Are women naturally less ambitious than men?

Sleepy

metrovelvet wrote:

No. I see both working crazy hours. [Im in NYC by the way so my context is different.] By crazy I mean 70-80 hours a week. On average I see woman in these fields [like finance and law] having to work longer.

Of course your context is different, you're talking about a different country and culture entirely.

That is simply not true. We all know promotions have to do with popularity, access to the right people, and the politics of the firm. And often playing the game.

Even if that's true (which I don't believe it always is), women can play those games just as well as men and from my experience, women tend to be much more adept at playing office politics than men.

I can't answer that. I am only familiar with legal careers in the US. But I do know that to be a woman in law here and be successful you need brass balls. And believe me some of the women have them because they've had to develop them.

Hello? A brass neck is a job requirement to be an attorney at law in the states, why should the job requirements be any different for the women than they are for the men?

Right. And that's ****ed up I think for both the kids and the father. In a book called "I Don't Want to Talk About It" which investigates male depression, fathers on average spend 11 minutes a day with their children. And Im sure the pressure on your dad also affected the marriage with your mother too.

But your dad could still have a family because he had a woman around to do the domestics and the mothering. Whereas women dont have that choice. Many of them who want to forge ahead in the careers make the sacrifice of not having kids at all. Come on, seriously what guy is going to want to stay home and change dirty nappies and what woman would find eroticism in that?

I don't even know where to begin in addressing that point. What do you actually want here? Acknowledgement that life isn't fair because you can't have everything?

If you want the career, take the career.
If you want the career and kids, take the career and husband who isn't as career driven.
If you want the kids and the career-minded husband, put your own career on the back-burner.
If you want the kids, the career and the career-minded husband, prepare to pay someone a fortune to raise kids that you'll never really know and can't call yourself a good parent to.

Now, swap the word husband for the word wife there and you've got the situation guys face too. It's called reality.

Well most guys I know would be like this. And insistent about it. I usually try to show my appreciation by paying for something else.

Glad we agree on some things

I do know women who will absultely no way in hell let you pay for her dinner.

That's sad tbh. I've no problem letting a woman pay for my dinner so I can't see why any woman should have a problem with me paying for hers.

I think this dinner thing has become so complicated. How can one meal mean so much?

That's why most first dates in Ireland are held in the pub rather than in the local Italian.

Well, its a bit like indentured servitude.

Why so? In this day and age a house-wife/husband chooses that role. It's just as valid a contribution to a family unit as earning the sole wage so I don't see why you consider it so demeaning?

I think thats a little harsh. It has been really hard for women to get a foothold in the public space. Raising a kid is hard ****ing work. Sure they have their moments of joy, as you do in any job, but its still work and it doesnt stop at 6pm. Its all the time. And IT IS NOT ALWAYS A CHOICE!!

Of course raising a child is hard work, no-one's denying that. It is however hard-work that is the result of your own choices. I know people don't like the phrase 'personal responsibility' any more but it still exists. If you haven't explicitly tried to have children, you've still chosen not to use proper precautions (or at the furthest extreme, not to terminate the pregnancy). These are your decisions, your actions and ultimately your own responsibility. And if you think that's harsh, you're right. Life is harsh, it has moments when it can feel like a bed of roses but those are the highlights and the exceptions.

And who is whining? Women are constantly proving themselves. You think they got this far by whining?

I consider it whining when women aren't happy with equality and start complaining about realities of working life that face men just as equally as they face women.

In the context of your post, I'd specifically consider your comment about wanting kids, a career but not with a guy who "is going to want to stay home and change dirty nappies" because you "find eroticism in that" to be whining. It's akin to me whining because I can't find a woman who's a whore in the bedroom, maid in the parlour, chef in the kitchen, nanny in the nursery, lawyer by day and superhero by night.

metrovelvet

Ok well then lets just agree to disagree. I really don't want a contentious argument.

Half the time Im empathising with you and you still respond quite negatively.

Some of the views I express are not ones I hold personally, but one's that I observe in many others.

Also - your posts seem quite unforgiving and a little on the judgemental side.

I'd be far more interested in a collaborative discourse rather than a polarising argument.

Jimi-Spandex

I cannot believe I actually read that entire thing. I'm never getting that time back.

Well, while I'm here, I'd like to thank Sleepy for dealing with Metrovelvet's posts. Saves me the bother.

Also, just to point out to Wicknight. That comment that most men don't work long hours consistently over a long period of time, I can remember a handful of times my dad got home from work before 7pm when I was growing up. For the past 20 or so years that I can remember he has done this and I have no reason to doubt that it was any different before I was around. Regular 60/70hr weeks. My mother worked 30hr weeks. Guess who did more housework?

It was a similar situation with most of my friends dads. As it is now with my brothers and myself. Now I realise that this is all anecdotal evidence, but not really of any less value than yours. Perhaps your family was not the norm?

Sleepy wrote:

I don't even know where to begin in addressing that point. What do you actually want here? Acknowledgement that life isn't fair because you can't have everything?

If you want the career, take the career.
If you want the career and kids, take the career and husband who isn't as career driven.
If you want the kids and the career-minded husband, put your own career on the back-burner.
If you want the kids, the career and the career-minded husband, prepare to pay someone a fortune to raise kids that you'll never really know and can't call yourself a good parent to.

Now, swap the word husband for the word wife there and you've got the situation guys face too. It's called reality.

Quoted for truth. Couldn't agree more.

Nevyn

You know you can be sitting reading the whole of all the house cleaning and management done, the windows and skirting boards all shiny and the children are playing in the garden and you know what you are still working as a stay at home parent.
You are not leaving the children alone, unsupervised and fending for them, you are ready to tend thier needs.
There is not 30 hours physical work in cleaning a house, doing laundry and cooking ( unless you are a neat freak and suffer from OCD ), but the tending to the children and errands easily adds at least another 20 hours on to that in a 5 day week.

Life is not simple it is not black and white or prepackaged.
Due to the fact no contraceptives are 100% accidents happen,
Due to the facts of biology women have to bear the children,
Due to the facts of biology women have a hardwired chemical process that
Starts the drive to need and care for the infant.
Due to the lack of work life balance and child care in this country many new
Mothers find them selves bewildered when they can't find a life solution
That works with out being detrimental to them or thier working life or the child.

Lets face it has usually been that only the reasonably wealth could afford to have a cleaner and a nanny to 'pick up the slack' until the child could be shipped off to boarding school from Victorian times up until very recently.

But due to the Celtic tiger, the rise in the cost of living, house prices, expected lifestyles (your not living if you car is 5 years old, you don't go abroad on holidays or out on the town once a month) more women are struggling to go back to work and are being crippled (alone or with thier partner) emotionally and finically due to the lack of good affordable childcare
Or opting not to have children at all.

We have to look at the impact on society of falling birthrates as the age demographics of this country starts to shift like Germany and France has,
The impact of substandard childcare and the impact on children that the ages of
14 on wards are becoming latch key kids.

They come home from school and are left to tend to themselves until thier
Parents arrive in from work at 7 or later and end up not having the parent child
Interactions needed to guide them or to have thier parents talk with them to advise them or just even to listen about them.
You end up with a bunch of strangers with the same gene code sharing a house and then the parents are surprised when it comes out thier marry or john has a drink/drugs/selfharm/sti/depression/food issue at the age of 15/16/17 when the parents have given them every material want.

Are women less ambitious then men? No
Are women less career driven then men? No
Are parents faced with more important issues then career ambition? Yes

Yes having children should be a personal choice but it should not be THAT hard.
We should support families, children and the next generations.
There should be tax breaks for parents because they have children,
There should be proper state funded childcare,
Stay at home careers should have thier work valued even if it was thier PRSI payment covered while they rear the next generation.
We either value children and families or we don't.

hepcat

"If you want the career, take the career.
If you want the career and kids, take the career and husband who isn't as career driven.
If you want the kids and the career-minded husband, put your own career on the back-burner.
If you want the kids, the career and the career-minded husband, prepare to pay someone a fortune to raise kids that you'll never really know and can't call yourself a good parent to.

Now, swap the word husband for the word wife there and you've got the situation guys face too. It's called reality"

Agreed! What about where both man and woman are on an equal career footing - would you call one or the other less ambitious for opting for the child-minding?

The Corinthian

hepcat wrote:

Agreed! What about where both man and woman are on an equal career footing - would you call one or the other less ambitious for opting for the child-minding?

The reality is that Society accepts women doing this, but men who do this are pussies.

This is largely due to the traditional perception that children are always better off in the care of the mother, which is the principle reason that fathers rights are so limited. However it also means that the same prejudice sees women’s place as the principle child minder in a family. Double-edged sword.

Sleepy

Thaedydal wrote:

Yes having children should be a personal choice but it should not be THAT hard.
We should support families, children and the next generations.
There should be tax breaks for parents because they have children,
There should be proper state funded childcare,
Stay at home careers should have thier work valued even if it was thier PRSI payment covered while they rear the next generation.
We either value children and families or we don't.

Why should society pay for the rearing of an individual's children? Why should my taxes pay for other (presumably wealthier if they can even consider affording children) people's decision to have children kept in a creche?

I have to admit, I like the idea of offering a tax incentive of some form to stay-at-home parents but this would have to be combined with monitoring to ensure that those stay-at-home parents weren't claiming tax benefits whilst working in the black market at home (e.g. providing unlicensed child-minding services etc).

I don't think we should be incentivising the 'pop them out and drop them at the creche' school of (mis-)parenting. Sure a couple of hours a day in a creche won't do a child any harm but growing up with child-minders (think 8am - 7/8pm at night) clearly isn't good for children.

Sleepy

hepcat wrote:

would you call one or the other less ambitious for opting for the child-minding?

8 pages later we come back to my initial question!

Yes, imho, the person who opts for the child-minding would be the less ambitious of the two. (perhaps I'm mis-using the word "ambitious" but I would relate ambition to career achievements rather than personal achievements).

As TC pointed out it is often seen that "Society accepts women [staying at home as primary carer], but men who do this are pussies." One of the factors I was considering at the time I started this thread was whether or not this was natural biological order or simply social conditioning?

On one hand the 'ticking biological clock' is pretty much accepted to exist in most women. While on the other, any studies conducted on the area of stay-at-home husbands tend to show that men carry out the role of home-maker just as well as women. Opinions?

The Corinthian

Sleepy wrote:

On one hand the 'ticking biological clock' is pretty much accepted to exist in most women.

TBH, it exists in men too. The dynamics are just a little different.

Nevyn

Sleepy wrote:

Why should society pay for the rearing of an individual's children? Why should my taxes pay for other (presumably wealthier if they can even consider affording children) people's decision to have children kept in a creche?

Life is not black and white there are people out there who end up pregant and either morally feel they can't have an abortion or simply can not afford to the cost of leaving the country and having one.

Why should society pay towards children ?
There will be no society with out them and no one to pay taxes.
You want the place you live out the end of your life to be plesant and reasonbile civil as a cociety then we have to invest in the next generations.

Sleepy wrote:

but this would have to be combined with monitoring to ensure that those stay-at-home parents weren't claiming tax benefits whilst working in the black market at home (e.g. providing unlicensed child-minding services etc).

Just because you are a stay at home parent that does not mean you are likely or would want to have to run arround after other peoples children.
I make the effort for my children because they are mine and I want what is best for them and I agree 12 hours a day in a creche 5 days a week for 48 weeks of the year in this country is not parenting but that does not mean
I want to clean up the bodily excretions of someones elses child or mother it,
10 grand a year would certainly would not tempt me but currently it is more like 5 to 7 grand.
Nor would I want to leave my children with just any child minder.

Sleepy wrote:

One of the factors I was considering at the time I started this thread was whether or not this was natural biological order or simply social conditioning?

It is a combination of both.
The fear for the well being of you child when you are away from it esp when they are very young are very real and primal.
Ideally it should be one of the parents who can compently take on the role of main care giver but with in a support network.

hepcat

Sleepy wrote:

8 pages later we come back to my initial question!

Yes, imho, the person who opts for the child-minding would be the less ambitious of the two. (perhaps I'm mis-using the word "ambitious" but I would relate ambition to career achievements rather than personal achievements).

As TC pointed out it is often seen that "Society accepts women [staying at home as primary carer], but men who do this are pussies." One of the factors I was considering at the time I started this thread was whether or not this was natural biological order or simply social conditioning?

On one hand the 'ticking biological clock' is pretty much accepted to exist in most women. While on the other, any studies conducted on the area of stay-at-home husbands tend to show that men carry out the role of home-maker just as well as women. Opinions?

But what if a couple are ambitious career-wise, but also want a family. Because one or the other decide to stay at home and mind the kid need not necessarily mean they are not ambitious - just that they make a (good imo) decision to put their childs needs ahead of their ambition. Does that make sense?
If we accept that women are primarily the ones who stay at home and fulfill the role of childminder - surely we should take this into account before asking whether they are less ambitious?

This is why I said that to compare natural levels of ambition you need to take kids / social pressures out of the picture, and have a "level playing field" as it were - which obviously you cannot!

Nevyn

There is no level playing field unless we have gestation tanks and all children are reared in the likes of boarding schools.

Not every parent is cut out to be the stay at home parent, not all women are either, (valium wasn't called 'mother's little helper' for no reason) but these things aren't discoverd until afterwards.

What about the pressures of being the perfect stay at home parent and the expectation that you be the perfect Martha Steward home maker, supportive partner, supermom/dad, be invovled in school commitees and your childrens after school activies ?
There are some very scarey people out there that take all that ambition and competition from work and drive themselves and those arround them nuts when they become the stay at home parent or the job sharing parent.

What women wants to say that they aren't the type who can do it all at home or be seen as a failure because thier mothers and grand mothers did it and with more children ?
Life expections and life styles have altered drastically over the last 30 years.

The Corinthian

Thaedydal wrote:

There is no level playing field unless we have gestation tanks and all children are reared in the likes of boarding schools.

That’s not the only way. Another way is to have a level playing field is if the rights, responsibilities and roles of both genders were seen as interchangeable in the eyes of Society and the law.

Sleepy

Thaedydal wrote:

Life is not black and white there are people out there who end up pregant and either morally feel they can't have an abortion or simply can not afford to the cost of leaving the country and having one.

Why should society pay towards children ?
There will be no society with out them and no one to pay taxes.
You want the place you live out the end of your life to be plesant and reasonbile civil as a cociety then we have to invest in the next generations.

I agree that we need to invest in the next generation but I'd see this as investing in their education and healthcare rather than subsidising their childcare so that their parents can allow 'professionals' to rear them. Maybe I'm allowing the stories I hear from my sister who works in childcare colour my opinion on this a bit too much but raising the next generation in créches seems like a recipe for disaster to me. It's primarily because of this that I would be prepared to be a stay-at-home dad.

Just because you are a stay at home parent that does not mean you are likely or would want to have to run arround after other peoples children.
I make the effort for my children because they are mine and I want what is best for them and I agree 12 hours a day in a creche 5 days a week for 48 weeks of the year in this country is not parenting but that does not mean
I want to clean up the bodily excretions of someones elses child or mother it,
10 grand a year would certainly would not tempt me but currently it is more like 5 to 7 grand.
Nor would I want to leave my children with just any child minder.

I wasn't suggesting that all stay-at-home parents would want to be child minders, just using the most common example (in my experience) of illegal work being carried out in the home. Substitute contract computer programming / web design that's not being taxed and it's still the same point.

It is a combination of both.
The fear for the well being of you child when you are away from it esp when they are very young are very real and primal.
Ideally it should be one of the parents who can compently take on the role of main care giver but with in a support network.

I think I agree with you here but can you clarify what you mean by a "support network"?

Nevyn

The Corinthian wrote:

Another way is to have a level playing field is if the rights, responsibilities and roles of both genders were seen as interchangeable in the eyes of Society and the law.

It still leaves the disadvantages of the time taken out of a career to gestate and recover from giving birth unless there was parity with time given to fathers to take time out to tend to the impending mother to be and help to care for the child in it's first 3 mnths.

Which lets face it will never happen.
What is best for business is single career driven people or couples who choose to remain childless or children in creches and seems to be translating into society for better or ill.

fly_agaric

Thaedydal wrote:

It still leaves the disadvantages of the time taken out of a career to gestate and recover from giving birth unless there was parity with time given to fathers to take time out to tend to the impending mother to be and help to care for the child in it's first 3 mnths.

Which lets face it will never happen.

Ignoring the time before the birth for a moment but I thought Sweden had a system where there is some fixed portion of leave for the mother to recover but there is another larger amount of leave (paid/part paid I think) for looking after the small baby in the 1st year-year and a half that can be divided between the couple as they themselves see fit.

Maybe it will never happen in Ireland?

metrovelvet

On one hand the 'ticking biological clock' is pretty much accepted to exist in most women. While on the other, any studies conducted on the area of stay-at-home husbands tend to show that men carry out the role of home-maker just as well as women. Opinions?

I gave you my opinion on this, pretty much a variation on TCs comment about stay at home men being seen as pussies and you made some sarky response to it that went something like

if you want x than do y
if you want this than to that....

Just because someone makes an obervation doesnt mean they endorse what they see.

And as for the bio clock. I am ostensibly one of those women but believe me I am indifferent to having kids and am a marriage phobe myself for some of the very reasons we are discussing here so dont think that my opinions come from some sort of personal agenda.

I happen to agree that it is not good for children to be dumped in creches and that modern life is taking a toll on the family. But it seems we have gotten ourselves into a fine mess and have to seek a way out of it. And this isnt going to happen in a boys vs. girls style playground debate or in judgemental character assasinations of each other.

Zulu

Raw nerve hit there?

Sleepy

metrovelvet wrote:

I gave you my opinion on this, pretty much a variation on TCs comment about stay at home men being seen as pussies and you made some sarky response to it that went something like

if you want x than do y
if you want this than to that....

Just because someone makes an obervation doesnt mean they endorse what they see.

I quote your post that I responded to below as it post reads far more like an argument than an observation to me at least, if I misread it I apologise.

But your dad could still have a family because he had a woman around to do the domestics and the mothering. Whereas women dont have that choice. Many of them who want to forge ahead in the careers make the sacrifice of not having kids at all. Come on, seriously what guy is going to want to stay home and change dirty nappies and what woman would find eroticism in that?

And as for the bio clock. I am ostensibly one of those women but believe me I am indifferent to having kids and am a marriage phobe myself for some of the very reasons we are discussing here so dont think that my opinions come from some sort of personal agenda.

I happen to agree that it is not good for children to be dumped in creches and that modern life is taking a toll on the family. But it seems we have gotten ourselves into a fine mess and have to seek a way out of it. And this isnt going to happen in a boys vs. girls style playground debate or in judgemental character assasinations of each other.

I agree but if men offering to be part of the solution to this mess (i.e. those of us prepared to stay at home or at least cut our careers back should our partner's have the superior earning power) are to be considered asexual 'pussies' for trying to provide the solution, women are going to just have to resign themselves to playing the major role in raising the children as they marry men that will expect them to (and accept this as they've chosen this type of partner) or choose to ruin their children by raising them as a "part-time" parent.

b3t4

Why does it have to be one person or the other cuts back on their career?

Why can't both parents do so?

Both parents work, less pressure on either party to bring in the bacon.
Both parents work but prioritise their family and don't work all the hours sent to them.
Sure neither parents may progress in their career but it allows both parents to remain in careers, so that when the kids are older they can more proactively seek higher positions in their jobs.
Also, kids would potentially have the same interaction with both parents therefore no favouring one parent over the other.

A.

The Corinthian

metrovelvet wrote:

I happen to agree that it is not good for children to be dumped in creches and that modern life is taking a toll on the family. But it seems we have gotten ourselves into a fine mess and have to seek a way out of it. And this isnt going to happen in a boys vs. girls style playground debate or in judgemental character assasinations of each other.

I’d agree. There’s a lot of gender politics that gets in the way of this issue. It’s difficult for a male to make any observation for fear that it will be interpreted as a direct attack on women’s rights, and it’s equally difficult for any female to make any observation on the basis that many men are now so frustrated by what is seen as a double standards that exist in gender equality.

Add to this we have the problem of those who will choose to follow one dogma or the other one the basis of political correctness or some other fashionable ideology and finally, because we are either male or female, it is very difficult to make any observation that is truly objective.

Personally, I don’t think we’re going to see the genders being treated the same in this generation. The prejudices and self-interested agendas that have stereotyped mother-father roles are probably too ingrained in us.

I do think this equality of roles may well take place in the future, but as much of the responsibility for that happening comes down to women abandoning some of their traditional rights as men adopting new responsibilities. After all, there’s little point in saying that men have equal responsibility if they cannot have equal rights in childcare.

Until then we probably have to play it by ear.

Sleepy

b3t4 wrote:

Why does it have to be one person or the other cuts back on their career?

Why can't both parents do so?

Both parents work, less pressure on either party to bring in the bacon.
Both parents work but prioritise their family and don't work all the hours sent to them.
Sure neither parents may progress in their career but it allows both parents to remain in careers, so that when the kids are older they can more proactively seek higher positions in their jobs.
Also, kids would potentially have the same interaction with both parents therefore no favouring one parent over the other.

A.

While this is perfect from the point of view of an individual family unit, is it really desirable in society?

If both parents cut back on their careers, the only people reaching the upper levels of management will be those that choose not to have children. Is this desirable/undesirable? I don't know to be honest.

Perhaps it is desirable that those in the highest positions of management don't have children as they certainly couldn't have the time to raise them properly (unless the children's other parent is a stay-at-home/part-time worker).

On the flip-side of this coin however is the possibility that if only the single/child-less are reaching the upper echelons, it will discourage people from having children. Added to this is the possibility that the section of society being discouraged from having children will be the section society possibly most needs to reproduce: the productive members of the workforce.

(Christ I feel like an economist: on one hand, but on the other hand etc.)

Nevyn

There was a reason only the welathy went to college and then followed in the professions of thier family be it Dr, lawyers ect, and the working classes who had more children worked factory type jobs at the start of the industrial age.

Earthhorse

For those of you interested, this week's cover article in TIME Europe is about ambition.

With regard to gender differences the article mirrors some of what was said here commenting that ambition in genders is expressed differently. So men compete directly with each other for the position of alpha male, whereas women cooperate and value sharing the spoils far higher. So what might be perceived as a lack of ruthless ambition in the workplace could simply be a different manifestation of the same thing.

What's interesting is how liquid a person's ambition is. For instance, migrant workers to the US who would have been raised in societies that value cooperation find themselves well able to adapt to individual competition within a generation. Moreover, within someone's lifetime their own circumstances can directly affect their ambition.

The most ambitious people in the world are the upper middle classes apparently. They have a lot to lose and fear losing it. People higher up on the class scale feel totally secure (rightly or wrongly) and those lower down the scale are struggling enough that their ambitions are hampered.

Society is also getting better at rewarding B-players. Workers not at the top but essential to the running of organisations. This is, in part, a reaction to overpaid executives who bring nothing but scandal a lot of the time.

Hopefully, this will result in more flexible options for those trying to raise families but who also value their career, in future years.

Sleepy

Presumably the article would have a heavy focus on the States where I think the backlash at "overpaid executives" has been far higher due to their culture of paying CEO's hundreds of millions. European CEO's by contrast would be on much smaller (though still huge) salaries.

Earthhorse

Nonetheless, the overriding point of that particular part of the article is that human's are good at making the best of "also ran" positions. The fact that European CEO's are on more modest wages suggests that we already distribute reward more evenly here.

Indeed the article says that Americans and Europeans express ambition differently but doesn't get into the detail of that difference.

b3t4

Sleepy wrote:

While this is perfect from the point of view of an individual family unit, is it really desirable in society?

Children do grow up. If one partner was to stay at home, then what happens to that person when the child/children start school, leave home? The person who has stayed at home finds it quite difficult to find a job once the children are grown as they have not been working for some time. Surely it is better for society, and the person, if they had been able to keep their original job and persue it to a new level once the children are grown?

Also, there is a person's self to be concerned about. The empty nest syndrome isn't a pleasant thing for anyone to go through. http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/womenshealth/features/ens.htm

This society appears to want everything now and if they can't have it now then it's not good enough. What happened to taking the time to get places?

metrovelvet

Exactly. If you take two years out of work to look after a kid then you have to start all over at the bottom regardless of the headway you made pre-children.

Too bad feminism hasnt hit HR which seems to be made up of women. So its women getting screwed by other women in this context. Oh how things have changed.:rolleyes:

hepcat

metrovelvet wrote:

Exactly. If you take two years out of work to look after a kid then you have to start all over at the bottom regardless of the headway you made pre-children.

Too bad feminism hasnt hit HR which seems to be made up of women. So its women getting screwed by other women in this context. Oh how things have changed.:rolleyes:

HR staff do not make the rules, women or not. (I don't work in HR btw). However, yes if you take 2 years (not the usual maternity entitlementor 6 mths) then you will find that you lose benefits such as those accrueing to length of service. But same applies if you take 2 years to travel the world remember. The law allows you to take 6 months paid maternity and some further unpaid and return to your same job. Of course it would be nice if you could have 2 years off for each kid, but our society is now money driven and that is not likely to happen anytime soon. But don't blame HR women staff :rolleyes:

Sleepy

If you take two years out of work for ANY reason you'll take a drop in your earning power when you return.

It's a reflection of your reduced value to the company after two years of absence (as no matter how skilled you are at something, taking two years off from doing it will reduce your skill level).

Simple market forces, not anyone being screwed.