Valerie Young tears apart recent articles in the New York Times about women and mothers. She writes, "We need to stop
talking about how each woman has to carve out her own destiny as if we
function in a political and economic vacuum. We need to emphasize,
repeatedly, the need for family-nurturing public policies and cultural
attitudes that are respectful and supportive of all the work that women
do – inside and outside the home. We need to bring caregiving into the
policy conversation in a clear-eyed and pragmatic way and recognize it
as one of the most prominent factors that affect a woman’s decision on
how to live her life. "
I might try to make fish this way tonight.
There's a 90% chance of seeing the Johnston. (When Steve's reminding Ian to clean all of his parts in the shower, they sing "heads, shoulders, knees, and johnson." We're a little concerned that he'll sing it in school sometime.)
Ta-Nehisi Coates explains why he often writes about the intersection of race and food.
Apt. 11d 
Does anyone know who looks at Playgirl these days? In the days before internet p*rn was so common my impression was that it was mostly bought by gay men, but now I wonder why they’d buy it. Does it have “articles” that someone reads? I’d be amused if Johnston was, unwittingly, doing gay p*rn.
The most amusing way I’ve seen to make fish (though I can’t recommend trying it) was from a “blue fish” cookbook my wife had, where you make it by putting it in foil and running it through a full dish-washer cycle, including heated drying, but no soap. I doubt it’s very energy efficient, though.
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For whatever reason, you just gave me a strong urge to re-watch “The Big Lebowski”. For the 217th time, I know, but still…
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I can safely say I have 0% chance of seeing the Johnston.
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Note that the method for the sea bass (sear on stove, put pan in hot oven to finish) is the same as my method for chicken thighs. It also works for steaks and London Broil. I learned it from a friend who’s a former chef.
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Wendy, that kind of taunting might lead somebody to try ‘pRick Rolling.’
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Great. Now I have to live in fear of seeing Johnston’s Johnson. Shoulda kept my big mouth shut.
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On the writing and velocity thing — I didn’t read Klein’s piece that the author was responding to, but the assumption that all research for a book can be done quickly online really does limit the sort of questions one explores.
But since the research phase of my book started in 2002 and it will be published next month, I guess I’ve got a little at stake for the value of verry sloowly percolated books.
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The Valerie Young piece is so like many pieces I have read before. I kind of think it’s a blind alley: organizations which don’t reward the highest performers will lose out to those which do, because the real hot-shots will go to the hot-shot-rewarders. Do we believe, with Larry Summers, that hot-shots will generally be gents? I think hot-shots are a mix of talent, drive, and working-70-hours-a-week. The families I have seen where both parents fit this, and which had more than one kid, generally outsourced the parenting – not a model I like, nor do the kids involved.
Best bet is likely to be couples who decide who is most driven-talented, and facilitate that person going out and slaying dragons.
Organizations which have monopoly power themselves can afford to limit the competition between their employees – the public schools have historically been like this, I think often won’t be in future (I’m watching parents flee their kids from the DC schools to charters) power company, local zoning inspector, etc. That’s probably the best chance for finding a family-care-oriented employer.
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I agree with Dave, ” I kind of think it’s a blind alley: organizations which don’t reward the highest performers will lose out to those which do, because the real hot-shots will go to the hot-shot-rewarders” except for the fact that we can force companies not to reward hot-shots. We can do that by having extremely high taxes on high earners (as Laura suggested in another post); we can do it by guaranteeing workers the right to significant leaves, for sickness, for childcare, and vacation. If *we* do that, hot-shots may well flee to other countries, where they can be rewarded, a scheme by which we’ve often “stolen” others hot-shots.
“Organizations which have monopoly power themselves can afford to limit the competition between their employees”
Yes, public schools, and government sometimes. And, one of the stories behind the generous Swedish leave policies are that that a huge section of the female workforce (that takes advantage of those policies) works for the goverment.
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I don’t agree with this, though:
“The families I have seen where both parents fit this, and which had more than one kid, generally outsourced the parenting”
I know such high power couples who manage without “outsourcing parenting”, and children who thrive. The key seems to be the quality of the childcare arrangements (grandparents and family can be a big help) and the personalities of the children. Some children need and want more parental attention than others. Those high-powered couples blessed with more independent children find ways to cope.
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“…we can force companies not to reward hot-shots. We can do that by having extremely high taxes on high earners (as Laura suggested in another post…”
Hopefully we aren’t discouraging them from curing cancer or diabetes or solving the energy problem or figuring out the best way to teach disadvantaged children.
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Although I wasn’t actually suggesting that we keep companies from rewarding hot shots by having a really high tax rate, I don’t think that really high pay is doing much to encourage people find the best ways of teaching disadvantaged children (not one of those highly remunerative professions). The biotech/big pharma does rely on hot shot competition, and perhaps those hot shots contribute to producing cures for disease, but a big part of that happens from middle-compensated government/university scientist.
I would have said that substantive taxation would have prevented us from acquring google, and typepad, and blogging in general, not “figuring out how to teach disadvantaged children).
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Hopefully we aren’t discouraging them from curing cancer or diabetes or solving the energy problem or figuring out the best way to teach disadvantaged children.
Dan Pink is pretty adamant that extrinsic motivation really doesn’t work most of the time. Most creative thinkers solve problems because they are compelled to by intrinisic motivators. Lovecky says pretty much the same thing about AS kids.
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Most creative thinkers solve problems because they are compelled to by intrinsic motivators.
Most problems require a creative thinker to assemble a large team that will almost certainly include a diversity of motivation. Also, ‘creative thinker’ and ‘idiot’ are not easily distinguished in the early phases. You often see the funding go to lesser thinkers who present a better shot at a smaller reward.
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Regarding “the best way to teach disadvantaged children”, don’t forget that there is such a thing as the textbook market and the consulting circuit.
“Most creative thinkers solve problems because they are compelled to by intrinisic motivators.” But the choice of which problems to solve may hinge upon money–consider how much American talent has recently gone into law and high finance rather than engineering.
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“But the choice of which problems to solve may hinge upon money–consider how much American talent has recently gone into law and high finance rather than engineering.”
Yeah, but this hasn’t been a good thing. If we had really high taxes, perhaps intrinsic motivators would play a more significant role, and we’d get *more* cures for cancer. That’s what the medicos believe, anyway.
(But, I don’t actually believe that. I think extrinsic & intrinsic motivators play roles for most people. And, I think that money is used as score-keeping in the intrinsic motivation for power, respect, and status)
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“And, I think that money is used as score-keeping in the intrinsic motivation for power, respect, and status”
It’s also a useful medium of exchange for obtaining food, clothing, transportation and housing.
My husband and I often jokingly quote the line “A married man will do anything for money”, especially when he’s considering taking on a side project for extra cash.
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There seems to be an assumption that the people themselves will accept the “hot shot” model.
In my career, I have seen many people who were hot shots coming right out of school make the decision to stick to that path, or not. And over time I’ve also seen fewer and fewer people opt for that path. They see the destruction in their colleagues (mostly in the form of divorce and/or damaged relationships with kids) and opt out. It becomes a short phase of their career vs. the whole career. Especially the relationships where the wife had a successful career before marriage and kept her skills up.
Long-term I worry about the Ideal Worker stuff so much of our economy, in particular our entrepreneurial model, depends on. I just don’t think it’s sustainable.
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“Long-term I worry about the Ideal Worker stuff so much of our economy, in particular our entrepreneurial model, depends on. I just don’t think it’s sustainable.”
I agree with Jen about this, too. But, as Dave said, there are no visible paths to changing it, because many incentives produce a demand for ideal workers.
My goals are to nibble away at some of the most obvious incentives in favor of ideal workers — and employer sponsored health benefits being a good example.
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jen, there’s a debate going on Double X on whether or not people are really opting-out. Like you, I know a lot of people who may not have entirely dropped out of the workforce, but they have certainly scaled back their responsibilities. The ideal worker model is very destructive, especially when both parents are are top fliers. bj, it sounds like you’ve seen more families that are able to be both ideal workers and ideal parents/human beings. I think it’s really hard to maintain. My husband has been out of the house by 5 every morning for the past couple of weeks. He saw his kids for an hour yesterday. We couldn’t manage to two ideal workers in this house.
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“bj, it sounds like you’ve seen more families that are able to be both ideal workers and ideal parents/human beings. I think it’s really hard to maintain. My husband has been out of the house by 5 every morning for the past couple of weeks. He saw his kids for an hour yesterday. We couldn’t manage to two ideal workers in this house. ”
Well, I didn’t say that they were “ideal parents/human beings” or “ideal workers.” Inevitably there’s a cost to the ideal worker & to the ideal parent in trying to do both. I’d argue that the concept of “ideal” actually means that you prioritize that first, meaning that you can’t really be ideal at the other.
What I said is that they’ve been able to keep “hot-shot” jobs, both parents, in which they compete with ideal workers (i.e ones who have outsourced the ideal parent job to their spouse or aren’t parents). They do it by compromises on both working and parenting that doesn’t prevent them from doing both well (though, not ideally, because I think the ideal concept actively excludes that). A critical feature in success is the child. Some children can thrive with less than ideal parenting, others can’t.
Specifically, I’m thinking of three families now. All three have happy, outgoing, independent, adventurous children. Two have grandparents near by, one grandparent provides the primary care, the other back up care on top of successful nannies. The third has been able to find effective nannies (and has significant monetary resources). In all three cases, they miss out on some things they’d like to do as parents, or as workers, but in the balance, things work out (they keep their rearding jobs, but they also have happy families). Oh, and their hot-shot jobs are in academics, software, law, and medicine. They all have two kids (not the one that woman advises).
I also have plenty of examples where one parent has scaled back in order to make the family work better. Interestingly in my child’s school population, the scaled-back folk are about 20% male. By no means equal, but not exclusively female.
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BTW when I talk about scaling back I’m referring to moving from Total Hot Shot (i.e. 80 hours weeks, highly visible within the employer and perhaps industry, fast-track to C-suite) to Regular Human (50 hour weeks, known within employer and network only, still impressive but limited career potential).
Some guys do just totally burn out and change careers, or do something that is less than full time, but that’s much less common IMHO. (Unless it’s semi-against their will.)
I’ve also seen the desire to scale back to Regular Human work-engagement levels as a driver for people leaving the (expensive) big city. Leave Chicago for Madison, accept an upper bound on your career, see your kids.
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Leave Chicago for Madison
In this scenario, is Madison your new location or your kid?
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Bah! Maybe both!
BTW when I say “guys” I mean a person of either gender. The last person I knew who left Chicago for Madison WI was a *female* oncologist who’d just had her second child and wanted to scale back.
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