finance to brand finance to distribution finance to sales finance you end up dealing with totally different jobs and teams. You're expected to bounce around, and so your manager probably only knows the last year or so of your history plus any general reputation that came with you.

This may be true for your standard corporate job hopper, but if you already work for Apple or Facebook, where is it you are going to want to go? If not being penalized for bearing children requires you to change jobs to a place where they can't remember you bearing children, the employees of the Facebooks of the world have a strong incentive to not have children.

It's not so much that I think you have to change jobs after having children (obviously you shouldn't!) as that it seems to me that in the kind of environment at Apple or Facebook (which I'm guessing is kind of like my days at Dell only way more so) even if people did gripe about your commitment level during the years someone was actually having children, she would have moved around enough over the following 5-10 years that no one would really remember. In those kind of companies people tend to move teams every 1-2 years, and everyone turns over so much that it's mostly how you've performed in the last year or two that everyone knows.


But again, this is very much built around the personal experience that I've got in the three big corporate companies that I've worked at over the last 12 years. I think I do have a bit of a window into the world of places like Apple (I did interview there and I worked at one of their lower end competitors for a number of years), but I haven't actually worked in the Bay Area, and I don't know what other industries (law, medical, education, etc.) are like in this regard.

And it's also very much a relative point that I'm making: If you're going to have kids at some point, taking time out in your 20s/30s is probably going to decrease your chances of upper management less than doing so in your 40s/50s. That's about as far as I feel like I have any insight to provide.

Jenny said...

"You're expected to bounce around, and so your manager probably only knows the last year or so of your history plus any general reputation that came with you."

That's really different. People change jobs internally here too, but it happens maybe one or twice a decade. One of my coworkers is taking a new internal position at the beginning of the year and the lament is that she only stayed in our group for four years. "But she just got here..."

I think it is a valid and correct point that even from a career perspective it is better to have children earlier rather than later. My only real argument is that there are reasons women feel pressured to delay childbearing, especially since it is easy to see the career damage now and harder to see how it might even out twenty years later. Add to that all the general fear mongering about the cost of having children and it can seem downright foolish. You are correct that it is usually better to just get it over with (that sounds terrible), especially if you have ambitions for the executive level, but that's not the standard advice at all. Why if you didn't know better you might think certain segments of society are hoping women just get over that whole having a baby thing so they can devote their entire lives to their sacred careers.

Jenny said...

"That's probably one of the biggest differences here. The promotion process is very fluid and tends to be based on recent performance. Also, people change jobs a lot within the company. I've been in my current role for just over two years, and that gives me more tenure in role than just about anyone I deal with. So, you may spend your whole career here in Finance, but by going from corporate finance to brand finance to distribution finance to sales finance you end up dealing with totally different jobs and teams. You're expected to bounce around, and so your manager probably only knows the last year or so of your history plus any general reputation that came with you."

And a complete aside here, but this sounds like a much healthier work environment. My place is loaded with fiefdoms ruled by the competent and incompetent alike. There are certain workgroups widely known to pull numbers out of the air with nothing to support them and we are all supposed to pretend that they work hard (they don't) and the numbers are legitimate (they aren't). But nothing ever changes because it has always been done this way. If a group becomes problematic, the higher-ups many times just create a new group covering the same ground to get good numbers and then lets the old group carry on as if they are important, but then ignores most everything they do. The levels of dysfunction are many. And Lord help you if you are an underling in one of these widely discredited, but allowed to function, groups. You are on a dead end street, but it can take years for you to actually figure that out because all your supervisors are pumped full of hot air about how important they are. And the supervisors, being the incompetents that they are, believe it.

It makes me think about how our betters who spend their careers in higher occupations like journalism or academe or government assume that since *their* working conditions are filled with such strife that the victims, I mean, employees of capitalism must have it much, much worse when in fact, it seems that many times, the conditions are much better.

James said...

Another problem is if you have children too early, before gaining adequate work experience, then you can be in a situation where you can't afford to work (because childcare is so expensive), which means it is extremely difficult to gain the adequate work experience to make work worthwile.

Being an involuntary SAHM isn't good.

Darwin said...

Jenny,

Well, I kind of like it. I know that things can vary a whole lot from company to company, but the three large ones I've worked at have all been comparatively healthy environments.

James,

I guess I can see how that could be an issue, particularly if you're talking about a single mom and/or a situation where you're living far from family and thus can't rely on any family help for babysitting, etc. However, since in this case I was responding to the news stories about big name tech companies offering egg freezing benefits for employees. I think it's a safe assumption that anyone who is in the position of already working for Apple or Facebook in a position for which they offer free egg freezing to allow women to put off taking maternity leave, is someone far enough along in her career that she doesn't need to worry about not having any job skills.