Thinking about the kids futures once again has me up at night. I’m so afraid the world is changing in such a way that it’ll be harder for the girls to achieve whatever it is out of life they want to achieve. Even jobs associated with advanced degrees are slowly being cannibalized by artificial intelligence, income inequality continues to grow.

I’ve been thinking about how the world is, and where I’d like to see it go before the girls reach adulthood.

More options for working parents.

I’ll love and support the girls whether they want to be working parents, stay at home parents, or not parents at all. Right now there aren’t a lot of options for parents who, like me, want to split the difference between being both a stay at home parent, and a working parent. Nor is there much acceptance of the options that are available. Part time workers and Telecommuters are often stigmatized as being less serious, and getting less work done, despite evidence to the contrary.

Flexible work schedules are becoming more mainstream, with a notable step back. Amazon recently announced it was experimenting with entire teams taking a 30 hour week. The benefit to the entire team taking a reduced schedule is that individual employees aren’t stigmatized for working fewer hours.

There’s also some evidence to suggest fewer hours for everyone is the way to go. Every couple of years there seems to be a series of articles published explaining how 30-35 hours are ideal for both moral and productivity. Some of my own most productive work weeks have involved the fewest hours actually working.

More affordable housing.

I didn’t really understand the not-in-my-backyard mentality toward’s housing development until recently. Our district hasn’t approved any new housing in a while. As a result, the schools aren’t impacted and there isn’t much fear of a lottery system being needed. In all likelihood Nicole will have a space in the local school come this fall.

Of course failing to approving housing development also has drawbacks. Homes are incredibly expensive. A larger percentage of our income goes to housing than it did in our parents generation, which means less income for retirement, or our kids colleges.

One solution is more like higher density housing. There have been proposals for dorm like corporate housing. I, personally, don’t like this option because it’s not family friendly. It also invokes a mental image for foxconn which has been referred to as modern day slavery Facebook employees are much better paid and would likely have options, though. But, perhaps providing more housing options that can accommodate people on different walks of life can take the pressure off of single family homes.

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