Corinne Low - Having It All
On home production.
Specializing in home production while your spouse builds his career is only a good deal as long as the relationship stays intact.
This is capturing the benefits of specialization—developing real expertise in a specific domain. Make one person the kitchen expert and one person the cleaning, bill-paying, or organization expert.
Women's investment of time in home production cooking and cleaning goes down, not up, after divorce.
On children.
The new mom support groups I went to were, of course, all women...desperately trying to navigate being in charge of another life. Meanwhile, our husbands continued to be the centers of their own universes.
With a first child, there's lots to do even if you're not the one who can feed a baby with your body, like all the laundry, cooking, and cleaning so the person who's physically recovering doesn't have to do it. (Bonus: Later on, he can't claim he doesn't know where the detergent is.) With a second or later baby, there's a lot of parenting to do for those other small people who will feel suddenly displaced and extra needy.
On bad deals.
In negotiation, there's a term known as BATNA, which means your "best alternative to negotiated agreement." A key way to avoid taking a bad deal is to make sure your BATNA is as good as possible.
You want to develop a BATNA so good that you really wouldn't mind taking it, and then go in and ask for what you need in your current situation.
Being convinced that you have no possible options is exactly how you get locked into a bad deal.
On thinking across the life cycle.
If I don't protect myself right now, there is no tomorrow, our brains are constantly chattering, and more so when we're under stress. Unfortunately, thousands of years and the development of complex financial systems later, tomorrow is very real, and financial decisions you make today to relieve some of the immediate pressure can come back to bite you.
So thinking about the definition of utility that we started with—things that would increase your total video game score if you look back from the end of your life—I want you to consider the uses of your leisure time that enhance your utility the most.
I want you to identify the things that you do with your free time that bring you the most long-term joy and fulfillment.
So take the long view, thinking about the entire life cycle of your career, and remembering that all too often there aren't as many "on-ramps" for career paths as there are exits.
You are your one constant companion in life. You are your partner, best friend, parent, therapist, and sometimes heckler.
And you deserve joy.
On policy.
Chemicals in the atmosphere and water are regulated according to how many cancer cases they'll cause per million. Not whether they cause cancer but whether they cause too much, because of course those same chemicals also produce products that people value, and in turn corporate profits. And, in fact, public policy is more than willing to make trade-offs when it comes to children's health and well-being that individuals would be culturally shamed for considering.
And so the government makes choices. We as parents are expected to do everything possible to protect our little bundles of joy, but when data shows something else is putting them at risk, society largely shrugs.