[BringTheTanks]

One'd hope that the "values of modern society" have enough capacity to accommodate both ambition and relationships.

Painting ambition in negative tone and putting too much focus on relationships causes the same myopia that focusing only on ambition does.

It's never just one thing that matters.

[rayiner]

I agree that more than one thing should matter, but our society is pretty hostile to that idea. Consider, for example, that for a large fraction of the population, marriage and kids are key relationships that will make them happy. Yet, we're the egg-freezing generation. We want kids, but we are also deeply afraid that having them will compromise our ability to compete.

[pen2l]

> I agree that more than one thing should matter, but our society is pretty hostile to that idea.

Practically speaking our economy is more hostile to it than our society. It's just that it's really really hard to have marriage+kids in a nice neighborhood and compete at the same time; but by accounts people who can pull that off are considered winners.

It seems to me the only answer is having a very progressive, socialist economy which makes the marriage+kids easier. (Another alternative is resetting societal values to be less materialistic, but that ain't happening -- men will always want BMWs and iphones, a lot of women would still want that diamond stone).

Also, the egg-freezing scares the bejesus out of me. Someone pointed out in the thread about Chinese scientists tweaking human embryos that we know so little about things that while we may be thinking we've tweaked an embryo in a safe way, and a human is born of it, the really bad dysgenic properties may not be manifest until later in life. Egg-freezing stirs the same feelings in me. On a related note, one of my aunts is an ob/gyn doctor, and I've heard her say many times that for a very wide variety of reasons it is best that children be had earlier rather than later (20s instead of 30s, 30s instead of 40s, etc.) for both men and women (but especially women). I don't know what I'm getting at, I guess all I can say is, damn, we have it tough, I wish I knew of good answers.

[lloyddobbler]

Personally, I value relationships as much as I do ambition. I don't see the two as an either/or - it's a balancing act.

The big problem with the "progressive, socialist economy which makes marriage+kids easier" - it doesn't allow for choice. I may not want to have kids - so why should I be forced to go down that road (or work to support those who do)? Because a study tells me I'll be happier?

In the current system, the ones who are ultimately successful are the ones who find a way to strike a balance. That's difficult for everyone - and it's more difficult for some than others. But taking away one's choice of where to land on that balance beam seems like an even worse idea than the system we currently live in.

That being said, while I'm happy to agree to disagree with you there, I think we can both agree on one thing - in this game, there are no easy answers.

(On a completely difficult note - and perhaps the most philosophical discussion I've ever gotten into on an HN post - maybe that's what makes it valuable? Would life mean less if everything were easy?)

[derefr]

> We want kids, but we are also deeply afraid that having them will compromise our ability to compete.

Is that really what it is? I always figured it was something more like people waking up to the fact that retirement has ceased to exist, and deciding that they may as well have fun in their 20s/30s (when they are in peak condition to have such fun) and responsibilities in their later years, rather than the other way around.