Thank you for sharing how ugly they processed your termination. It confirms my observation again that those people in that particular industry are not human. Not entirely their fault as they have been dehumanized by the same process you went through. If you cannot single-handedly change the situation, please just leave. But stories like yours need to be heard and kept strongly in our collective consciousness and let them circulate in critical discussion places like here. There is a saying that you cannot solve a problem using the same mind that created the problem. Precisely they won’t solve it with the same mind. I met a white man of financial district who was arrogant and unforgiving for a small daily slip. That is not the right mind to solve such a problem.

I’d like to wish you to be able to prioritize your child’s first 7 years and may you find an employment that doesn’t interfere with that priority. Please don’t be trapped in effort justification bias — I admire your hardworking parents and how you worked your way up until graduate school — because there is always something to pay off those efforts as you are starting a child’s life with the support of a great husband.

Don’t push yourself into changing the pay gap statistics. As long as there is no equal parental leave for men and as long as there are women who by choice take more breaks from career to raise children, the pay gap will still be there. What needs to be fixed is the absolute pay gap between men and women in the same position with the same experience, which USA is not doing very well even when compared to less developed nations in Asia. This is very cultural, typical Anglo male supremacy.

Plenty of future endeavors to do! Your (non-monetary) investment in your children’s early years will be the foundation of their sanity to guard humanity’s future.