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I think they have a problem with narcissism.
Most women go through their lives being the center of attention. Women Are Wonderful, and most relationships revolve around them and whatever it takes to keep them happy. After all, it's easy for them to replace the men in their lives who fail to live up to their standards.
To a point.
Having a kid takes all the attention they were getting, all the effort people were putting into keeping them happy, and steals it away from them. Now the kid is getting it. There is no comparison to being a man and becoming a father, because nobody gives a fuck about men in the first place. Supposedly becoming a dad is (used to be?) good for your career because people are (or were?) more generous with raises for a family man.
It is broadly true, even controlling for age, etc.
I once saw a way of framing this that there is not a men vs women wage gap; there is instead a married men vs everyone else wage gap. That may be overstating it a bit.
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This sounds to me like something that happened in the 50s and 60s back when ~lifetime employment and "being a company man" were still possible. But I still think there's a weak form that survives. There's a sort of brotherhood of fathers that I've noticed in interviews, both as an interviewer and interviewee. Being a father shows that you've got a definite course plotted out in your life, that you know what you want, that you've got obligations to meet, and that you've got a certain level of resilience. You can append asterisks to all of those qualities because there are of course massive exceptions, but the odds are good. I definitely give fathers a few bonus points during interviews, and I'm closer to my colleagues who have kids.
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Relevant tweet https://x.com/constantutional/status/1930247522401890634
This intuitively makes sense to me. Women see pregnancy as inherited devaluing, so maintaining control over it is of utmost importance.
Women generally value mothers a lot, so I don't understand why you think that women see pregnancy as generally devaluing. Can you elaborate?
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I'd push back because yes, the kids start drawing attention, but mom, as the arbiter of who gets to interact with the baby, also gets a lot of attention and, if the child appears to be doing well, accolades for raising them.
So to the non-narcissists who don't mind sharing the spotlight, this is a boon.
Indeed, this is probably the only way a woman can keep herself centered in attention in her thirties and forties, short of being a literal celebrity.
I mean, yes. But also, that requires a lower time preference than most narcissist are capable of. They don't want to give up attention now for more attention later. They want all the attention, right now, all the time. And especially their exact favorite type of attention, not a different type that's better in some ways and worse in others.
Unreasonably high time preference making life harder for everyone.
Many such cases.
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Family man is generally motivated to make sure he keeps a job and is less likely to jump ship so all things equal probably more valuable.
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