"...It does not make sense if most womans can earn more money working than they pay for childcare? Because then other womans would not care their childs, other womans would work for money other ways. And there are not enough womans with no papers to care all the childs."

"No, it works if the child-watching women watch thirty childs."

"That is too many childs for one woman to watch good! Normal it is close to same number womans and childs."

"Thirty is only once they're older than six and in school. In daycare for the really little kids, it's - three or four kids per adult, usually, depending what age exactly? Though even that isn't very good for babies." Evelyn does, if she's honest with herself, moderately judge people who put their six-month-old in daycare. "Most of my friends took a full year off work, but their husbands had good jobs and their work was flexible enough - or in Esther's case, the surgeon, her husband wants to be a stay-at-home dad."

"A stay at home dad is - father cares for the babies with a not real bra, does the things the mother would do? And the mother is a scientist?"

"She's a type of doctor. She still does a lot with their daughter, she's one of those people who needs like four hours of sleep a night, but her husband is the one who stays home for it, yeah. - uh, the word is 'breasts', a bra is the thing you wear on them." 

"It make sense, if there are women want to do men's work, there are men want to do women's work."

Nod. "I think one of the things that's changed in America - even over my lifetime - is that people try not to call things 'men's work' or 'women's work'? Because it's really just about what you're good at and interested in, which does seem to be different on average - there are more male engineers who design trains and more female nurses - but it's not determined by that? And I think there are plenty of fathers who love parenting but would be embarrassed if it were, like, this whole big thing that they were doing 'women's work'? And of course it was - bad for women, historically, having so many fewer options than men." 

"It is better to be a man," Iomedae agrees, as though this is obviously true and only barely relevant to their existing conversation. "I can see why a place would want to - have things so that being a woman is more like being a man. I do not know if this is bad. Maybe it is good and of God. It is just very new. I would have to see how it is for people I think."

Nod. "I...can see that it must be very different. I think it's - probably not better in all ways, or for everyone, but it's better in general? But you'll have to judge that for yourself, once you know more about America." 

They can poke at the occupations list a bit longer, maybe? Building and grounds cleaning! Personal care services, which include, apparently, hairdressers and tour guides and fitness trainers and also a surprisingly tiny number of childcare workers (600 thousand), though of course that's not counting people who work in schools with all the children over six. Salespeople! Office and admin work, which as a category accounts for a whole 21 million jobs, far more than any other previous category! (Sales-related occupations were 13 million, food preparation was 11 million.) 

"Farming, fishing, and forestry" combined account for less than a million jobs - of course, that's not counting something in the vicinity of ten million undocumented immigrants not reflected in the official government job statistics, but not all of those are working and it's still half the total number of people who work in offices. 

"It is also hard to say if it is gooder because - it is gooder to be a rich woman than a poor woman. So it is gooder to be a woman in America, if America way is better or not."

Nod. "There are definitely other places in the world where it's more - like it used to be in America a few hundred years ago - but I don't know if any rich countries are like that, so it seems sort of hard to compare." Shrug. "You'll have lots of opportunities to talk to people and ask them questions." 

Do either of the girls have more questions about jobs in America while they've got the website up? 

Iomedae has thought of one, actually. "Is the president a girl some times?"

"There hasn't been a woman president yet, but we're working on it! A woman called Hilary Clinton ran a few years ago, but she wasn't elected. I'm sure she'll run again." Explaining that instead the US elected its first black President and that it was nearly as groundbreaking would involve explaining the ongoing legacy of racism, and probably earning judgmental looks from Iomedae. 

Evelyn shrugs. "Running for President is particularly, uh, a big ask, I think? It takes decades to prepare for it - dedicating your life to politics, usually, on top of having a lot of advantages, and so it takes - longer to change, and fifty years ago things were a lot less equal for women. There are women Congresspeople though. Still a lot less than half, but - things are changing." She smiles, almost proudly. "The Supreme Court - that's the very top court in the country, if the smaller courts can't decide something then a case goes there, they end up deciding a lot of big questions about how the law works in America - anyway, it's only nine judges, and three of them are women now. It was a really big deal." 

"That is good!"

And in Taldane, "Taldor had a woman who was Emperor. But she did it by killing her sons and her husband's brothers so she's not a good example, really."

"Taldor sounds like a place that would have man emperors, so it is not surprising that women are bad at being emperor in Taldor."

Then in English, "How many presidents is fifty years?"

"There's an election every four years, so fifty years would be - ten elections plus, uh, two and a half - about twelve Presidents if it'd been a new President every time, but Presidents can run for a second term and, er," she's counting on her fingers, "Nixon, Reagan, Clinton - Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton's husband - and Bush... So at least four of the Presidents in the last fifty years were President for eight years instead of just four. Which I think means it was eight Presidents in the last fifty years instead of twelve, if I'm doing the math right." 

"That is so many!!! And there is not a war about who will be the president, even how many it changes?

Do presidents have to keep the promises other presidents maked?"

"There isn't! We've only had the one civil war, and it was - I guess timing-wise it was because some of the US states didn't want their country led by the President who had won the election, but it was really over bigger things than that, I think it was going to happen one way or another. Hmm - about ten years ago the vote was really close and there was a lot of arguments that maybe the vote had been counted wrong, and the Supreme Court that I mentioned a minute ago had to step in, but - when they did, the candidate who lost didn't argue about it, let alone start a war over it, he respected the Supreme Court's authority to make that decision and congratulated the guy who won." 

And she pauses to consider Iomedae's other question. "I...think it depends what sort of promise? How - official it is, more or less. If a President meets with the leader of another country and says he won't go to war with them, but it's not in writing or anything, then the next President can just decide to do something different. If it's something official, like if a treaty signed or a new law approved, then - I mean, I think there is a process for a later President to change it? But it has to go through the court and the change has to be approved by all the same people who approved the new law in the first place." 

"Not having a lot of wars about who the president is is very good. A place can be more powerful if it has that. I think God think it is good. - do the churches here say what God think about it?"

A spectacularly predictable question for Iomedae to ask, and Evelyn isn't sure it makes sense to feel nearly as uncomfortable about answering it as it turns out she does. "...Yeah. I think a lot of churches say that God thinks it's very good." With, uh, various different emphases. She doesn't really want to get into that. "You could ask the minister at our church on Sunday about it? That's a very appropriate sort of question to ask him." 

Another thing makes more sense now that she has more pieces. "And you sayed he will not think it is not respectful a girl asking because America raise all its girls like boys."

"- Yes, of course. I'm not saying there aren't questions you might ask that he would find disrespectful, but he wouldn't react differently if it were a boy asking or a girl." She smiles slightly. "If anything, boys get less leeway to ask unusual questions, the teacher is more likely to assume they're being disruptive." It's a pattern she's noticed before with her foster children; troubled boys are troublemakers, troubled girls tend to slide under the radar.

Shrug. "I think girls have a reputation for being - more well-behaved. I don't think that's particularly fair either, really boys and girls should be on the same footing."  

"In America maybe they should be even. In poor places, boys should be more careless, because maybe they will be great heroes, and it does not serve a family if their girl is a great hero."

I hope someday you're a great hero, and your birth family finds out and they're as proud of you as you deserve. It really won't help to say that, for multiple reasons. 

"I don't think that's a good reason to be careless?" she says, slightly awkwardly. "- Maybe you want a different English word for the thing you mean, I would expect carelessness would get in the way of becoming a great hero. But - also most people aren't going to be great heroes, right? Whether they're in America or where you grew up, most people are just going to have jobs and families."