Penny Leach wrote: > The idea totally freaks me out to be honest - I grew up with this idea > strongly entrenched that as a woman, the best way to work towards > feeling like I was living in an equal society was my ability to earn a > good income (sure, in NZ I think it's still only 80% of men's but at > least I'm self sufficient)... having a baby and putting my career on > hold and being completely reliant on someone else for food and shelter > is ... like, brain falls over and I go into shock :)
You may find, if the occasional arises for you, that you feel differently about it then. You might even realise that you want to do this thing of taking time off from your career, even to its detriment, in order to raise a family. I was also totally brought up to have an interesting, challenging career and worry about the family thing later. But now, looking down the barrel of parenthood, I know that this massive (and scary!) change from working physicist to stay-at-home mum (for at least a little while), is exactly what I want to do. It'll present quite different challenges, different joys, different pains. And I think I'm going to be happy doing it. Yeah, there's no accounting for taste - I know well that this wouldn't appeal to everyone. But it does appeal to me, and that's why we're planning it this way. (Hmm, have gotten very off-topic here. Sorry to those who are bored with the direction this thread is taking.) To get back on topic, does anyone think that CS-related careers are harder or easier, compared to other careers, to take a break from and actually get back into it? As in: is it a career that fits well or badly with the types of disruption that parenthood often presents, for men or for women? Maybe this is part of the reason why women are being turned off CS - the field changes so fast that you lose 6 months you might be in trouble... I'd be interested to learn from the experiences of people who have taken a break from a career in CS and gotten back into it, or into something related. How did it work for you? Helen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
