1/ There’s a really counter-intuitive implication of all professions increasingly becoming winner-take-all: it makes more sense for families and other social groups to specialize and trade services
2/ You see this in Latino families: often one or two uncles or aunts will specialize in making money, others in raising kids, others in taking care of parents, others in cooking, etc
3/ It makes way more sense: income earners often enjoy their work more and have way more financial leverage. Child raisers are often more patient. Cooks learn lots of recipes that can feed large groups
4/ It takes a lot more cooperation, mutual trust, conflict resolution, and they have to like each other, but results in an overall better quality of life for everyone
5/ A lot of the problems we face in modern life come from our inability to specialize: everyone is trying to do and have it all (long commutes, child care costs, living in expensive urban locations, trying to cook healthy, make enough money for the future)
6/ Paradoxically I’ve noticed that in some ways it’s easier to have a career as a woman in Latin America. They have more built in extensive social support systems. Middle and upper class also have cheap domestic labor to help in the home
7/ There’s also less stigma attached to not having a high powered career as a man. There’s more roles you can fulfill, and others will fulfill the ones you can’t
8/ This movie got me thinking about all this:
