snickerd3
Taking suggestions
I know others might disagree but when I'm out in the field it brings out the gentleman qualities in the roughest/toughest field guys.
Being remembered like others said is definitely true.
Help Support Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum:
Being remembered like others said is definitely true.
maryannette
Wise One
AAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW. 
csb
Well-known member
:wub:
Capt Worley PE
Run silent, run deep
The women engineers I know tend to wait a good bit later to have kids (in their mid thirties), or have none at all. I've always wondered why. And, is it typical.
maryannette
Wise One
I had my first baby at 28, second at 33. It is VERY hard to be a working professional mom. You need a support system. It can be family, friends, a good daycare system, a nanny, a good husband/daddy. I am seeing now how easy it is to be a little more dedicated to my work without worrying about the mom responsibilities.
G
Guest
Probably the highest compliment paid to me lately has been when I invited a group of female engineers to a project site to explain what was that I was doing and explained the different aspects and phases that were important. They all thanked me profusely for not only thinking of them but taking the time to include them in something like that effort.
Last night my supervisor was commenting on the notion that a person could reduce their carbon footprint by reducing/eliminating having children. Given that my supervisor is a wildlife biologist, he said, "Well, that's not entirely true - the most critical component in this notion of reaching a zero-population growith movement is the age of the female when she gives birth to her first child. In other words, the woman delays having children in her life, the closer you get to achieving the zero-population growth model."
So, if you think about it, women engineers are spot-on in an environmentally, socially responsible way.
JR
csb
Well-known member
I was 26, and I think we're done with one. I imagine it is MUCH easier to study for the PE when you don't have a kid. Additionally, I think I spent the first few years of my career trying to convince people that I was more engineer than woman and being pregnant is like a giant billboard about gender.
It is hard, but I am glad to be both a mom and an engineer. I wouldn't be happy any other way, but also respect people who make other choices in life.
It is hard, but I am glad to be both a mom and an engineer. I wouldn't be happy any other way, but also respect people who make other choices in life.
CivE Bricky
Well-known member
I think it's because none of us end up in this career by accident. No one suffers through those endless problem sets without wanting the prize at the end -- when instead, we could be taking classes with some reading and a midterm and maybe a final paper.
We know we can support ourselves and don’t need to go find someone to take care of us, although most of us are interested in marriage, we don’t NEED it. And although many of us want kids, we want other things too...and choices are required - you cannot just have it all and function well.
I believe education generally delays marriage and I’d assume there could be more of a delay in tech majors.
I can tell you about me:
I got married at 31 (to a 28 yo Mr. Brick who had previously purchased a house).
In my particular case, I was working as a construction manager then, but hadn’t yet completed my degree. (Most people assumed I had it.) I was in the process of taking a class per semester on my employers’ dime to finish up. The local college had all engineering classes mid-morning, so I left and made up hours in the early evening.
I had hoped to complete my degree before I had children, but it didn’t work out that way—I had our first at 34. So I got to be a new mom, working full-time and going to school. When I got down to my last semester, we sucked up paying the full tuition bill and losing part of my salary to get it done – so I had a one year old, went to school full-time and worked part-time (although people still treated me as if I was full-time – not recommended).
My husband was always a very ambitious engineer and went to work for a startup an hour away just before our first was born. I knew he needed to do that and there wasn’t going to be a better time until kid(s) finished college.
I got my degree when my oldest was two and around then the startup looked shaky and we decided to unload our hard-to-sell house to stay light on our feet. (It was a starter home on a kid-unfriendly busy street and had 40 acres of land value that most potential buyers preferred to dump into a better house.) The need for both of us to do prep-to-sell renos delayed our second pregnancy until I was 37. Our house sold mid-way through that pregnancy and we shifted to rentals.
A bit later, the startup was looking really good, staff of 30, decent salaries, so we (along with many others) moved nearby and bought a house. I switched to commuting.
We talked about a third child, and consensus was: I will if you want to. Since there was no one with a “I really want to,” that’s been it so far.
Unfortunately the startup died within 2 years of our home purchase and although Mr. Brick was able to find another good job in town very quickly, he started over with little vacation time (not negotiable with this employer). Our family couldn’t function with two working parents with minimal vacation, so I’ve stuck it out with the commute and worked on FE and PE in the meantime (with lots of sacrifice from the entire family).
Now I’m approaching 20 years at my job and a big jump in future pension benefits, so I’m waiting that out (and the economy) for a few more months and hope to soon join Mr. Brick with employment in the same town that we live in. A huge run of overtime for him hit right after my PE exam, so we’ve just continued in one parent mode—so that’s how my wait to job hunt time is being used – and I’m fine with that.
My husband and I have taken turns helping each other with career and education goals…but all in all, I have to say he’s been much smarter and more successful with career than I’ve been. (Plenty of people would envy what I’ve done too—I just know I’m no where near potential.) I do think it’s nearly impossible to raise kids and have two high-powered careers (the kind that require serious travel and frequent overtime)…..so that’s OK with me for now.
Lots of my female engineer friends (married and not) joke about needing a wife....our society just isn't set up with the support structures that we all want....except for the lucky few who have available and competent extended family willing to help out.
snickerd3
Taking suggestions
I'll be 29 by the time this baby is born and it will be our first. We waited a while for kids...I was 22 (hubby 23) when we got married.
Waiting until you can afford it is not always pipe dream, it is possible. Both cars and my student loans (hubby's parents pd for him))are paid off. We just have the mortgage, and we have been able to travel the world.
Last edited by a moderator:
Katiebug
Well-known member
It seems pretty typical. In general, the more educated a woman is, the fewer kids she has and the older she is at first birth. It's not just in engineering; you see that trend among doctors, lawyers, accountants, and especially women in academia.
Nearly all of the older female engineers here in my workplace (all EEs and software types) have college- and high school-aged kids right now but worked part time the entire time they had young children. Some are still PT now, some went back to FT when their kids went to college. There are no female MEs here who are moms. When I have a baby, I'll take my 12 weeks of combined short term disability and unpaid FMLA, and put my kid in daycare and head back to work. I have no choice but to work full time. Finances won't permit me to drop to part time, as much as I'd like to - I earn more than Mr. Bug and I carry our insurance.
We're in sort of a situation where we feel we don't want to wait much longer to start a family. We've been married for almost 4.5 years and we already wish we hadn't waited this long. We want to be DONE by the time I'm 35. Mr. Bug is already 30 and by the time I get pregnant I'll likely be 29. I also have no intention of having less than 2 years between kids, and we'd like to have 2 or 3 (if we can afford a third). The numbers game is starting to add some pressure in the last year or so.
It's pretty clear to me that I don't want to become a manager. I'd like to stay on the technical career path at work. In theory, having children will impact my job a lot less than if I went to a management path - far less travel, a normal 40 hour workweek rather than a 60 hour workweek, and less overall stress. I still want to progress in my career, though. Right now I worry because my boss wants to put me up for promotion next year and I may well be pregnant enough by then that I can't hide it. I worry that I'll be mommy-tracked if I'm up for promotion when management knows I'm pregnant. Kind of like, "Why promote her when she's going out on leave in a few months?" That's discrimination of course, but it doesn't mean it can't happen. They'd just find another reason to put on paper for not promoting me. I'm also heading up a pretty significant effort next year and the prospect of needing to hand it off to someone else for several months while I'm out on leave is daunting.
My career is important to me, but so is having a family.
Last edited by a moderator:
maryannette
Wise One
I think women who can support themselves can have less problems in marriage. You don't own me and I don't own you, so we need to be nice to each other to make this work. You can't hold anything over my head.
I used to joke about our nanny being my wife. I really hate to degrade the definition of wife like that. She did what some people consider "wife duties".
sounds like you husband was a lucky guy! :GotPics:
Mary: I hope you know I'm only joshing with you.
jmbeck
Well-known member
Yes, we all saw it. Yes, it's too easy. Don't bother.
MGX
Well-known member
Do female engineers have "The Knack"?
jmbeck
Well-known member
NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!In other words, the woman delays having children in her life, the closer you get to achieving the zero-population growth model."
So, if you think about it, women engineers are spot-on in an environmentally, socially responsible way.
JR
Don't give in to this crazy idea! The only people who will actually follow this "advice" are the smart and educated of the world. Meanwhile, the idiots continue to breed unchecked.
Go rent "Idiocracy" if you haven't seen it yet. Women engineers: reproduce!!!! The world needs more of you!
Well, for all its drawbacks, a "guest worker" program like Bush was advocating has, at the very least, this advantage: affordable houseworkers. Supposedly Bush was modeling his proposal on the system used here where I live, where we have been able to afford a full-time, live-in "wife" which has enabled my true wife to work a fulfilling career and dedicate the necessary time to it.
Unfortunately, it was too good to last and the Dems took it away from us the moment they got the majority in Congress 2.5 years ago.... Now we have only 2 years left until all the houseworkers are deported..... My son will be 8 by then, so maybe we squeeked through.
I don't think it's typical. I know as many women engineers with children as without. For me, I love my job. I can slide into workaholic mode with little to no effort, which isn't conducive to family life. I like kids but they're not for me. I enjoy my mobile, spontaneous lifestyle, and I know that's not for everyone either.
CivE Bricky
Well-known member
very thought-provoking question.....
My husband is one of the natural engineers who can make anything work and even predict with reasonable accuracy how long it will take him to invent a unique, never been done successful solution. And he's good enough with theory that he can translate between the math PhD's and the lab techs or machine shop staff and have real work get done. He's the guy when no one can figure out if it's the software, the hardware design or faulty or off-spec components. There's very very few of those natural kinds of engineers in the world. I'd say he's got some version of the knack shown in the clip.
I don't have the strong interest and overwhelming curiousity about mechanical and electrical components, but I do see the big pic and can come to really understand how it works. I have mad 3D visualization skills and can do the systems overview checks pretty easily...(will users know what to do? will people like how it looks? how do we up the design life while controlling costs? what will that do to the construction schedule?)
I think I concurrently annoyed and made my (engineer) Dad proud when he was putting up a mega radio antennae and struggling a bit with his brother to lift it and I asked why he didn't throw another pulley into the mix because that would be so much easier.
I was the one who realized my husband and I could install a dishwasher on the no sink side of the stove by tying into the washing machine plumbing just below the kitchen--who needs a stinkin' sink?
I easily could reason through all the potential cheating methods for a parking system and corresponding hardware/software fraud control tactics and their feasibility in operational requirements and install costs. (Will users put up with waving a card more than once? How much will antipassback annoy the honest parker who leaves after hours when the gate is up but forgets to use the card? I just get all that.)
So maybe I have a different "the knack" related to integrating design and construction with the real world, picking up new material and judging someone else's take on stuff I may not be well-versed in....I do that by asking the right questions and really listening to the answers. If I get the snap judgement that "He's just guessing what's wrong and how to fix it and hoping I take him at face value," I'm nearly always right.
Other women engineers? I'd say a majority have some sort of knack, but it might not be the tinkering, fix stuff knack (although some women for sure do have that one--I lived with a female EE savant for 5 years). Especially for young engineers, sometimes the knack gets missed or overlooked by others, or even hidden for a variety of reasons..that's just sad -- if you can even tell it's happening. Sometimes women lose their confidence or just get tired of fighting to be heard. And I see that happening right in my own office....people will go two rooms over to ask some guy stuff that I know as well or better than he does. I can get annoyed or I can be happy my work got interrupted one less time. I can assume it's because they don't respect what I know or I assume they started a conversation earlier and it just makes sense to keep going with the original participants. Being everyone's favorite go-to is a double-edged sword.....as my husband well knows.
So direct answer to your literal question? for me, probably not. But...I've probably got a different knack that's just as relevant and valuable.
nashbmattPE
Well-known member
nicely said CivE Bricky
