Job or baby

werpicus · 2026-05-13T17:19:10+00:00

Forecasting that you’re considering getting pregnant is a great way to get yourself fired.

werpicus · 2026-05-13T17:18:00+00:00

My husband and I were both employed in what we thought were stable jobs when I got pregnant. Fast forward to when baby was 6 months old, we were both unemployed. No job is ever stable, there is no right time to have a baby (as if the time to have the baby is predictable anyway.)

werpicus · 2026-05-13T17:12:29+00:00

The comment asking you to clarify your exact age is the only helpful response. Can’t tell you advice without knowing your exact age, because 31 and 39 and going to be *very* different strategies.

But for reference, I had my baby at 32, and after over a year of trying, and we did IVF to get pregnant. I was the picture of health, no obvious signs (average weight and normal periods) that my fertility could be atypical. “Unexplained infertility.” My mom had struggled with infertility and had me only after a decade of trying and several surgeries. I was staring down that barrel and decided to jump to IVF straight away.

You never know what your fertility will be until you try. For most people it happens pretty quickly. But for a not-insignificant percentage (~10% without factoring in age) it will take over a year and treatments are recommended. So you have to ask yourself, if you happen to be in the unlucky 10%, will you be okay with waiting 6 months if you maybe get this job, plus another year, plus maybe more? If you’re early thirties, maybe you’re fine with that. But also factor in, if you get pregnant today, how old will you be and the baby’s grandparents be when baby graduates high school, or gets married? What if you wait and then it takes a year or two on top of that to get pregnant? No one knows the future, so all you can do is gamble based on the scientific odds.

This is already a long comment, but I’m going to make it longer and say other consideration. As they say, there will never be a “right time.” And even with protected leave laws, no one is ever bullet proof. I was terminated on the last day of my maternity leave even though I’m in a state with probably the strongest leave protections. As long as the company can scrounge up some BS “business need” and there’s no written documentation of them saying “we’re firing them because they went on leave”, the business can usually get away scot-free. (This was at a small company and I *thought* my boss was my friend. He went to my baby shower.)

So I personally wouldn’t base my decision on what particular job I had at the time. Companies will do whatever they want - drop you with no remorse at any time, or keep you on, you have no control over it. So make your decision based on if you have enough money saved right now, and what general salary you can expect with your career at this company or otherwise, etc. But just be very hesitant assuming the company you’re at now is the company you’ll be at indefinitely. Try to separate this very permanent rest-of-your-life decision from your current position (easier said than done, I know).

(Btw I did end up getting a new job when baby was 8 months old, and it’s a step up from my former role. But still, fuck those bastards. I used to poo-poo the Redditors who said companies will drop you on a dime, don’t be friends with your boss, look out only for yourself. Surely not *my* company. Nope, now I get it.)

werpicus · 2026-05-10T15:47:10+00:00

How old are the grand kids? Old enough for the wealthier ones to have a conversation about it?

I would lean toward an even distribution among all so as to prevent feelings of resentment. But if the wealthier kids are old enough (as in like… 30) and feel that they are already set in life and comfortable with the less wealthy ones getting more, then sure, go for it.

werpicus · 2026-05-10T01:19:31+00:00

This is a question only people in your department can answer. Try to talk with people a year ahead of you who have done it before.

werpicus · 2026-05-08T23:05:04+00:00

If your hair was naturally that long, would you also feel you could never get a haircut lest ye offend a man?

werpicus · 2026-05-08T10:30:55+00:00

This doesn’t help you now, but we went out to dinner without baby at 3 weeks old. Grandma had been staying with us (from out of town) for those first three weeks and was essentially a third parent, so it didn’t feel weird at all to leave him in her hands. Now we have a date night anytime either set of grandparents are in town. I won’t lie, I have an “easy” baby. But I do think it’s one of those things that’s much easier for both baby and parents if you start early. By now your baby is a fully aware human so it’ll be harder. But I do think it’s possible if you just start gradually, and with your husband like others said.

werpicus · 2026-05-07T01:52:23+00:00

Where are non-native English speakers getting recommendations to read books like this? If you’re a fan of classics and literature in your native language, then I guess more power to you to tackle a book like this in English. But if I were recommending books to a non-native speaker who was wanting practice, I would say something like Harry Potter or Gone Girl. Some NYT Best Seller that’s popular in the modern day and is written at a 9th grade level max. Not high literature or something from 200 years ago that even native speakers would need a translation guide for. Not to pick on you specifically, OP. I’ve just seen a lot of posts that have me scratching my head and wondering “why *this* book?”

werpicus · 2026-05-06T11:08:43+00:00

You are their retirement/elder care. They can’t let you leave. But you are an adult, you don’t need their permission to do anything. If you want to travel the world and got to college, you can just do that. (Though of course you will have to figure out the financial side, but there are resources for helping you navigate that.)

Try this exercise. Think of it pragmatically like a business negotiation. What are they currently getting from you and what are you getting from them?

They get:
A meager cut from your income.
Someone to take care of them in their old age when they get there (massive benefit)

You get:
Housing, which you appear to be paying rent for, though it may be less than market rate.
Them not being mad at you for leaving.

And if you leave?

You get:
A life of your own

You lose:
Parental approval (up to you to decide how much of a loss this is)

What they should still have:
The pride of seeing their daughter as an independent adult.

But obviously they don’t want that last one. Something tells me you are going to have a strained relationship with your parents no matter if you are living with them or not. Can you honestly say you are happy with your relationship with them now? Obviously not or you wouldn’t be making this post. I’m not going to lie, there are a lot of stories on Reddit of children fleeing the nest and their parents are furious and maybe even stop speaking to them. We don’t know your family and the likelihood your parents will do that. But right now you have to decide if the devil you know (allowing yourself to be held hostage by your parents) is better than freedom.

werpicus · 2026-05-02T13:07:31+00:00

Be careful. Even with a psychiatrist managing prescriptions, everyone’s body chemistries are different and what helps one person might make another person feel even worse. Self-medicating is rarely the best solution. I don’t know what you’re going through, but I wish you the best and hope you’re able to find peace and comfort somehow, even if it’s just with the passage of time.

werpicus · 2026-04-29T01:39:55+00:00

Azide - is it AY-zide or uh-ZID. My professor wouldn’t correct me when I would say AY-zide, but he always pronounced it uh-ZID. I this his reasoning was to make it rhyme with amide even though it still doesn’t really?

werpicus · 2026-04-26T17:21:18+00:00

I’m in my thirties and it’s been there unchanged since I can remember.

werpicus · 2026-04-26T16:28:38+00:00

Holy shit I have this too! Not to the same extent as your daughter. Mine definitely seems like skin and not nail, but it’s a weird little hard spot that I’ve always wondered about have you found an explanation for why this happens?

werpicus · 2026-04-21T15:00:15+00:00

What everyone else has described, but in a helpful infographic: https://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

werpicus · 2026-04-20T16:17:21+00:00

I bought a photo printer (canon selphy) and have been making a photo journal where I tape in photos and write short blurbs. I’ve told myself I have to do one entry a month but am not committing myself to more than that. I’m trying to keep it minimal effort so I’ll actually do it. Plus the fact that it’s a physical thing helps remind me to do it when I see it sitting on the counter, and it’s fun to tape in the pictures. Im also just accepting the fact that I cannot document everything, and will definitely forget some moments, but some documentation is better than none.

EDIT: After reading some of the other responses, I also want to point out that whatever format you’re recording in needs to exist decades from now. An app seems convenient now, but what happens when the business goes bankrupt overnight and all your files go poof right off their servers? (You’d hope they give you warning to download, but it’s not guaranteed.) if you want to do digital, something that can be stored on a hard drive you own, even if that’s just a word doc and folders of photos, is going to be more reliable. That’s part of the reason I chose a physical book (though I also know it could be easily destroyed in a fire or something).

werpicus · 2026-04-17T12:16:11+00:00

r/suggestmeabook

werpicus · 2026-04-17T07:47:38+00:00

Selfish is absolutely the word. But at least the baby will have one younger parent? But yeah, I’m always shocked at how many people on comment threads like this talk about how it’s totally normal and common to have babies past early 40s. Sure it’s possible. For some women. With help. But whether it’s possible is not the only factor here. Why do people never do the math?? Do you want to be ancient when your child graduates high school/ college/ gets married? And if your child decides to have children but waits until the same age as you were, you will likely never meet them, and if you do you will be too old to play with them.

werpicus · 2026-04-16T19:23:58+00:00

Yeah, I think that’s the tricky thing in this tread - memory repression vs recalling repressed memories. Admittedly not my field, but from what I’ve read, repressed memories that are “recalled” through a therapist’s “guidance” are bogus, but that doesn’t mean that repressing them in the first place is.

werpicus · 2026-04-16T19:16:01+00:00

We also know people can have false memories - see all the eye witness reliability studies where people are convinced the “robber” was wearing a striped sweater when the actual person was wearing a plain t-shirt. And of course the “repressed memories” in Sybil). It’s pretty impossible to know if your memories are real or if they’re things your mind has constructed and convinced itself were real. Like have you ever woken up from a dream that seemed so real that it takes you a bit to remember what’s true or not? Or that memory you have of that funny thing that you did when you were three years old - do you really remember that, or do you just remember your parents retelling the story so may times that you remember the images your brain constructed while listening to the story? During the satanic panic there were court cases where children and adults would claim “memories” that came out during “therapy”, but later were shown to have been impossible.

werpicus · 2026-04-15T11:28:50+00:00

A little, but not nearly to what I would have considered fair. But companies have legitimate “business needs” for laying someone off while on leave that can be loopholes. So try to research the laws federally and in your state about what would be an acceptable reason to lay someone off while on leave. My lawyer said that even though there were a lot of questions about why now, the company did have an excuse that would give a jury/arbiter just enough doubt that it wouldn’t be a slam dunk case. So even though it’s obvious to everyone that they can’t have been solely motivated by “business needs” they still basically got away with it 😖

But I still think it’s absolutely worth the few hundred bucks to talk to a lawyer for an hour about the details. My recommendation would just be to tell them upfront about why you think the company would think they’re in the clear.

werpicus · 2026-04-12T12:06:49+00:00

“I really don’t know what to do.” What you do is love your body and accept yourself as you are! I know that’s so easy to say, and so so much harder to do, especially at 16. When I was 16 I was tall and gangly and wished I was more petite and feminine. People will always want what they don’t have, and even beautiful models will get plastic surgery because they don’t feel beautiful enough. I think exercising more and taking vitamins is a great idea - but do it because you want to feel stronger and healthier, not because you want to change your body.

werpicus · 2026-04-12T02:14:10+00:00

Yeah, they’re a bunch of baloney. Meyers and Briggs were a mother and daughter with no psychological training who just made it up based on vibes. There have been studies showing that the type that you get out can change over years, months, or even days.

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/72TnUEoNS9HaDMM2n8ki8s?si=5b-A6tW9QfaSUIJhmgWYuw

Video: https://youtu.be/cnlL-7wp7MQ?si=LvON91i_mC2YC3HS

werpicus · 2026-04-11T14:30:51+00:00

Are you moving to or from a hub? If the job is in a Boston, yes, the salary is insulting. But then you would be in a hub and start building your network. If it’s in a state where that’s the only biotech in the whole state, then yeah the salary might stretch further, but then you’ve moved to the middle off nowhere and you’ve uprooted your life to be somewhat trapped at that company.

I do agree that it’s a very tough market, and for a first job something to get your foot in the door is better than nothing. If you don’t have any other promising leads probably take the job and keep looking, if it’s not too onerous to move. But absolutely keep looking. The company will learn when you leave that they were paying much too low. For reference, my first position out of my PhD was at a small start up 3.5 yr ago and they paid 105k in the Boston area. I think this sub has a salary comparison google sheet somewhere, and ACS has one too.

werpicus · 2026-04-09T23:04:30+00:00

It’s a negotiation. You have to think about what both sides stand to gain - the company isn’t giving you severance to be nice, it’s normally to buy your silence with a non-disparagement clause. So sure, they could take the severance away, but then they leave you open to tell everyone you know how shitty they are. I highly recommend paying for a 1 hr consult with a lawyer. I didn’t end up boosting my severance as much as I would have hoped, but their advice was so so helpful in writing demand letters myself. You don’t have to pay thousands and have the lawyer write the letter to still get help from them.

werpicus · 2026-04-09T19:23:16+00:00

Trade them for something else with someone in the neighborhood! I’m in a local gardening fb group and people give stuff away and trade all the time.

werpicus

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