The most interesting paragraph I read today

My sincere apologies with the relatively quiet posting recently. I do indeed have a Process Wednesday post in the works, but I found this to be such an interesting framing of the issue by Alyssa Rosenberg, commenting on Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In and her approach to looking at childcare costs that I had to post it:

Similarly, Sandberg suggests a different way to look at the cost of child care. Rather than considering nannying or preschool costs as a dilemma, something that wipes out a woman’s earnings, or that’s discretionary spending to allow a woman to continue doing something that she likes, Sandberg once again reframes the question, acknowledging that “Child care is a huge expense, and it’s frustrating to work hard just to break even. But professional women need to measure the cost of child care against their future salary rather than their current salary…Wisely, Anna and other women have started to think of paying for child care as a way of investing in their families’ future.” 

Sandberg makes a very interesting point and one that I hadn't considered. When I calculate child care for our family budget, I usually do the math against our income (numerator = child care, denominator = wages). I had not taken into account that, over time, the wages term goes up...

[One should point out that for those, like Ms. Sandberg, who have/desire offices in the C-suite, the beginning years of one's career probably play much more of a role in future income than those of us to aspire to more mundane titles like "group leader" or "senior principal fellow."]