The older I get the more I realize ambition and "being ambitious" is a completely misplaced way to orient your life.
The chance of validation from others is not a good reason for making one choice or another and a life made of choices of that kind will eventually leave you spiritually bankrupt.
Make decisions based on what you're passionate about, based on what will bring and keep meaningful relationships into your life, based on what will leave you with habits that take you outside, into the sun, moving your body and eating healthy, and, sure, that will afford you the ability to pay for those things.
Focus on the process, not the outcome.
Making decisions based on what will make you more "successful" will make you a slave to others approval. And those others will use you up and waste your life to achieve their own objectives.
Also, if you pick the right partner, having kids does all the good things in life at once. It is the most efficient way to get yourself into the good life possible.
Your last paragraph sort of contradicts all the advice from the previous paragraphs.
Not to sound too cynical, but if someone can tell they've 'picked the right partner', then they have probably made other good decisions in their life and happiness, ambition, are less of issues and there's not much conversation to be had.
The article is really about happiness, and how ambition affects it. He begins with his idea of ambition being completely career related: he wants to build and change the world. Kids will change his time management and ability to reach the goals of his ambition.
He ends by redefining ambition: he wants to be a good dad, and also have a good career. So ambition to him is now about being the best dad he can be, while keeping up with his drive to build.
In other words, he is rebalancing his emotional state so that he can be happy in his current situation. If he keeps a good head and keeps things in balance, I'm sure he'll be happy.
If he fails, then I'm sure there will be more conversations about ambition, happiness, time management, and 'being happy with your station in life.'
I kinda agree with you but Could you please elaborate on “ having kids does all the good things in life at once” as I dont see how is that so straightforward. I’m actually currently really conflicted on the idea whether I want or dont want kids.
I started off and a shy, awkward (probably autistic) computer programmer wondering if I could ever convince a woman to marry me. Now I'm on my 3rd kid and hoping for more.
Parenting gives to access to a part of the world you never knew existed. The school events, sports, Cub Scouts, neighbors down the street. You meet people who are trying to create a great world for their children. Your interests align, so you end of working together on it. You actually become part of the community.
I used to be Mr. Career, and maybe someday I'll get back to it. But right now my job plays such a small role in my life compared to my family.
A lot of juggling with words here: being ambitious, a builder, competing etc. It really boils down to the same thing: making more money + fame. The author should really stick to that and stop with hiding behind big words. There's nothing noble about the recent slop-producing startups that YC funds. They do not make the world a better place.
The passionate hunger to do something significant and meaningful with my life was a major reason I took care never to have any children. Having grown up in a large family within a religious subculture full of other large families, the amount of time and attention children consume was crystal clear from a young age, and I knew that I was going to need every scrap of energy I could spare for the work I wanted to do.
Years later, after I had to accept the failure of my ambitions, there was an opportunity to become the dad of a kid who needed one. So here I am being a dad after all, and it's been a good experience. Difficult, of course, and often frustrating, but worthwhile; I have no regrets - neither about this choice, nor the one I made when I was young.
Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood.
Which frustrates me immensely, because I feel that society at large did everything it could to convince me that parenthood is terrible. Movies and TV shows portrayed only the bad. Teachers told me that becoming a parent was the worst thing in the whole world. A wide range of celebrities spend their days posting about how amazing it is to be without children.
I accept that there are some parents out there who regret their decision, but research shows them to be a vanishingly small minority. The VAST majority of parents report greater meaning, more love, personal growth, enjoyment, fulfillment, etc. Something has become quite sick in modern society when we provide such an imbalanced and untrue message to young people.
I've thought about this and while I agree with you completely, I think the reason why is not just society at large. Externally what most people see is the time suck, money suck, and frustration with teaching behavior, fixing bad behavior etc.
What's so easy to miss is the immense feeling of love, of being needed, of being loved, that words can't describe. I frequently tell people I feel like the grinch after he discovers Xmas - my heart is three times bigger. But you can't really see that it's just a feeling I carry with me.
You don’t need children to have these sorts of feelings, unless you can only get them from some small people who don’t have any choice but to love you.
As much as I sometimes wonder what life would have been like as DINKs, the feeling of my 7 year old girl sneaking up behind me to give me a cuddle outweighs all of the fast cars and long walks on the beach I personally could ever have.
Interesting perspective. Your first paragraph also describes my experience, perfectly.
However, even though I also think nothing comes even close to parenthood for me, my perspective is that society strongly encourages —I'd even say strongly pressures— people to have kids, to feel that if you don't, it's almost like something is wrong with you. Maybe we're just different generations? :-)
I never felt that pressure to have kids. In fact, even though I waited until I was in my mid 30's, I was the first in my social circle to have kids (I guess I hung around with younger people?).
I knew since I was a kid myself that I wanted to someday be a father. If society pushed me, it would have been when I was still in elementary school.
After I had kids though… It was strange to scroll through coworkers social media feeds and see the same photos of groups of 30-somethings holding up wine glasses while the waiter (I assume) takes their photo at some fancy restaurant in the Bay Area. It all seemed so… hedonistic? Or maybe just kind of empty.
Becoming a father gave me purpose that was (finally) not about me any longer.
And now, the nest empty, I still am unable to go back to that person I was before. (Whoever that was.)
I think it's social pressure in some cultures, but even in those (sub)cultures which don't have the explicit pressure to have kids, people have a drive to procreate. I cannot tell you how many couples I know who decided they would not have kids, or would only have one, and at a certain point one partner (usually a woman in their late 30s or early 40s if I am being honest) decided this was the most important thing and no amount of money or career setbacks or relationship turmoil wouldn stand in the way.
> Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood.
I completely agree with you. But I can't say around me, people, movies, society ever sent the message that parenthood is terrible. The way I interpret the message was always "this was hard, this was grueling, but I wouldn't change it for the world". I didn't get this apparent contradiction until it was my turn.
I think the people who miss almost all of these "tickboxes" and can somehow link it to the kids become unhappy with parenthood. If they ever feel their personal time, romance, career, success suffered because of the focus on the children, they will end up in the "disappointment" camp.
I never personally met anyone who was willing to admit regret of having children but I did meet people who were disappointed and put a veiled blame for their failure on the children.
I feel a lot of regret having had children. Not 100%, but it's always going to be more than 0%. I adore my kids but it's too much for my brain and it makes me miserable a lot of the time. I don't bring it up except to counsellors (or anonymous internet bros, apparently) because (a) it's not actionable - there is no going back (b) it's a bummer and no one has anything to say about it.
This is one of the things I think about when considering kids++, when does the regret start (if at all)? Or as posted in other comments, will the health lottery have me regret having +1? Time will tell.
How old are they? I honestly felt like that sometimes for the first few years but no longer now that they are somewhat capable of not dying without constant supervision and are becoming their own new persons
This is arguably the toughest it will ever get. It's very normal to feel all kinds of tough emotions right now. If this were climbing Mount Everest, you'd be near the top.
I feel like when young people think they want to do significant and meaningful things, they think about things that will make them famous in one way or another. Most of such things are neither significant nor meaningful.
I used to think this way, and then I realised that I actually want to be famous and respected. After some time, I realised that I just wanted the approval of people. And finally I realised all I wanted was to feel loved and cared for.
That's unnecessarily pessimistic. I think it's much more common for drive people to want to make a significant positive impact on the world, rather than becoming famous.
Doesn't matter either way, though, once you realize you're just a blip like the other 8,000,000,000 people on this earth.
I’m surprised this hasn’t come up yet: Because by being a parent, you become responsible for someone else’s life besides your own, permanently and beyond the transactional or contractual sense of a job or a passion project. It is a life experience unmatched by anything else (though I think that being a teacher or the caretaker of children in an orphanage come close). You get free reign over the shaping of a person who will touch the lives of others, and the good or the bad that becomes of it is the consequence of your own values and way of existence.
Not disputing you either—I once said I will never have children, too—but indeed and as with other life decisions, you should stay childless while you find the meaning of it incomprehensible. It’s not for people who are not ready to stop thinking about themselves.
Because any fault of theirs feels like a fault of yours, but you learn that you cannot fix faults of theirs like you can (try to) fix faults of yours. You learn to become a parent, a teacher, a guide, a kind of friend, in the most deeply connected relationship you’ll ever have. A relationship that exposes you to every fault of yourself, while you feel the deepest love for and connection with your children. A connection that’s not even always reciprocated. Parenting is the true Aristotelian politeia.
>Why? Noy disputing you but I am childless yet primarily I cannot think why bringing up a kid would be significant or meaningful.
Its because they are more important than anything else to a parent. You are invested in their outcome more than anything else. I don’t see how this isn’t obvious.
It is kinda weird, because you feel so much more tired all the time. Yet at the same time you have so much more motivation to do _everything_. It is like I feel 50% more tired, yet 200% more engaged with everything I do. It really makes your life a lot more meaningful.
Before I would waste so much time engaging on video games / internet-browsing / TV-youtube / etc and just not enjoying the time I spent. It felt very meaningless, like why even bother working? I have (had) savings to go take several years of sabbatical if I wanted.
When I actually boot up a video game today I actually enjoy it. And that is all on top of normal stuff you hear about having kids.
Ever built something and felt proud of it? Like 'that was cool' or 'that was neat'. It's like a never ending source of that feeling. Most things you do in life just don't last that long, but raising kids lasts a really long time.
Yes. I keep getting that feeling everyday with my work as of now. And I also got a PhD after fighting a lot of hardship including huge opposition from my parents to the effect of having lost contact with them. But what you said does ring a bell in that, I need to be constantly doing my work in getting that feeling. (apart from my PhD which every once in a while makes me go wheeeee).
I guess with kids, its like my PhD but a constant source instead of static fading in time?
Because it's evolutionarily favourable - the same reason sex feels good. One is instantaneous pleasure, and the other is sustained doses of feelings of satisfaction, because they optimise for different things; but ultimately you can understand them easily if you think about how core they are to what evolution favours.
> I cannot think why bringing up a kid would be significant or meaningful.
I don't think it's something to think or reason about. You feel it (or don't, in some cases). As an atheist, I suppose this is how truly religious people feel about their religion: it brings them joy and meaning. (And much like in some religions, you sometimes feel you're beholden to a demanding, whimsical god!).
Agree with the sibling comment. As a new father, nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - can describe the love, adoration and reverence that parents feel for their children. To be understood, it must be experienced. There is simply no other way.
Thanks for the answer. And I understand that. But for me, that answer is potentially a very biased answer. Is it a feeling that comes naturally or is it forced in the sense that you realise you are everything for the kid and the kid is everything for you and both you the kid have no other choice.
Talking to a lot of people (bit you) i felt it was more the latter.
It didn't come naturally for me. Babies aren't much fun. There were plenty of times I wondered why everybody else finds being a parent fulfilling and here I am trying not to swear at a crying six month old at 1 am.
Toddlers though... toddlers are fun. Not always, but a lot of the time. Once both of my kids cleared the baby stage I finally would describe myself as a proud parent, mostly happy.
Now we are empty nesters and both of my kids live far away and are doing great. With the space that leaves I've spent some time thinking about myself as a dad and boy do I have a lot of regrets. I don't think I was very good at it.
I understand now why so many people who weren't the greatest parents get very excited about grandchildren. I know if that happens for me, I'm going to be a much better grandparent than I ever was parent.
Let me paraphrase a scene from “Lessons in Chemistry”.
The main character confesses that twice she has wanted to give up her child for adoption. Another mom laughs... "Twenty times would still make you an amateur."
+1. I also felt this huge gap between knowing (intellectually) what parenting is and actually experiencing it. It really changes you, to the point that now, when I talk to childless people my age, I feel like we're fundamentally differently. I think I can perceive fairly accurately whether someone my age is a parent after just a few minutes of general conversation (obviously, without having to visit adjacent topics).
I experienced this so strongly I spent some time actually writing a poem (in Spanish) about it: https://alejo.ch/39l
> It really changes you, to the point that now, when I talk to childless people my age, I feel like we're fundamentally differently.
As a childless person, the inverse is equally true. I have wildly different levels of obligation and constraint - and that difference typically becomes obvious very very quickly. I don't say that as a better/worse, just different.
Once you have kids you quickly discover that you get forced into it. You have to engage. If you don't, they scream. They get in trouble at school. They are unhappy and it breaks your heart. Once you have no choice but to do something, you will find it's better to find meaning in it. Meaning is ultimately something you create for yourself.
You can ask that question about a lot of things whether it's one entrepeneurial baby or their nature conservation effort which reveals it to be somewhat meaningless question.
I'd modify that to once you have kids, you might understand. It's for sure not a given and there are a lot of really terrible people out there who probably shouldn't have the kids they do.
Except... a million reasons where they will either not understand, or they should have not become a parent.
The problem with the "The Most Infuriating Answer" is that it entirely neglects facts, and only those say it who do have a good experience with it.
Happy for you, internet stranger. Just like I am happy for all of those around me: you all are the ones who do good parenting.
In case you also want to become a better person in general, I recommend to stop being condescending, and not to say this ever again to anyone. You hurt more than you think you are wise.
I don't see OP's comment as condescending but I'm also not in these "should have not become a parent" shoes to tell, for sure. Insensitive? Perhaps. On a discussion board, it is hard to know who you're talking to. OP likely assumed some "persona" (different to those that might find it hurtful) before they wrote the comment.
> You hurt more than you think you are wise
We are all fighting some demon or the other. I appreciate you for bringing forth the kind most of us are (fortunate enough to be) oblivious to. Ignorance is bliss.
It's difficult to explain ... an intensely personal experience. Every child is different. Every parent is different. Every culture has their own way of doing things ... yet children are the one universally shared thing that binds our giant collective together ...
When I am holding Henry and I tickle him, I can feel him laughing all the way to his toes. And I realize, my God, I had forgotten ... how unbelievably wonderful it is that any of us exist at all.
Here I am with this tiny, warm body so close to me, breathing so fast he can barely catch up, sharing his newfound joy of simply being alive with me. The sublime joy of this moment, and all the other milestones – the first smile, the first laugh, the first 'dada' or 'mama' ... The highs are so incredibly high that you'll get vertigo and wonder if you can ever reach that feeling again. But you peak ever higher and higher, with dizzying regularity ... a constant rollercoaster of extreme highs and lows.
I mean, ok, they might just understand or they might hate their children with a fiery passion and never miss and opportunity to vocalize it and ruin innocent lives like my parents did?
Thanks for sharing! I remember thinking pre-kids mostly about how much work they would be but not really considering the joy they bring too. Like I knew they would, but vastly underestimated what effect that would have on my life.
I don't particularly regret any of my choices either, but knowing what I do now, would have chosen to have kids earlier in my life.
I find it funny that I spent my 20s and 30s doing everything in my power to avoid having kids and at this stage in my life I’m doing everything to have kids.
I do feel that 30 year old me would definitely be in better shape to chase kids around.
100% on this. In my life I have 0 regrets except not having kids younger. I was never especially fond of kids, but it turns I out love my own more than I imagined possible, and have more fun with them I ever thought I would! I only wish we could have many more but given when we started, the odds of having more than 2 are very low. The amount of joy and life they bring to you and to your house is something you can't really appreciate until you've had them. To say nothing of the sort of fulfillment and life satisfaction they bring.
My parent's goal was to get me to go to college. My goal for my kids is to teach them the importance of having kids early. The fact it might help in having a grandkid or two before I kick the bucket is just a wee bit of icing on that cake. I think the ideal time to start is probably in your 20s. This also maximizes the amount of time you'll get to spend with your kids. I'm quite 'jealous' (sans the negative connotations) of those who will get to see their kids live til retirement, but hey - they made wiser decisions, so hopefully I can help encourage my children to do the same.
> I was never especially fond of kids, but it turns I out love my own more than I imagined possible, and have more fun with them I ever thought I would!
I for a change am happy I had my kids in late 30s / 40. I am certainly wiser, way more experienced with world, humans, got to be successful and in much better financial position which also helped my parents to have better retirement.
I wasn't a full adult in my 20s, too naive, too trusting, undefined for the lack of better words, not experienced with various types of women (laugh all you want, this was probably the most important experience from all for me, it afterwards formed my choice of wife which is often the most important choice in one's life).
Plus I've managed in a decade before having kids to travel the world backpacking, various experiences that changed me for the better and basically reinvented myself, on my own. I don't come from competitive or nurturing environment, nobody expected anything from me. I've found my passions in various mountain/extreme sports. None of that would happen if I had kids earlier, thats very clear when looking at peers who took the other trajectory.
If my kids will have their kids young or older is completely up to them, I find it selfish to push any expectations on them, they (will) live vastly different life compared to me, I can just respect their choices and love them regardless.
There’s never a right time to have kids. But having them older has its perks. You are much more calmed, patient, you are wiser and likely financially stable. Throwing money at problems definitely makes life 10X easier when you have kids, something most people can’t do in their 20s or even 30s.
I disagree. As a father of nine children, I submit that the best time to have children is when you’re young. The next best time is now.
Sure, you’ll be poor, and you’ll make lots of mistakes. But how do you know you’ll be able to have children later? And what’s so important now that makes it worth putting off children?
Yes. Had one kid mid thirties. And now I realize I want nine of them too. Or four maybe. We started too late and I doubt we will make it. Biggest mistake of my life. In my environment I see people delaying kids because they think 33, 34 is still alright to start. And it is. If you want to have 1 or 2...
We will go for the third one next year and that would be it for us. I come from a family of 8 children and my wife is a single child. I don’t think I had a better childhood, just different. She has a lot of good memories of traveling with her parents and does not regret not having siblings. I saw my dad a few days a week for a good portion of my early childhood and regret that a bit. My wife and I are equally social, I’m actually more of an introvert in some circumstances. We are both considered of others, and like to share. I would say the one skill I developed that she lacks is the ability to focus and concentrate in public spaces with noise. Because that’s how I did homework and studied all the way from elementary school to college, always around a bunch of loud people, no place in the house where I could close a door and be alone.
Not to discount that it’s great when you play with your kids, but it’s different when your kids play together, and in particular when you can’t play that they have someone to interact with.
Not only do they play but they also learn to care for each other. Parental effort doesn't increase uniformly with each child – if you're lucky and have done a good job parenting them, children create a society and help with raising each other.
Yeah, the group dynamics of, say, a family with two children:
1. Kid A plays with Kid B
2. Kid A plays alone and Kid B plays alone
As compared to a three-child household:
1. Kids A, B and C play together
2. Kid A plays with Kid B, Kid C plays alone
3. Kid A plays with Kid C, Kid B plays alone
4. Kid B plays with Kid C, Kid A plays alone
5. Kid A, Kid B and Kid C all play alone
So, in a bigger family, many more communication patterns between children can arise, which, among other things, might develop the child's empathy etc.
Adding mom and dad as "players" would give us many more possible scenarios here (Kid A playing with mom, Kid B alone or with dad, etc).
I'm a father of two with a low income, and I would like to have a third child for precisely the above described reason. As a sociologist in my country put it -- somewhat harsh words maybe, but probably largely true: a single child might get spoiled, two children may start competing too heavily, but three children and above is company.
I disagree, when looking at 3-kids setup out there in the world. Ie my wife comes from such, she is the oldest and all 3 follow the typical 3 kids pattern - oldest was pushed into most responsibility to the point of trauma, middle one feels unappreciated and has inferiority complex as middle ones often do, and youngest is by huge margin the most spoiled one. This is the default for 3 kids that many parents end up with, unless fighting hard against this natural direction.
And yes a lot of interaction, but it doesn't guarantee anything further down the line - when long time adults youngest is still spoiled and selfish and not really a pleasant person to be around with for anybody, including siblings and their own mom. Middle one is scared to have kids, a decision that she may end up regretting later easily. And my wife is also carrying her part of the burden, won't bother you with details.
The grass is always greener behind the fence and all that.
Insightful comment, got me thinking, thanks for sharing. I suppose, in the end, there isn't all that much logic in human relations, or there are always far too many "unknown unknowns".
There's very few humans that have enough time, energy, skills, wherewithal, and money to devote to 3+ kids to make these sorts of positive "three's company" interactions happen in the modern world. I am not saying that it's impossible, just that it's difficult and doesn't happen naturally like you're implying.
On a personal note, I never had much positive interactions with either of my siblings, certainly not as children as not now that we're in our 40s either. Lots of fighting, absolutely zero closeness or positive feelings.
This. I’m an old dad. I realized two years ago that to keep up with my pre-teens I had to change my lifestyle. For me that meant cutting out alcohol, not eating processed foods, avoiding sugar, reduced caffeine, way more protein and doing calisthenics. I sleep well and I have energy. I just have to keep this up for 10 more years when my youngest will be 21, then I can die. ;-)
Same here in almost all ways, except the caffeine. What was the benefit there? My hot pots keep me going. Once my wife hits menopause I might also consider TRT. I'm almost certainly not low by the standards of the average American, let alone for my age, but it's gonna keep falling as I age and wouldn't mind that extra oomph.
Previously, when my head touched the pillow I was asleep. Two years ago I noticed that wasn’t happening and I would wake frequently through the night. I cut back my caffeine intake and my restored my sleep. Without knowing the physiological reason I assume my metabolism is slowing down and I had to alter my lifestyle to fit to it, hence my strict diet now. The calisthenics has been awesome for me. I love the progression moves to unlock skills and levelling up. Pushing weights just to stack more plates wasn’t motivation for me - cali is. It replaces my caffeine.
As for menopause, or more accurately, perimenopause, my wife has been in that for years. (She’s an old mom) She started HRT about 6 months ago and it has been amazing. She no longer wants to murder me or anyone else that irritates her.
> I do feel that 30 year old me would definitely be in better shape to chase kids around.
Can confirm that starting at 30 makes it relatively easy to keep up. Still not early enough though. Wish I’d started at 25.
It’s mostly a matter of effort though. You’ll become very good at it out of sheer need if you genuinely want to keep up. In far better shape now than I was at 30, mentally and physically.
My dad was 42 when I was born, and he was keeping up with me on hikes in my early 20s (his mid 60s). I haven't done much hiking with him lately, but he's going on 50 mile bike rides at 70.
I think having kids late can help people stay young longer, if you let it.
> Having grown up in a large family within a religious subculture full of other large families, the amount of time and attention children consume was crystal clear
Similar experience here growing up Mennonite (they’re sorta like the Amish but more moderate).
I’m one of the only remaining men in my family without kids, but those that do have kids (and there’s a lot of them) are super busy. This is at least partially offset by their wives who are more on the traditional side.
I think one of the reasons that a lot of successful founders are in their mid-40s is because they combine 20ish years of experience with an empty nest after kids are out on their own.
That just tells us the person wasn’t a good parent either. Your comment assumes the only way to parent is to manipulate, patronize, etc. That’s just one perspective though.
There are other ways to parent that are actually fantastic management training - figuring out how to think from another human’s POV, acknowledge their frustrations, help them build the skills to handle their feelings, etc.
It turns out great parenting is to a first degree about great relationship skills.
You can achieve that trivially with such young kids by simply leading by example, not having snacks and junkfood at home and so on. We eat a lot of healthy stuff, so our kids do. You are still their world and define many patterns they will follow later subconsciously.
That doesn't translate that much into say teens but it lays a solid foundation.
May I ask you what significant and meaningful thing you tried to do, and why you think you failed at it?
I've spent my 30s doing something similar and it's still unclear whether it will work out or not. And I've foregone essentially all else, including family.
I got sort of lucky early in my career because I had a talent that was discovered in a national network. Which meant I found myself writing national strategies for IT in our public sector (Denmark) at my late 20ies. It felt great for a year, or maybe two. When it stopped being fun though, it sort of hit me hard. I did enjoy writing and working on the strategies with other people. All the "glamour" around it, advicing politicians, going to conferences, networking with all sorts of "important" people. That got to me on one of the many train rides I had to take. I know a 3 hour commute might not be a lot to Americans or people in larger countries in general, but here it's a life time. Eventually I didn't know why I was going on them, so I quit and went back to being a nerd in a basement. Having my first child was the kick I needed to push me to where I was already heading though. I would've likely ridden the career ladder for a lot longer if I hadn't become a dad.
I rarely speak about it but something about reading you accepting the failure of your ambitions made me want to do it. Are you sure it's a failure? For me family life turned out to be what I wanted and work is just a fun place which makes me money, but I totally get why people want to do it the opposite way. In some ways you could say that I did something significant, but it made me misserable. So I failed just as much as you, if not more.
I don't regret any of it either though. It's what made me who I am.
I'd also agree with this. Children don't make you give up your ambitions in the least. However they will almost certainly make you rethink what is important in life. It's not even conscious like an 'ok I give this up, in order to get that' but rather they just make you feel very differently, in a way that you can't really explain. But it's good, very good.
100% agree with this. But its not uniform for everybody, mothers generally change and throw away previous life after having kids in ways that most men don't. Some fathers are similar (and few mothers are similar to average guy) but difference is pretty big when you dig deeper.
and yet most nobel prize laureates seem to be family people. I found that adult responsibilities have a way of making me very very intentional about how i spend my time.
When I was in high school, my dad was an executive at a large international Fortune 500 finance firm.
His main job was to fly around the world and train salespeople on how better attract and retain clients.
One year, he was traveling for 180 days aka half of the entire year.
For many years I was somewhat conflicted about this b/c on the one hand he wasn't around much but on the other hand my mom didn't have to work, we had a great life and got to take international vacations every year.
As a father now, I appreciate the sacrifice my dad made to not see us as much but to provide a great life for his wife and kids.
I kinda miss the argument why so many “ambitious” people are bad parents. Maybe because it is too obvious? If you are not present for your child at the time your kid grows up (before and after school, weekends, etc) you are not a parent at all. You’re a roommate with certain privileges, but no child is interested in that.
People who work 60+ hours a week will be “worse” parents than others.
On my end, becoming a dad didn’t make me less ambitious, just more focused.
I was vp of engineering at a Series A startup when my kid was born. It was a challenging job, but one that felt increasingly devoid of any meaning for me (maybe also because I'd been there for 5 years). I was compensating by working on side-projects at night and on weekends. I even wrote a novel that took me 4 years to finish.
Then my son was born, and nights and weekends disappeared! Suddenly, all my non-father activity was dedicated to a job that was boring me more and more.
So what did i do? I started a company, so I could decide what to work on during the day!. Basically, I took a side project and put it at the center of my working life. Now my days feel rewarding enough that when I disconnect, I can completely devote myself to my son and my wife and ignore everything else.
Of course, I don’t have side projects anymore. I barely even have hobbies: I completely stopped watching movies, which used to be the love of my life. I read books before bed and on the subway, and work out occasionally to stay sane. My life = my startup, my son, my wife. That’s pretty much it.
But I feel much more balanced than before, when I was always chasing something.
I became an engineering manager when my daughter was 2. Way back in the old days before LLMs so I had to both code and manage. Completely burnt me out. I never fully got back into traditional tech career after I was laid off in '23.
I did start two businesses: One brick and mortar and one app. The brick and mortar has the biggest drain on family time since with the app I can grind at night and only miss out on sleep.
I have a relatively good stable job, working in tech. When I came across generative AI and how it could be used to solve difficult math problems and materialize amazing codebases, the feeling of awe makes me want to understand the magic. I am contemplating choosing between changing my career and being in my stable job, raising my kids. Of course, I am probably unqualified for frontier labs, where I want to work on models. Ambition seems to have gotten a hold off me and won't let me go.
"Behind every great man there's a great woman." I thought I was killing it at work and as a dad when I was answering emails about complex bugs while hiking with my first kid riding in a backpack. But then I quit working to be a full-time dad for kid #2 and found out how much work my partner had been doing that I didn't know about. I suddenly understood why so many of the men at my former workplace had been divorced. So be ambitious, but check in with your partner and make sure they are on the same page.
Thats why, when divorcing in Switzerland, retirement savings are bundled and then split equally between two. So if woman was a stay-at-home mum, she still gets good savings. If both brought cca same income, not much changes.
Personal ambition is often a poor signal for living your life because it tends to have an arbitrary and empty goal, being successful or powerful or wealthy just for the sake of it. It will never feel like enough, each milestone is as arbitrary as the last.
The people I have known who were the most grounded, happiest, productive, and fulfilled all understood their lives on some level to be in service of something that has value to more than just themselves. That can be being a mom or dad, furthering the knowledge of humanity, serving your community, it can be anything that you recognize as greater than yourself.
It brings you into contact with other people who share the same goal. It is a stronger fuel than personal ambition, and one that doesn't leave you empty along the way.
YC reject so I bootstrapped and was thankfully able to hit profitability before my first kid showed up. I’ve now got two. I also have dreams bigger than ever.
In fact, writing this while sitting on the couch with the kids watching Muppet Treasure Island while my kids are wearing pirate hats and waving foam swords.
I’m still extremely productive and prolific. Probably less compared with before. But before, I had friends and TV shows subtracting from my time.
Today, my life priorities are kids, work and sleep.
There is no Netflix. There are no hobbies. No downtime. No friends unless I happen to like my kids friends parents.
I’m up at 5:30/6 and get 90 mins of focused work in. Skip breakfast. Then workout and walk/bike with the kids. Then ready for work at 10 - and thankfully my office is two blocks away. Skip lunch. Home at 5/5:30. Dinner with kids and play. Work from 8-10. Every single day.
I love my kids, work and learning is fun, and I value sleep. Everything else is a nice to have.
The way I see it, when I’m 100 years old I won’t regret drag on my ambitions because I had kids. In fact I’ll probably think the ambitions were nice but kind of pointless in the end anyway. I will see the kids as important and meaningful, and will write a life story where I was the best dad I could be and still hustled like hell.
I love my work and I love playing with the kids so it can be exhausting but in a good way. Never a drag (not usually anyway).
Super thoughtful consistent schedule with little room for anything else is my tradeoff if I want to maintain high quantity of high quality output with my business. And TBH, it lasts for 15-18 years at most.
I didn’t mention the weekends - those are more of a free for all. Lots of family time, work sneaks in. It’s a lot more thinking than working though.
As a fun project, you should look up the history of eating schedules. They vary wildly between different cultures. Some have a single large meal at the start of the day, others have 5 smaller meals spread through, and everything in between. There is no standard even if it feels like it simply because that is how we are raised.
Most "good for your health" advice is pop culture driven with a half life of 5 years anyway and breakfast being the most important meal of the day is a marketing slogan. In other words, no better than any various convention.
About the only things that stick are "don't stop physical and mental activity as you age" and "do stuff in moderation".
If you call it "intermittent fasting" and write a book about it, you can get a whole movement behind how healthy skipping breakfast and lunch is. And another movement preaching about how bad it is. And a followup book about what you REALLY should do ad nauseam.
Pretty much, so much of what we take for granted in culture was actually intentionally designed from the top down to have masses of people fall into line and become good servants of the economic system.
As for good diets, for instance, there is a wild meal schedule that has shown to be fairly good at managing weight, it is just intense. It is the 16 to 17 meals a day plan. One meal every hour you are awake, each one only about 100 to 150 calories. It does potentially work but try selling it to people and worse getting folks to stick to it.
Agreed. This view also makes sense if we look at pre-agriculture humans - they’d eat heartily when there’s a good catch, maybe eat some leftovers the next day, go without food for some time, etc. Evolution by natural selection doesn’t move fast enough for humans to have adapted strongly to a fixed 3 meals a day schedule by now; eating times are still very much a convention.
Intermittent fasting and calorie reduction are the only known way to EXTEND lifespan and wellness. 10 years of low carb + fasting is the single most important health decision I have ever made.
You are more correct, but I think the truth lies somewhere between your statement and theirs. We have correlative evidence that lower calorie diets and/or fasting results in longer lifespans, improved insulin sensitivity, pancreatic cell responsiveness, blood pressure, oxidative-stress measures, and more, in humans. We also have animal testing showing causative evidence that fasting produces longer lifespans. Of course, animals are not humans, and correlation does not imply causation. Still, we do not currently have causative evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, and we widely agree that that is harmful for lungs. With enough correlative evidence I think it becomes reasonable to accept it as actionable evidence.
The secret is to have your children eat for you, then just do blood transfusions when they’re at peak nutrient level. You can do that while you work for optimal efficiency.
Yeah I had a schedule like that when the kids were very young but it caught up with me, frankly. Having the computer be the first and last thing I interacted with every day was not great for my mood either.
Granted, I do need to take a break from that schedule every so often. If I catch myself being unfocused I just go to bed.
Also, the first thing I work on is usually a high leverage project that excites me. Reading news or answering emails (things that can affect my emotions) are usually avoided during that time. Usually.
Wellllll, kind of... I've realized hunger is often just another habit because we're used to eating N meals a day, like the GP comment implies. I've done a quasi OMAD (1-meal a day) thing on-and-off for 3+ years now and don't feel hungry the rest of the time, given my current physical activity levels. It took a few days to get used to, but now I can start and stop OMAD on demand.
I'd recommend everyone try fasting and figure out what their bodies really need (preferably over the holidays, because the adjustment period can be a bit rough and could interfere with work.) I suspect most of the developed world is over-eating by quite a lot given our largely sedentary lifestyles.
I appreciate people like OP because they create jobs for people like me. I am more than happy to let him keep his profits and his lousy existence while I take it easy, do some work and then hang out with kids and friends and collect the paycheck. Yeah, I will never get rich, but I don't care. Work is just something I do to get by, I did find meaning in it earlier in life, but since I hit 40 work is just a thing I do so I don't end up under the bridge.
Really just thoughtfully and consistently disciplined.
Some people think diet and exercise are miserable. Others put more weight on how they feel when in good health.
My block is crawling with kids and usually playing baseball or hockey - they are pretty much never on screens apart from watching something on Disney+. Other than that we play outside year round.
Man good motivating schedule. Are you married as well? I notice this is missing the wife time. I feel like I really have to wreck my sleep to get worktime between wife and kids.
If we are talking about points people don't make, how about this: your life is going to get harder and worse as you get older. Your dreams will very likely die. Having kids will make that more clear, but honestly I know plenty of people with and without kids and they all struggle with the not fulfilling their ambitions (or realizing those ambitions and finding they weren't what they imagined), the fading of youth, disenchantment with their jobs, etc. Kids are all the horrible things you have heard, but it is a way to grow, it is a very concrete reason to live, at least until they move out. I very much feel the author of this post and I hope that they (and I) keep the fire that drives ambition, but grow enough to enjoy the fire itself, not care quite so much about being productive or scoring points in whatever game.
The author seems self-aware and I think there's a lot of good observations in this post.
At the same time, I think ambition needs to be paired with humility and acceptance of you can't have it all.
There's no perfect life. You can't optimize everything such that you achieve a hypothesized balance between all the things that are competing for your time and energy. In the final analysis, most people, if given the chance to reflect before they die, would choose more time with the people they care about than more time working, even if, in the moment, they felt they were doing a good job balancing the two.
Kids are also not always a joy. I love my kids, and there were certainly moments of joy, mostly when they were young. As they grow up, they turn out to be their own people. They may ignore your advice and learn life lessons the hard way. They may not live up to the hopes you had for them. Be prepared for some disappointment. Doesn't mean that you don't love them, but they can be frustrating.
To be fair, I'm sure I disappointed my parents in some ways or times also.
Work is also not always a joy. Success is not always a joy.
But there's more than enough evidence to show that, when people look back on their lives, most of them most highly value their relationships and have the most regrets around how they managed those relationships.
Having a child doesn't guarantee happiness. Raising a child is not always going to be rainbows and I suppose learning to accept that the life you create doesn't mean you get to dictate what that life becomes is a form a wisdom. But none of this takes anything away from the experience if you accept it for what it really is.
I think this is the point though right? The author is saying that he rejects this dichotomy and he's attempting to take on both even if others might perceive it as impossible.
Which is good if sailing is what you wanted and like to do, which is what the author and the OP is implying. You don't necessarily have to "succeed" or "reach" somewhere.
What I wrote isn't about "success". It's about direction.
What the author is at risk of doing, in my opinion, is pretending to a certain extent that he can have his cake and eat it too. As I wrote in my original comment, "you can't have it all."
Please don't take this to mean that you have to choose between your family and career (or a business). That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that, at a certain point of "ambition", there is no perfect balance possible between all the the things you're trying to maximize.
The wise person accepts that sometimes you have to make choices, and choices always require that you give something up to get something else.
I have a good friend who has a special needs kid and we've discussed his struggles at length - suffice it to say that it takes an order of magnitude more time and attention than what's described here.
The thing is, you of course don't get tipped off that you've been selected for that particular curse (and yes, I'd say it's a curse. It's not some inspiring after-school special thing, it's unfair as f*k to all involved).
The point of this is, I suppose, it's okay to choose not to have kids if you don't feel like gambling, because it turns out, you are. And I say this as someone who is very in favor of having kids and who worries about the looming population collapse in all developed countries.
> And I say this as someone who is very in favor of having kids and who worries about the looming population collapse in all developed countries.
Complete aside, I hope that this happens via the demographic collapse and not due to resource/environmental blow back. It would be the smoothest path down. In the same way that inflation is a smoother way to grow a pool of poverty.
Demographic collapse is happening due to resource/environmental blowback, but many of the resources in question are artificial ones like money and jobs.
Demographic collapse is happening because women finally have the choice to have fewer or no children and can have them later in life due to career options.
> Complete aside, I hope that this happens via the demographic collapse
The problem is, there isn't _going_ to be a population collapse in developed countries. The path these governments have chosen is to import anyone and everyone in order to keep the numbers growing. Why? Because all those wonderful social programs collapse without people at the bottom of the pyramid to keep things going. The main problem is there's only so many net contributors that can be imported, so we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for people to bring in and oh yeah, they're eligible for social programs from day one. It's going to be a disaster long term, but it's the future we chose -- "I don't want kids, but I don't want the systems that are in place to collapse either, so sure, bring in the entire world, I'm sure we'll be fine."
For that particular issue you can improve your "gambling" odds by having kids at a younger age, rather than waiting until you've optimized your career and environment.
I agree. I'm saying that "just have kids younger" isn't a good solution to the risks of developmental defects, because it's usually merely a trade of that risk for a different one.
It's not like people had an established career when they had kids at 19 in the 1940s. They just didn't view "being halfway to a comfortable retirement" as the prerequisite to having kids, the way my generation thinks it is.
I think the best advice to having kids young is to lower your expectations. The only reason people ‘cannot’ have children young is because they want a specific kind of life for themselves and their kids that is incompatible with that.
The difference likely there is in the ‘40s you were seeing improvement after the Great Depression and employment during WWII, followed by the postwar boom. Whereas the past two generations have seen precarity increase while living standards falter if not drop compared to their parents’ generation. So they are striving to recreate what they once experienced in their childhood, yet may never return.
Also the entirety of society including their families emphasizing the importance of higher education, good careers, etc. even as the latter is harder to achieve and the former becomes increasingly devalued, yet pricy.
My parents were both teachers, who, before moving into admin rolls (when I was somewhat older) worked in special ed.
My mother later ended up back in a classroom for a period of time with severely handicapped children. Bound to beds and wheelchairs, non verbal, never going to have independence.
For years after she left her admin job she would go back and spend an evening or two every year watching the kids, so the parents could have some sense of "normalcy".
Her lament was what would the outcome be for these children. Because every one thinks they are doing the best for them by keeping them at home, and close. But the reality is (in so many cases) that the plans for "family to take care of them" almost never works out. Years later my neighbor was an older woman, with an adult special needs child. She died, suddenly, from breast cancer. The brother, who was to take care of him, shipped him off to a group home (because he had kids of his own and lacked the time to care for him properly). That poor mans trauma was doubled when his living situation and life and loss of mother all happened in such a short period.
My own family, I have a severely handicapped cousin (who, became that after a high fever). He too is wheelchair bound and non verbal. However his mother, heeded my mother's advice and transitioned him into a group home early. It worked out well for him as he had a more fulfilling life, and the family (sister, aunts) weren't under pressure for his care, rather just rounding out his life. He still gets out a few times a week with them, and is always around for the holidays.
It's a tough thing for parents to understand that what's best for your special needs kid is sometimes going to be harder on them than all the hard work they doing. And I remain grateful that is isn't a choice I ever had to make myself.
It's very frustrating that behind every "you should be eternally grateful for every child no matter what" warm fuzzy message is an implicit "and if you ever express regret for having a kid who wound up non-verbal and violent and destroyed your marriage and your relationship with your other kids you're a horrible person".
Not referring to your cousin specifically but my mom's life's work is with severely autistic children (the "can't talk and hits people" sort, not "I'm a bit awkward and love math and doing anything to help autistic kids is abject cruelty!" sort), and the experience for parents mostly seems to be abject misery.
First, I respect anyone’s choice not to be a parent. It’s constant, demanding work, far more intense than any job I’ve ever had as a baseline.
Second, this is the third time in two days I’ve seen some variation on “I dreamed of doing something significant and never wanted kids.” That’s a wild construction. Having kids is incredibly significant, and more world-changing than most of us will ever do. Having kids didn’t give my life meaning, but I’m certainly able to pour life’s meaning into my kid and family more than into anything else before it.
Life insurance companies and federal agencies estimate the value of the life of an average US citizen at around 10 million USD, last I checked. If you consider that anywhere close to accurate, it's hard to imagine anything you could do with a higher ROI than having a child, at least from a public goods perspective. You'll never see the 10 million but they're out there enjoying themselves because you helped bring them into being. And if you consider it a woeful underestimate, or that it's wrong to put a price on something priceless, that argument only gets stronger.
>Having kids is incredibly significant, and more world-changing than most of us will ever do
This is a strange thing to say. Where does the "world changing" part come from, is it just in the parent's head? Or are you expecting it to be in the actions of your children? Surely your parents would have also done something "world changing" by having you, which implies that your existence is already world changing.
Maybe this is just a saying and not to be taken literally. But I feel like people divorce the concept of "having children" from the reality of that child becoming an adult and having all the same worries and neuroses you do.
Creating a sentient person and equipping him or her to exist in and affect the world is by definition world changing, and to a far greater and more sustained degree than almost any entrepreneurial activity. The usual construct is “I thought I knew what was important until I had kids,” which I have historically actually been uncomfortable with (because imho being a good parent is as much about being fully you than putting on a parent uniform), but what’s notable about the meditations on the topic I’ve seen in the last couple of days is the persistence in bifurcating “something of significance” from “having children”, as if the writers never quite accept that having kids is significant. I fully accept that people have wildly different ideas about having kids, but it’s odd (to me) to not see parenthood as at least as significant as starting a business.
I guess sure, but if the main "world changing" thing you do is have children, then that would imply that the main "world changing" thing your children do, is again have children. So if your child turns out to be infertile or something, has your "world changing" effect suddenly vanished? If the only real value you have as a person is to create more people.
> “I thought I knew what was important until I had kids”
I wouldn't doubt this, obviously in the mind of the parent their children are going to be an almost spiritual experience. But it seems like the most important thing children -actually do- is make their parents happier.
People usually talk about children in terms of how it makes them feel I guess, "my children give me meaning" etc. With the children being more of an abstraction of "potential".
> “I dreamed of doing something significant and never wanted kids.” That’s a wild construction. Having kids is incredibly significant
Sure, but you have to remember that there is most likely a silent "and new" in there; most jobs in a competitive industry are significant, because otherwise they would be cut. Being a cleaner at a hospital you are doing significant work too, but at the same time it is probably not what was imagined by an author of the phrase "I dream of doing significant things".
"Be ambitious enough to be an ambitious dad." - agreed! Being an ambitious dad IS exhausting. And the successful people telling you that you can't be a present, ambitious dad and be successful -- that you have to trade successful fatherhood for professional success -- are weak. They are not heroes.
The real heroes are the ones ambitiously raising the next generation while changing the world right now. That's what I aspire to be... and those are my role models. Not the ones who abandon their kids or wife to pursue their own dreams and make excessive amounts of money.
If you really can only muster enough time or energy to be ambitious about one thing, be ambitious within your home/family.
I would also add that, at least in my experience, those who are professionally ambitious and maximizing professional success, while being highly confident they are also succeeding at home, often have an inaccurate view of their home life. It's not until the kids are grown and openly fighting their demons that they realize the bargain that they made.
It's that old adage of, anyone who thinks they're a great parent, probably isn't. And almost all kids would be happier with a less wealthy (or even poorer) upbringing, and a tighter family.
The number of wives who have complained to me privately about the lack of family commitment of rock star husbands whom everyone admires (often precisely for their apparent family commitment) was a real eye-opener.
I'm not convinced that stratospheric success in business is very often compatible with high levels of parental and spousal involvement. It is sometimes, but those are anomalies we shouldn't build our fairy tales around. I know very few old-timers who wish they'd spent less time with their families when they could have made the difference of a lifetime.
There’s a pretty interesting self-help book that is designed to help couples share domestic and family work equally; I thought it was an interesting read. It makes exactly the same point about rockstar husbands that contribute less than their spouses.
The central idea is a set of 100 cards representing various tasks that are necessary for running a household, that you split up between the two partners. Supposedly women tend to hold ~80 of the cards in most relationships.
The online discourse around this book can be kinda vitriolic (lots of examples of it starting arguments) but I do think that it’s a good starting point if you want to genuinely try to contribute equally.
I haven't read into them much, (so maybe I shouldn't be repeating it here;) but there are studies about how even when women are the higher earners in relationships, they end up taking on a greater share of household management and maintenance work. (The rhetorical context is usually around why young women aren't as interested in dating.... But again, that's something I'm throwing out there w/o due diligence)
But the idea of having physical cards that you split up and assign does sound really helpful. I might look into that. I would say in my experience breaking out household chores even amongst roommates, some tasks that seem even aren't remotely so once you get into it (I have been the advantaged and disadvantaged party in different apartments) and some are simply different such that some are trivial for one person and not so for another person. But that's a part of dealing the cards, even when splitting evenly. (now I'm wondering if I can see where people are getting into arguments.... ^_^')
> The online discourse around this book can be kinda vitriolic (lots of examples of it starting arguments)
Yeah, no wonder given that it starts with an unrealistic view that the average man is a lazy slob that sits around playing video games while his wife has to handle everything with children and the household. You keep waiting for her to mention that anything else might be possible throughout the book, but that never happens. I think gay couples were mentioned maybe once.
Yeah... I do have some issues with the book. I think that the cards tend to be weighted towards things that women care more about, which naturally means that women end up being responsible for more of them. And different cards require different amounts of time to handle.
The way that I’ve tried to handle this is to focus on equalizing “total time per week spent on managing cards”, which requires time-tracking but is more fair, and also negotiating a modified set of cards.
The book kinda suggests both of those but I think that in practice most people don’t implement them.
And, as you said, the tone of the book can be off-putting at times. I still feel like it’s the best available resource for this problem.
I don't know what the right answer is but I do kind of feel this desire for equal effort might be misguided. My sister wanted to spend her time raising kids. Her husband less so. That is decision they made together. It's no different than any other difference. He like working on cars. She likes knitting. She doesn't require him to spend equal time on knitting and he doesn't require her to spend equal time on cars. Why are children any different?
Further, many cultures, past in particular, seem to be very different in terms of parent involvement. To take an example from fiction, Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts at 11 years old. Yes, that's fiction but it's based on current and past cultures. It's still a thing in the UK for "elite" kids as young as 7 or 8 to go to boarding school, away from their parents. Kids in places too far for a public school are often sent to other cities, to boarding schools. East Asia & India also have famous boarding schools.
The point being, this idea that parents must be with their kids many hours a day until they kids move out of the house at 18 or 21 is not a fact of life, it's a cultural choice. I am from that culture and wish to spend as much time as possible with my kids. But I can also see it's a cultural choice, not some universal way things must be or else bad stuff happens.
A good example is the crushing stories of Frank Zappa's kids. Here is the guy touring the world making millions of dollars, releasing albums non-stop. His kids, barely saw him. For instance, his daughter Moonunit said the most time ever spent with him was recording lines for the song Valley Girl, beyond that he was fairly absent.
I have heard similar stories from many you wouldn't know, they say the same thing about their partner or parents. The desire to have it all ends up trading one thing over the other.
This is a conversation that ambitious women have been having for decades. To the point where it's a cliche. Having it about men and women is valuable, having it be about them separately I think masks some of the structural problems- e.g. better childcare, more and better laid out parental leave(1), etc.
Two things I've heard from different ambitious women: "To really achieve, you need a wife" is something I've heard a lot- that it takes one parent sacrificing some of their career priority; traditionally that was the woman but it in theory could be the man (2), it just rarely is.
The other thing an ambitious woman told me once is that her mom told her "husband, career, kids, pick two." Basically, there is just only enough energy for a given person per day to invest in two of them. I've seen some women who managed, from the outside, to at least look successful at all three, but it's rare indeed.
1: When my kid was born the software company I worked for (I'm an American at an American company, but this was an area of competition for software devs at the time) offered a 14 week paid parental leave, even for men. Most men took a four week ("secondary caregiver" leave) and overlapped it with their wives 12 week unpaid FMLA. I took mine (14 week "primary caregiver") after my wife's leave expired, such that our kid had one of us caring for him every moment of his first six months. I remain convinced that was absolutely vital as the basis for both my relationship with my son and with my wife- she had to rely on me, trust me to care for the kid, and I couldn't hand him off, it was all on me every day. And so we both developed the parental muscles, could trust that the other one understood the reality of the situation, in a way that many father's don't get a chance. And that experience convinced me that the US needs maternal leave, obviously, but it also needs paternity leave- and the policies need to be designed such that the woman has to be back at work for at least some of the paternity leave, it can't all be used concurrently.
2: In a recent survey of American households https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/04/13/in-a-gr... about 55% of American heterosexual marriages the man makes 60% or more of the household income, about 30% both halves of the couple were between 40-60%, and just 16% saw the woman make more than 60% of the household income. In the majority of the 16% the woman still spent more time on unpaid household chores and carework than the man they were out-earning. Only in the 6% of heterosexual marriages where the woman earned 100% of the income did the number of hours per week in unpaid labor of men even equal that of their female partner.
> and the policies need to be designed such that the woman has to be back at work for at least some of the paternity leave, it can't all be used concurrently.
Not sure how to apply a legal framework, but in my area this is often enforced by the lack of daycare options for <2yos (the threshold might be lower, but about that much).
Very rare to see parents around me take their parental leave at the same time bc they'd be risking still being on a waitlist when they're done.
I think the point that my friend's mom was making to her was that for a woman (with significantly higher social expectations for the amount of care work and housework) you can only be good at two of the three, because you are a human being with a finite amount of time and energy.
As for how you end up with just those two, I think the answer is divorce: you don't spend the energy to maintain your relationship with your spouse. Before you had kids you could invest your time and energy in your spouse and your career, then the kids come along and your relationship with your spouse weakens, either all the way to divorce or to just a degraded state.
Yeah I can accept that point of view. I think this is highlighting a certain relationship expectation delta between men (or at least myself) and women (or some women). If my wife is doing well in her career and we are doing well with the kids, I could easily see this being considered ‘good’, but my wife may view the relationship as being neglected. I see the core functions working and consider the relationship doing well.
This situation is in development for me so we will see. 0 and 3 year old
Yeah, this is also what I see as the main threat to my relationship with my wife: my complacency, taking it and her for granted. We both work hard on our parenting our 9 year old, and our careers, but then you need to spend the time with each other, lest you become roommates who run an unpaid childcare service on the side.
And I do wonder if this is about the engineer mindset ('I've reduced this to a previously solved problem, I just let the subroutine handle it') or about the way that men are socialized in my culture (just take her out to dinner twice a year- Mother's Day and Valentine's- and remember her birthday and you're meeting social expectations) or what. But it's the biggest threat to my (and I'd hazard a guess most other) marriages.
I've started peering behind the curtains when I get the chance, and I've not yet found someone wildly successful who is also a model parent. Time after time, their spouse is quietly shouldering an enormous load, or their children spin their wheels and wind up rudderless, etc.
You can certainly be successful and be a good parent, but one of the first steps is recognizing and picking out the false prophets. You can't hold yourself to a superhuman standard, which is what a parent maximizing career while letting family malinger will present. They will say, Look at me, a captain of industry with vaults of gold, who has the physique of a twenty-five year old and is also an all-star parent. And you have to figure out that it's a lie.
One little clue - start to notice: of your professional idols who are good parents and seem to have it all, how many have a spouse working a demanding full time job as well? I realized for me it was zero.
Unfortunately, I think that this is possible, but it requires a superhuman well of energy, sleep deficit tolerance, and benevolence that very very few people possess. :/
Seriously, aside from the folks with the “2hrs of sleep is enough” gene, it’s not. It’s an actively harmful myth that is sold hard. Start gathering your own evidence, with a critical fact-finding eye. Don’t just accept the narrative. It’s one of those legitimizing stories that serves the teller.
Try watching The Dawn Wall or Free Solo, keep notes, and fill in the blanks on how long they were gone from family. It’s a canned example of how it gets glossed over.
The same attitude as towards gear in weightlifting is appropriate. They tell you it’s natty all day long, but you know delts don’t get that round without gear.
> The real heroes are the ones ambitiously raising the next generation while changing the world right now.
so pedagogy and psychology researchers? giving that having biological children is the worst ecological offense someone can do in an ever increasing worldwide population? [0] how about adopting and getting into voluntary programs or even do pro-social things with your money?
giving birth on the current societal status-quo not only screws with the future of our own specie but also a bunch of others which may go extinct because of our greed
Things are considered important in the context of humanity. Environmental concerns only exist because of its impacts on humanity. The planet does not care.
Calling having children an ecological offence is like saying that best way to reduce emissions is for all people to die.
Yeah, sometimes I think people lose track of why they support environmental movements. I've had people question my choice to have kids along these lines before. I just don't understand it - surely we only care about all this stuff because it is observed by humans? For humanity to continue, someone has to have children.
I can sympathise more with the idea that humans are destroying everything and life won't be worth living for my descendants. But that feels like giving up on the possibility of humans. I don't want to do that.
In any case, it turns out that global fertility rates are in freefall and we're facing population decline faster than anyone predicted.
you can perfectly justify whatever you want based on whatever else... will take myself for example: i just slave workers on my IT firm because there are sweatshops elsewhere /j
like there isn't a correlation on more resources being used or explored in a bigger population?
Just wanted to say thank you for this. In particular, the part where often it seems the "Founder mode" icons some evangelize (seem to) neglect their children and/or effectively put childrearing entirely on their partner.
I wish I had a good term (or some other concise way) to reject/criticize this aspect of tech culture.
I say founders above but I see it happen in lots of my peers who are simply workaholics. The closest saying I have (which I repeat often) is:
"The only people who will remember you worked late are your kids."
> "The only people who will remember you worked late are your kids."
I really need to kick my engrossing tech hobbies. :(
And yes to the wider point. There are many people more capable people than me, but sometimes it's about priorities, and top achievers in fields will usually be sacrificing something else.
I was thinking lately how lucky I am to have gotten good guidance from my parents and grandparents that oriented me well to life and work. I think this is / used to be more commonly understood or maybe just seems that way.
Ambition and drive are important but there's an important "so what" there as well. Am I aimlessly ambitious or am I ambitious for the sake of being able to support my family and make a significant impact on the world? If you are lucky enough to have the second orientation then I think there's less conflict between these things.
I have plenty to tech and finance friends who are successful and in our mid 40s, and unfortunately for those who neglected to have the family side of the equation, the shine is wearing off. What's the point of making the next level promotion and making the next 200k pay bump when what you do with it is come back to your apartment by yourself? Sure it's more comfortable and could still be fun to be ambitious and successful but it's lacking the goal piece.
The other half of my friends have family and then the financial etc success feeds directly into it. Can you give your family a good home, a good education, good experiences? It's easier for me to call a "success" a friend with a 4 bedroom house with 3 kids on it, than one with a Manhattan penthouse with no kids in it, even if the homes cost the same. It's just a different dimension.
The other thing is - making the world a better place for the future. The kids you raise and the work you achieve both feed into that. And also the future you are building is something that will benefit your kids - so all the things are aligned.
Then it becomes a "simple" balance - what's the thing that maximizes what I actually want to achieve. I want to be a good father and that takes both being with the kids, and working to make money - and also to set a good example for them of what work looks like. So yes in a simple sense you become less productive because you are going to work fewer hours, but I don't feel less productive in the grand total of life because all the things I am doing across work and family add up to what I want to accomplish.
I am curiosit - I bet many people will read this and think "of course, I feel the same way and what other way to feel is there" and others will say "I disagree at the root" which goes back to this being something with how your family raised you and the perspective you have from it.
I think men in this day and age have been hoodwinked just as much as women when it comes to the career vs. family debate. For a man there is truly nothing more important in life than having a family and providing for them. It is what we are evolutionarily tuned towards and anything short of it will leave you empty and hollow. There's a desperate longing for fulfillment and meaning among our generation that a lifetime of being told "having kids = dead dreams" has left us confused and lost as to how to achieve. But having them makes it crystal clear what you were put on this earth to do, and nothing comes close in the realm of professional success to that feeling of meaning and purpose.
I'm shocked by the amount of time people who don't have kids waste.
So while PG may believe that people may have their "act already together" pre-kids, I sort of look at the amount of time people without kids waste and think "if only I had that much free time..."
At every point in my life after age 25 or so, I could look back 10 years and be appalled at how much time I wasted back then. 50-year-old me is angry at 40-year-old me for wasting my 40s, as 25-year-old me was angry at 15-year-old me for wasting my high school time. What a waste my youth always seems!
For me to feel like it is wasted is to put on a definition of the time period that wasn't there. It is internal personal fan fiction at that point.
I don't feel like I missed out on anything.
There is also the added point of whatever position you take, it is always a trade off with something else.
To be awfully reductionist. The fat people envy the skinny because their health is in check, the skinny envy the fat because they have a sense of care free freedom.
Yes. Before I became a dad, I didn't realize how physically and financially constrained people are with regards to number of kids that they have. For me and my wife, our first child took all our time, resources and energy.
This was a shock to me because my parents had 4 children and never seemed to struggle. Also, they were much better off than me financially and could afford to hire help.
My biggest achievement as a dad is the fact that my son speaks 3 languages. In spite of the fact that I was working full time, he still learned to speak my native language fluently from me. And I still did house chores too. And still worked on side hustles at night and weekends.
But yes, I had no life at all for 5 years straight. No life at all. I'm a shell of my former self. My main concern is that I'm showing my son a bad example of how a dad should be. I literally can't afford to raise him with the same values as I was raised with... Because he would grow up into someone like me and that would be my greatest fear.
Now I understand why some parents spoil their children and focus 100% on boosting the child's confidence. This is what you have to do if you're poor. Because you need your child to believe they are above you. That way when they see how shit your life is, they don't have to believe theirs will also end up like this.
> I literally can't afford to raise him with the same values as I was raised with...
If it's any consolation he would have to figure out that himself anyway, because the world is currently changing faster than ever.
I was on vacation a while ago, where I had to explain to my kids the concept of not being able to pause a TV broadcast.
They live in a world of entertainment on demand and LLMs. My values were coined way before all that.
As for myself I'm wearing the skin of that young man I was 10 years ago and don't understand what was the big deal with some of those things he cared so much for.
The old "I won't raise my kids like my parents raised me" problem, which inevitably seems to lead to raising kids with a different set of grievances and unresolved issues.
I realised it was a lost cause when I realised that literally everyone I knew had some sort of "my parents are imperfect and it's broken me somehow" story. I think it might just be part of the human condition to grow up and realise your parents were flawed humans who made mistakes raising you.
Not sure this is fully accurate. Managing kids can use up one's will power or self control resources considerably. There can also be sleep deprivation with young children and other energy drain. I'm not really sure but my focus / ability to avoid distractions at work may actually have gotten worse since having kids.
> I'm shocked by the amount of time people who don't have kids waste.
I'm shocked by the sanctimonious tone of those with kids; it's likely professional bias from having someone that needs schooling at home.
Then, I will always be amazed by how those with offspring feel the need to constantly validate and justify themselves for their choice, while those without barely touch the argument.
Having extreme career success (like the kind referred to in the article) is basically a lottery ticket. I spend a lot of time with my kids, because I figure even if I halve my chances of winning the lottery, well, the odds haven’t changed that much, all considered.
The way I think of it is: my family comes first and work and whatever is second, third and so on.
I have no ambitions of running a company (the horror) or even being in charge of anything - it takes a special type of person to do that, and I am 100% not that guy.
My goal is to always be employable - so I can always provide a middle class existence for my family. Anything beyond that is of no interest to me.
Having a successful career used to be a thing to aspire to, but since I hit 40 I stopped caring about that. I used to learn a lot, but with AI I see little value in adding knowledge to my repertoaire - I would rather read a good book or fool around with my kids or go for a walk with my wife.
Work isn't going anywhere, but family time is definitely a finite resource that's slipping away every second.
I will leave the world-changing to someone else who is willing to lay it all on the line for an imaginary medal.
Exactly this! When I had my first two kids only a year apart and early in my career, I thought I'm giving something up because I could no longer invest as much time and effort into my projects and research ideas as before. But in retrospect, looking at how the field has evolved since etc., those ideas, which I had regretted I couldn't push harder, anyway had only a small chance for some grand success (beyond the low-medium success of the low-medium effort versions I managed to put together).
I felt very conflicted about this topic when I was young and working for Apple. I decided the Valley commute and rat race wasn’t very family conducive so I took a remote job and moved a few states over and it’s been great.
I’ve been fully remote for 12+ years now, and I’ve had a very successful career in engineering and engineering leadership. I also have eight kids that I get to spend a ton of time with. There’s a remote tax on career growth, but my RE side hustles have more than compensated for it.
Every now and then I wonder what might have been if I had stayed at Apple. No way to know for sure, but I probably couldn’t have afforded the family and lifestyle that I enjoy now.
There’s “how to be a good parent” advice and there’s also “oh boy how do we manage mealtimes and laundry and the school run” type advice. Someone with lots of kids is going to have great insights into the latter at very least.
> I know many ambitious parents; it’s not an uncommon combination
That is a weird statement. Most people eventually have kids, so obviously the average ambitious person has kids.
My experience is actually that there is a bias towards more ambition among the childless. Not because of laziness of parents, mind you. But in the decision whether to have kids or not, ambition may play the decisive role, everything else being equal. It goes so far that I have heard otherwise reasonable people resent childless colleagues because of course those workaholics can afford to push overtime while those with kids are pushed into carreer disadvantages, so they say.
Maybe ambitious is not the right word. It's more like, at some point you have to go home.
Before my kids, I started at sunrise, and coming home was optional. Then I got married and divided my attention. Then I got twins, so I divided it even more. But it doesn't make me any less ambitious, in fact, I have more fire behind me to ensure I give them a bright future. It's just that, I come home on time now.
Edit: and thank you for writing this post. It's rarely something we mention in our personal blogs, but it's always nice to know how diverse this culture is.
Exactly. If he means successful instead, then we can have different definitions of successful. That being said, I don't think most startup founders have the same definition of successful as that meets: dad that wants to be there for their children.
So this piece really resonates with me. I have a five month old child who I really like/love - but I am filled with a passionate software idea and everytime I get a tiny bit of time to work on it, it is heaven. A while back I was able to do one hour in the morning before work on it - but have lost that hur recently. At night, I occassionally look wistfully at my computer sometimes and wish I could build - but I am just trying to be patient and I am hopefully I will soon get back 'one hour' a day in my evenings. One day...
My partner and I are considering paying for a weekend nanny to look after the boy when he turns one on Sunday- so again we have free time to work on our passion projects. Its great to be a dad but it is so time consuming with young children.
Hits hard. I know this is wrong, but I often find myself resentful when I see colleagues burning the midnight oil (or otherwise putting in time that I no longer have) in service of career progression.
I think the author is spot on about ruthlessly optimizing the time you do have, though. That seems to be the only way to keep up.
> I often find myself resentful when I see colleagues burning the midnight oil
I don't care, especially with AI. I just let it do all the work and I take credit. Plus career progression after a certain point is useless - more responsibilities for smaller increases in paycheck.
I found that being a senior developer is the sweet spot for me - others have to think about the product and requirements and communicate and I just sit autistically in the corner and ship at my own pace.
Right now you have a window. AI can do a huge chunk of the work you were doing last year, and outside of programming, nobody seems to know about it yet. I've cut 10 hours a week out of my schedule in the last several months just in time to have my first kid, at the ripe old age of 46.
They'll figure it out and we will be right back to the same pressure we had before, but for a short time at least, if your field is competitive, you have a huge edge.
First definition of ambition in merriam webster is "an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power." Ambition is basically definitionally antisocial.
A desire to accumulate power is tantamount to a desire to accumulate wealth. Most ways to wealth these days involve finding ways to consume more of the world's resources or siphon resources to yourself.
Consider refining word choice. (Though if your notion of ambition corresponds to building a sillycon valley startup, then 'ambition' is probably the right word.) I don't mean that nothing good ever comes of technology; I mean that VC-funded startup tech is mostly done in the pursuit of money, damn any social consequences.
'Ambitious' often means doing optional things that take time.
A single person who cuts back on time spent doom scrolling / tv watching / beer drinking to teach themselves enterprise Kubernetes sysadmin best practices is ambitious.
A new parent who cuts back on time with their kids to teach themselves enterprise Kubernetes sysadmin best practices needs their head checked.
I’m far less ambitious, but not less driven. It’s just that what I’m driving for is to maximize time doing things I and my family enjoy. In fact it’s a lens through which I analyze jobs and career opportunities.
I once bumped into a couple of very high profile VCs sitting outside a coffee shop. Somehow the conversation got round to the fact that we were potty training our 12-month-old. One of the VCs told me their two kids, 2 and 3 years old, weren't yet out of nappies, just used pull-ups, because there hadn't been time to potty train them. There are reasons why this could have been legit (failed attempts, developmentally challenged children, etc.) but it was delivered as a kind of admonishment that I was involved in potty-training at all (even though their fund hadn't invested in my business or even been pitched).
It really depressed me at the time, realising there was a class of entrepreneurs and backers who were genuinely stop-at-nothing, even if it meant their three-year-old at day care was wondering why he was the only nappy-wearer, and carrying that subliminally into later life.
What I learnt from that and host of other experiences over time was that a young family and running a venture-backed, high-growth trajectory business aren't very compatible, but...
What I've also learned is that your first venture's going to be imperfectly executed anyway, so get the learnings out of the way anyway, with kids in the picture, then go again when the kids are school-age, and hope they get to enjoy the fruits of venture number two as teenagers.
Also, I never saw consistency from the people who put venture before family. They'd be buying shots for young staff at 11.00 at night on a week night, checking their crypto-balance continously, micro-managing, taking unnecessary business trips, etc. There are some absolute time-management machines out there, who never seem to waste a moment of their working days (I know two, and they both combined successful startups and young families), but in reality everyone needs some downtime/respite and family time is a better restorative than anything else except pure rest.
On that point, there's the famous adage, 'Startup, sleep, parenthood. Pick any two.' I picked startup and parenthood. Sleep deprivation means I look 10 years older than I am, but no regrets.
Finally, I think kids give you a second wave of competitive determination after your initial ambition wanes. Problematic investors, cheating competitors, over-demanding enterprise customers, careless execs, etc. could leave a lone individual feeling sorry for themselves, and defeatist. It's amazing how creative and determined one becomes when it feels like these different personas are causing setbacks that, rathervthan just interfering with your personal ambitions, might be stealing your kids' future opportunities and financial security.
I've seen something similar with regards to neglecting child development, but instead of nappies, they're just not fed properly. People who have more disposable income than I could imagine, but are strapped for time, feed their children the simplest, most low effort food imaginable. Think a cheeseburger from McDonald's, plain pasta or bread, frosted flakes, etc. Their excuse is that their child won't eat anything else, but more often than not it's a matter of getting them accustomed with other foods, which of course takes time and effort.
I'm getting to the point where I too feel like I most likely won't be noteworthy in any professional sense (i.e. a name known across the industry), but at moments like that I take solace in the fact I'm taking time to spend with my son, learn alongside him, and provide him a life that I never had in so many other ways.
Kids cured my nihilism. Since my first was born I feel more focused and find it easier to prioritize what's important. Could have never had this without the appropriate partner though.
I dont have kids and this post is really making me think about the future, wether i want kids or not, reading the comments i see people that say "i wish i had started having kids earlier"... Is it really that impactfull? Are parents really linked that hard towards their childrens? Im sincerely very courious about this...
There are two things that jump out at me being a parent of two children.
Until kids get to about 10 years old they need 24x7 supervision. Which means your time and energy is spent there. Your schedule completely revolves around them.
It’s hard to be 100% committed to anything else because you could get a call to attend to them regardless of your situation.
So yes, kids need their parents most of the time in early childhood.
However it also depends upon how much of community, relatives & governmental support you have. So take my words with a grain of salt.
This resonates a lot with how I felt while building our company. My kids were born during the early days of our startup and it was pretty much what he described- work and being a dad. Thankfully the startup was pretty successful and I made a good amount of money that’s allowed me the luxury of not having to work when the older one was 10. I am really enjoying not working and being a full time dad :-)
thank you for this, very well written, and rings true.
I will say for me this is the root contradiction:
> I do not believe the quality time theory. I firmly believe in maximizing the quantity of time spent with them; there are no diminishing returns for them on that front.
If you believe that to be the most true statement, then it leads to the conclusion that you should work as little as possible to spend as most time with them, up to and including not working at all. The ambition to be kidmaxxing, if you will. This is incompatible with career ambition obviously.
I guess i'm just sharing the same frustration but with a stronger conclusion - it seems fundamentally contradictory to be ambitious in both, at least at young ages. Seems like we're fooling ourselves if we think you can, we're compromising on one aspect at least.
"Maximising time within reason" is probably a better construction. As usual if you follow these arguments to their absolute meaning they become ridiculous
But what’s “within reason”? Right now I have an unlimited list of ambitions of things to do with my kids. Traveling, sports, skiing, mountain biking, surfing, camping, building, electronics, etc etc… there are not enough hours in a year to do just those with zero paid work. Is that ridiculous, assuming I can afford to do so?
"Define nuance" I dunno, it depends on all of the factors that go into your life. There might be a lower level construction of the logical argument but it eludes me and begins to feel arbitrary
Ultimately any two ambitions will compete with each other for finite time and energy. (Assuming each ambition benefits from more time and energy being spent on it, which is usually the case.)
You can be reasonably successful in multiple areas, but you can't max them all, you have to compromise somehow.
I read the post as the author acknowledging the compromise, expressing frustration about it, and determining to live on the pareto frontier with his strategy of focus and discipline and so on. Sacrificing other things in order to achieve both ambitions at a high level (though not maximizing either one).
If you have kids and you prioritize your career to the point you never see your kids, and you will have huge and legitimate regrets later in life. Especially if you don't achieve Jobs / Musk level of financial success. That's pretty common knowledge.
But the opposite is also true. As parents, we're always examples for our kids, for better or worse. Do we want our kids to see us abandon our dreams 'because of them' or do we want them to see their parents showing them how to go after their dreams, because that's what life is about ?
The middle way, perhaps? What "dreams" are more important than having a strong connection with your kids? Not only are the regrets that will come later in life huge and legitimate, they would also be irreversible. But, assuming you're in relatively good health midlife, you can always attempt to build the 5 startups that will almost definitely fail. Just my opinion of course.
Ah, I may have misunderstood your comment. I thought you were leaning more towards the "dream" part. But so my comment also meant to say that the definition of ambition and success changed after becoming a parent. I know I won't be curing cancer in my lifetime and so what thing is really important that I have to sacrifice time with my children for? To me, being the founder of the next failed facebook for cats is just not it.
Note that I am not talking about earning a living and thus necessarily sacrificing time doing that and showing your kids that sometimes you have to work hard to survive in a decent way. I am talking about the parents who outsource their children to childcare to work to pay off the loan on their third car and newest iphone and tell you that they have no choice.
Like OP with my first kid, I constantly had itchy fingers -- too many ideas to ever execute on. Tired and no more flow state. Work seemed like a waste of time with politics. My hobbies were my outlet - and now it was reduced to maybe 1 hrs a day.
Then AI got good.
I've always been able to solve problems fast in my head, but was bottlenecked by fingers and dumb infra.
AI gave me my time back honestly. Nix solved infra. backlog CLI kept the work clear. Good engineering, in spurts.
Now I have more execution power than ever, and I can steer my minions. Yes, I don't get to code and there is little flow state, but I always better liked to solve a problem and go to the next than actually typing it out.
From my phone, wireguard and aVNC to my homelab, I conduct ralph loops on my architecture and principles. This is so powerful, that my brain poops out even more ideas - and so I find myself fully immersed - another kind of flow state.
Consequence: Brain fry and less sleep, so sometimes I just crash out and sleep for 10 hrs. Usually get 5-6 hrs nowadays.
Being a parent teaches you how to stop procrastinating and use every second you have available. You are at your most productive era (work items per minute spent).
The bad news is that the day still has 24 hours, and that means that your career needs to adapt.
For example I had to turn down an opportunity that would require me to be putting 70 hours per week and I stayed at a job that I could do 9-5. That opportunity went sideways (the startup failed) so overall my career is fine.
A lot of good stuff in this thread. The party I'll add and haven't seen yet is that I think being a dad has made me a better people manager at work. I think about humans more than ever and that has helped make me more efficient at work
i've always given priority to my family and kids, at the detriment of my career growth. i viewed the job as being something in service to my higher calling of being a dad, not the other way around. I have no regrets.
In fact, I was sharing with my wife the other day that now that my kids are older I am finding myself able to give more to my work in a way I didn't/couldn't before. So my perspective is that, if you abandon the retirement mindset, you can have a fruitful and abundantly productive career later on after having prioritize your family. Especially in this early years when time spent is the most important. This post is right about that.
Being a dad is fulfilling enough that I don’t want to do anything else but hang out with my kids. Perhaps that’s what Paul Graham meant when he said kids make you less ambitious? And I know the day will come when they won’t like to hang out with me, so I’ll have the time to go back to building things.
I don't have kids and I am struggling on this front in my marriage, I am going to start therapy soon. I don't know how much I should be sharing here, but after 4 years in marriage I am realising that perhaps a married life is not right for me.
The realisations have slowly creeped in, I am just hooked to the computer, reading, writing, watching "stuff". There's a feeling I have realised, some kind of inner complex, of not being recognised enough, or not being worth of my skills. That's why I am "ambitious" in the outside world. It's not just tech, I have low self worth in general, and I try to overcome that by being better (leading to perfectionism). Marriage made me realise I have so many deep rooted issues and I am just not the right person to take responsibilities.
Even before marriage, I was escaping my Parent's responsibilties, in the sense of their mental health. I grew watching them fight and attempted suicide when I was in 10th grade.
Some months back I got a dream where I was playing with a bunch of puppies (I don't have any pets) and then I go back into my house and then one thing leads to another, I completely forget about those puppies as now I am reading about some esoteric civilisation, I am doing conversations with historians, watching documentaries... and then maybe after couple of days I realise I completely forgot feeding the puppies. They are probably dead, lonely, whatever.
I have have a love/hate relation with dreams in general, although they provide an escape, they also create a "stress" in my mind. In those alternative lives, there is always something going wrong, in the morning when I wake up, I am already stressed before my real life day has even begun. I start my day criticising myself on my mistakes (in the dreams).
I am 32 years old now, and should have had therapy way earlier but unfortunately I was just too ambitious and never took time out for it. I can do a lot and I know a lot of "stuff", which attracted my wife towards me who had a bf who barely passed school. But now I realise all this ambition stems from insecurities.
It's not a new realisation, I have been reading Jung, Freud, Schopenhauer since many years, I justified those insecurities, the perfectionism as a tool to become "better" in life.
But now, I am not sure what "better" means, when I am not happy in my life. I cannot take any responsibility without feeling burdened by it.
I just wish I was a simple regular human, who is happy and content with a basic job, a loving wife and has aspirations to have kids and live a regular life.
Here's my 2 cents: In life, like in economy, everything's about marginal utility. If you work 5 days a week and you reduce by one, you gain 50% (free/family/hobby) time, while reducing 20% of work time. In the lost 20% work time, would you have produced the corresponding amount of output? Or are you even more productive because you avoid unnecessary meetings etc.?
It's clear that being an involved parents doesn't allow you pulling all nighters all the time or work through weekends and doing additional sideprojects. Though I agree that without full involvement and ambition one will not achieve a top position or become a tennis superstar, I think a good mixture of all aspects (family/work/sports/friendships) makes everything much more worthwhile. And in my opinion, all involved parent parts should have their fair share of those aspects.
- Parent with partner both working part time, living in a country that allows for that, equally sharing child care for two that regularly make them crazy, but it's soo worth it.
Is a bit harsh to me. You might be ultra competitive but it could also be how you define it. But in my opinion sometimes “time wasting activities” are needed for recharging your own batteries and this kind of phrasing sounds like burnout.
Like if I said fishing someone would justify it as not being time wasting etc or meditating or something you would justify as health work but that justification is even contradictory to meditation at all.
time wasting is an odd phrase and stressful wording to me I don’t like. “wasting time” can sometimes be a productive and useful endeavor.
Conflating low quality downtime (like scrolling on your phone) to fishing is not fair. I've probably been happiest during periods of almost zero downtime (but still separate days off)
You’re missing my point that is that any activity that does not have a means to an end or reaching some goal or objective does not make it a negative… unless you’re ultra competitive and every single activity (even spending time with your kids) has to be seen as a means to an end.
This is pretty accurately defined as spiritual materialism
One of the biggest challenges I have as an ambitious engineer and a father of two, is that I do actually have plenty of time to be a high achiever in both facets of my life, but only if I'm working in isolation.
My kids are active in about 12-13 hour period between 6.30am and 7.30pm. The rest of the time they're asleep. On school days, window of time in which I can actually be present with them narrows right down to two blocks: 6.30-8.30, and 3.30-7.30. That's only 6 hours in a business day in which I can be active and present with them, leaving me with 18 hours to get everything else done.
There's obviously more to being a dad than just being actively engaged with your children when they're at home and awake. There's all this supplemental work that needs to happen to support them as well. But it's not _that_ much.
The problem is that this I spend with my children actively overlaps the time in which my peers and co-workers are working. Not being available to my teams for synchronous communication slows down their execution, and not having my team available to me while I'm working slows down my own execution. When my team or I need answers or collaboration to unblock us, communicating asynchronously means we can potentially be blocking for half a day or more on a task.
At that point you can either just wait and be unproductive, or start/continue a different task, maintaining multiple active work streams. The latter is problematic for a number of reasons, such as the increased cognitive load of regular context switching, an inability to work on dependent tasks, etc.
So ultimately for me, I don't think the issue is that there's not enough time to do both, it's just that both work and family generally need you at the same time.
I worked with some ambitious motherfucker who fancied himself so important and so busy his secretary scheduled when he would take a piss.
He told me once that his work was his passion and his legacy. No kids, no wife. And he was brilliant and hard working. But he was running from something in his mind. There was a shakeup at the top and he got pushed out in the ensuing politics.
His legacy is a cautionary tale. But I don’t remember his last name.
I had a conversation about this topic yesterday with a colleague of mine. We both found some kind of career-family balance, and are continually honing it. However, we both lamented the loss of hobbies.
I don't know if progress made it more hard to spend time with kids, on average.
In older generations, men spent relatively little time with little kids. I don't know if it was social convention or lack of time. Either way, it seems that now a lot more dads are spending time with kids than 2 generations earlier.
I agree that it is hard, but I would not paint a bleak picture.
It was both, however where I lived, a few years before fathers would get up at 6am and go and work down a mine all day, or a shipyard or factory. They might get home at 6pm but after dinner they'd quickly go for a pint or go fishing or go to the football. Women often didn't work, or worked part-time so they could take the kids to school so saw a lot more of the kids and managed the household more.
Now women have the freedom to work, so both sexes can choose to avoid seeing their children if they want to. Bleak indeed.
> can choose to avoid seeing their children if they want to
The choice is there. It's sad how many people choose to not spend time with kids. But the fact that more people have this choice now than they did in the past makes me conclude that it is not as bleak.
A somewhat unpopular opinion, but personally I don't mind being kind of absent in my kids' lives relative to others' expectations. I think there's been some expectation creep around parental involvement for high-achieving couples without much concrete evidence that it hurts long-term outcomes, assuming the child is otherwise healthy and well taken care of. There's also something to be said for leaning on grandparents and other support structures more heavily than a lot of people currently do.
One "superpower" from being married with kids is that your life becomes a lot more predictable. Like, having sex regularly and spending quality family time is probably a healthy part of a balanced, productive lifestyle, and is a good counterbalance to the stresses of a demanding career - it's nice not to always be thinking about how you're going to get laid, or in the event that you do become successful, whether or not your partner is just gold digging you or something. Although a lot of that depends on who you marry and making sure you're both doing good maintenance.
For what it's worth, I had a "high-achieving" dad. The big house, going on vacation and all that jazz was nice, sure. My grandparents and the support system were cool too. I consider the grandma who raised us while he worked like my second mother. I definitely would have preferred to get to spend a lot more time with him before he got old. Cause he is now, that wheel ain't turning back, and I barely got to know him. He was present as much as he could with the career he chose.
We turned out okay, no major problems with any of us, decent careers, whatever. I guess we probably wouldn't have turned out much better. So yeah, I guess there wouldnt have been much in terms of better "outcome". Still, my siblings have voiced the same regret. I genuinely think he does too. The expectation of being more present than he was is one I give myself, not "expectation creep".
I think the difference between your opinion and others is that for many being a dad is the intention and not an expectation. They want the experience of being an active and present parent. If it were purely about obligation, in this day and age they probably just wouldn't have children.
> without much concrete evidence that it hurts long-term outcomes, assuming the child is otherwise healthy and well taken care of.
Not to pick on others’ life choices, but I don’t think that this particular assertion is true. Depends on your evidentiary bar, I suppose, but just from googling it:
* Mass General’s Fatherhood Project (https://thefatherhoodproject.org/schools/the-research/): “Findings from the rapidly growing science of early childhood and brain development show that a father’s active participation and emotional engagement with his children leads to improved social, emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes.”
Just because you don't see the many small moments when your children need you doesn't mean they don't exist; trust me bro, they do. Your partner or support network is probably doing too much to cover for your absence, to you and your kids' detriment. Unless you're a horrible bastard, they'd probably rather have you around more.
I grew up having a "kind of absent" father who focused on his high-paying career more than spending time with his kids. He no doubt rationalized it to no end, but the net result was that he wasn't there when I needed him the most. Growing up I often wished we were poorer so he could be around more.
I agree in the strongest terms with the article's rejection of "quality time" as a substitute for quantity, and the rejection of delegating away one's parenting.
I agree so strongly that I walked away from a promising postgraduate degree and millions of dollars of future compensation in my relatively secure MAANG position to be a full-time father to my young children.
I know not everyone can do this and don't know what the future will hold, but at least we'll be together.
Why not having a hobby that includes friends? Playing in a band, singing in a choir, hiking, learning a language in evening school, going to the pub, just to name some of the possibilities. There are a lot more.
Uh, I think at the very least you have to caveat on the age of the kids. Babies need a lot of fussy obsessiveness. Kids arms aren’t long enough for them to wipe their own ass until they’re about 4. Don’t know when you get them to start doing laundry or dishes but that takes longer still.
Watching my kid grow up I realise that despite the modern world having/wanting so many kids we really don't build affordances for them.
Most kids 5-8 at the family dinner table are trying to eat from a plate at shoulder height. No wonder they don't care about cutlery use. It's pretty hard to put downwards force on a knife that is at shoulder height, let alone coordinate all the minor muscle movements required.
The bathroom sink in most houses, similar height, and they struggle to reach taps and soap.
Little stools abound around the home!
But then you go out and public toilets have hand driers right next to their head. No surprise they complain it is too damn loud!
In a world where we supposedly want kids, if for no other reason than to keep society going, we sure don't make it easy for them.
It shouldn't be hard though. For me personally, I'm mostly friends with other dads with kids and I do my hobbies (music, rock climbing, skiing) with my kids. It's not that difficult.
This. Involve your kids in your hobbies. If they aren't interested, that's okay too -- you can be involved in theirs. Some hobbies have a finite life anyway. You aren't going to be a gymnast forever, for example, and that's okay.
Love the article. One question; how do you unwind? I think it's achievable to spend enough time on both your career and your children, but consequently personal time will suffer.
Bryan Cantrill (inventor of DTrace and cofounder of Oxide Computer) comes to mind as someone who seems to do both. It’s hard to know somebody’s parenting quality from the outside, but he talks about his kids a lot.
In his case, I think he didn’t start his company until his kids were older. I’m not sure what the early childhood years were like for him.
In college, I burned out on normal coursework and dropped out to teach myself how to code instead. To support myself, I worked in restaurants. I found that working as a dishwasher was quite complementary to learning to code. It was tiring physically, but I ended each day in need of mental stimulation, so went home and coded all night.
Now, as a father, I've found there's a similar complementarity in some ways but not others. There's a huge physical component to parenting, and this is perfectly complementary. There's also an emotional aspect (sometimes 2 or even 3 cry at once). This can be complementary or not depending on how much emotional labor work required (usually very little).
The one area where both work and kids is exhausting is attention. A toddler demands a huge amount of attention, and performing at work does too.
This feels really weird. I feel like I’m far more productive than ever now, even with half the time spent and zero crunch. When I was younger I was flailing around doing tons of pointless shit. I could make up for that with more effort, but it doesn’t change that I can achieve the same result with far less effort now. So the output with children is more or less the same as before.
There’s also the simple fact that it’s much better for your productivity to play a round of tag than it is to attend another stupid meeting.
Well said. I hope some day to make it and start parent.capital a place where parents can get funding. I believe there are thousands of people out there with great ideas and immense talent who are unable to leave their salary and benefits behind to pursue them.
When you become a parent, your risk profile changes immensely. I can hire some of the world’s best people tomorrow if i can promise them equal salary, benefits and retirement accounts for a set number of years. Plus the benefit of a large upside if it works. Most startups offer lower salaries and abysmal benefits. Security matters.
I still don’t get it. It sounds like the business plan is to fund companies so they can offer compelling employment. That’s great but that’s no different than any other VC.
The weird thing is how most of the comments here are from dads saying it's hard but worth it in various ways. I've been scrolling for a while and failed to find an alternative point of view.
Then again don't forget being ambitious enough to be an ambitious founder, ambitious dad and an ambitious husband/wife/partner. And then being healthy enough to have energy to do all three. I keep thinking if I divide 24 hrs by 4, that would be the optimal time allocation to all 4 endeavors, but that's naive.
This essay feels like the 2010s when feminists were debating if it were possible as a women to "have it all": successful/satisfying career, family, and personal life.
The capitalist LinkedIn-dwellers are obsessed with productivity. They can claim that AI will raise productivity and that we will need to work even more at the same time. Ultimately, most of the productivity gains in the recent decades are focused on displaying more ads, in one way or another.
Edit: I have realized my original comment/rant might have come off as a negative sentiment towards the post author. While generally, I sympathize with the author and agree with the original post. My rant has been focused exclusively on the current market trends and double-speak of AI productivity gains, layoffs and increased workload.
If parenting and building are both truly aspirations, why not have people you admire that are great parents as well? I guess they don’t have many biographies for great moms and dads.
I admire the ambition. I wonder how many people out there are chasing both of these things, thinking they are being great parents and great builders, but are failing at one, or both.
I wonder if the solution is simply to focus and effectively use resources so you can be effective and ambitious in a reasonable number of hours. Which is fine for 99.99%. Only if you are at the helm of discovering a revolution in physics or changing the world in some other way then go all in when you have kids. Which today is rare since team work makes the dream work way more. Of course there is greed. If you are greedy that is a different thing.
* Sometimes I'm in flow state, and so breaking at 17:00 breaks that.
* 17:00 is rush hour, so if so leave then, my commute goes from 60m to 90m. So I leave at 16:00, and catch up later. But now I'm context switching more.
* If it's 14:30 and I know I'm leaving at 16:00, then I'm hesitant to work on something that might need more focus/debugging.
All these are workable, and many parents are testament to that, but at least for me, it's all contributing to less productivity.
I think the hardest part is how to define “waste”. Are you “wasting” your time if you go to a school event for your kids during the weekday? Is it a waste of time walking your kids to the bus? Is it a waste of time reading to my kids before they sleep? I argue it’s extremely hard to draw that line and a personal question for sure but being “efficient” is hard.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes ambition is just to put food on the table. That’s all it’s ever got me and the rest is the dream to escape a life of work work work.
It is not just the time. Having kids (dependents) consciously or subconsciously lowers your risk threshold. Makes you less flexible in a lot of aspects. All these little things will lead to tempering your ambitions or take on additional stress to keep it up..
Having kids is easily and by a huge distance the very best thing you can “build”. It’s the best project you’ll ever make.
If you can find a way to run a cool thing on the side then great. I’ve been lucky, or something, and I have. And I love it.
But my kids are a trillion times more important. And now they’re 21 and 19 I can live knowing that I’ve launched the best couple of projects in the world.
The IPO in my parental project arrived and stocks are doing well :-)
I too have to disagree with pg on that line `> having kids may make one less ambitious`. The fact is that the world is very very multi-modal, i.e. the brains of people and how they think are wildly different. I think having kids makes me more ambitious and more focused, and more selective re the problems I work on, partly because I am also setting an example.
“You can’t have it all” frequently comes unbidden into my brain when thinking about this sort of thing.
I don’t know, my goals are more and more about cool stuff I can do with my kids, and far less about business stuff? I’m not less ambitious but my ambitions have changed?
I'm coming out of the period where my kids need less help and it's really great working on projects alongside my kids making stuff. I try to model working on my projects as something that is enjoyable to me and that I am working over a long time period.
He's having kids only to satisfy his eugenist, white supremacist kink. He doesn't care about them and even hate them if they stray out of his worldview - just ask Vivian.
I would only add that if increasing general family cohesion is one of your goals, I think having lots of kids accomplishes that. Having a large family and multiple automatic life long best friends brings me so much joy.
> setting clear rules on time with kids (weekday dinners, weekends prioritize family) and
Are these examples or an exhaustive list? Eating dinner during the week is.. not a lot. So I assume it's about setting time limits for these activities?
Many years before becoming a Dad, I recall watching a video recorded by the Penny Arcade web cartoon folks while working where they reflected on both becoming fathers and asked themselves if it had been a net drain on their productivity and creativity.
They both concluded (not quickly, they discussed it) no, because it forced both of them to level up their time management game, quit whining and learn to get on with it, to the point where they generally got more done a couple of years in.
I have found this to be true. Our little one is turning 3 in November, and while the first two years were a bit slower (I took half a year of work while my wife finished up her Master's, etc.), in 2026 I've so far had a fantastic year and find myself much more capable of juggling more balls at the same time, finally learned the skill of grabbing sleep where I can, etc. I'm pretty sure I already "had my act together" (as per the article) and was doing well career-wise, but raising the stakes on the family side has definitely only improved things.
Got a whole lot of Open Source work done, reverse engineered an old cult video game I used to play, wrote HMI and firmware for a robot used in the Great Pyramid of Egypt for a scientific mission, taught myself GPRs and built a new radar control system, spent a week rolling around in the dust of millenia inside Khufu's Pyramid, etc., all next to the day job.
The most unexpected professional/skills growth and fun year I've had in a while, and it's all so much more meaningful when I get to share it with the little one.
I agree with this. Especially as you gain experience and your work becomes less day to day grunt work and more high level strategic thinking, having constraints on time actually has been beneficial for me.
Taking work problems into other spheres of my life, especially parenting, gives me distance and a new lens to view them through.
I am in nearly the exact same boat as the OP. I'll observe a few things after having 2 kids and running a startup at the same time for a few years...
* Your amount of "lost" time with kids is often less than you think. On one side, you very likely socialized more, traveled more, were less disciplined about what you worked on, etc. On another side, some things that you are going to do anyway (dishes, maybe calling your parents, groceries), you can often do with kids, and so this time isn't really "lost"
* If you are fortunate enough to have some means, you might consider not outsourcing parenting, but outsourcing "life admin" work. Specifically things like laundry, dishes, buying groceries, picking up around the house, etc. I recently got someone to come to our house 3x / week for 3 hours and it's a game changer for me and my wife (who also works). (I know my point above says you can do some of this with kids, and that's kind of true, but not always, and it still lets you do other things with your time)
* Assuming you have a partner, and the premise here is you still want to be a very active parent, then I recommend being very deliberate about almost never parenting together. As in, one of you take all the kids, and the other can do what they want for 1-4 hours at a time.
Lastly, while I'm a pretty active dad myself, I reject the premise put forth here that your job is to maximize the time spent with your kids, as if this is the main metric by which parenting success should be judged. Just no. Actively no. Kids having time alone and with their own friends outside of the eye or ear of their parents is a really important part of growing up. Kids having time with various caregivers who are not their parents (be that grandparents, aunts, uncles, friend's parents, camp counselors, babysitters) is also good and healthy.
The struggle is real though. There's no easy answer. Hope these thoughts help!
I feel like my dreams have died with becoming a parent and having a family. 2 hours of free time isn't enough focus time to do anything significant or learn anything. I thought abound going back to school recently and there's no practical way to pull it off. Once they're in school I'll be in my 40s anyway. I doubt I'm pivoting my life into anything fun at that point. It's been tough to deal with mentally.
I grew up in a huge family with a dad who wasn't particularly successful but spent all his time working anyway, with little attention to either the household or to building relationships with his kids.
I think this was mostly a matter of temperament; he liked to work and he didn't really care much about the operation he was funding, which is unfortunately why he has no contact with most of his adult children today.
All that to say, I didn't mind that he worked a lot, but it was pretty damaging that he almost never spoke to me other than for urgent logistical or disciplinary reasons. Just, you know, don't do that.
The modern (mostly western?) obsession with "parenting" as a job/hobby is truly despicable. Probably as despicable as the standard education factory farming most of these parents are subjecting their children to. It is a miracle that despite all this parenting and education, some children manage to grow into fully formed individuals.
I love my parents. They are not perfect, but as much as they could afford, they never stood in my way. I love my children and I will strive to provide for them the resources, space, and freedom to grow and become who they are as individuals with infinite potential. I will never treat them as extensions of myself.
I'm writing this for the log, so I can remember my ideals. I'm sure everyone here has disagreements, opinions and wisdom that they wish to impart, but I frankly don't care. A culture that condones keeping dysgenic inbred mutilated wolves in one's house to satisfy the pleasure of "caring" for an animal weaker than oneself has no lessons to teach me about raising children. Whatever lessons I could distill from it for myself, I have already done so.
family life is not about "compounding gains" -- in part because family life is not about "gain" at all. On the contrary - you sacrifice and are ultimately consumed! The language of investing is entirely out of place in this context.
I'm a father. Best thing I ever did, but it is work, it is hard.
In ways, it really crisped up my time working on work. My wife and I have some bottom lines, we're invovled, we have dinner as a family every day. We go to school events, all of them. We go to sports and activities, all of them (although there have been some times we had to split up and each to a different one.) I'm at the table when my kids have breakfast, every day except when I travel for work which is a week or two per quarter. It's great for the kids, it's great for the family but suddenly it feelds like your day is shorter. Personally, I have tried to find other "thought time" and that has resulted in much better execution when I get to writing code or plans or whatever. I used to sit at the blank editor and start to compose but now I am forced to think more before hand. I've built a few things I honestly don't think I could have built before kids, just out of necessity, I've had to be more efficient and effective.
There are also times of utter exhaustion but I had those before kids. I'll also went through the process of sort of cutting out extras to make time, once your kids are in that 10-11 age, they'll have friends and interests, I've added some of those extras back because they are busy on Sunday afternoons or whenever.
Weekday dinners? Pff.. I'm 100x better parent, and probably 100x less productive. But my employer is happy with me, I'm happy too, and my wife and kids too. So happy, I do not need to write articles about it.
You touch on the right point when you say “completely removing time-wasting activities.” Looking at a handful of biographies and trying to extract universal lessons from them is somewhat misguided/infantile.
I used to be more ambitious, but I am not anymore. I enjoy my kids, I enjoy nature, camping, friends... I will the pointless work drivel to someone else and just collect the paycheck.
Money can solve most of these problems? Send your kid to daycare, hire a nanny or two and then the world will believe you can be a great father and ambitious and successful in your career. They do not see the village taking care of your kid while you are busy with work
My career plateaued as soon as I had kids. I don't regret it, but companies definitely don't promote people with kids as rapidly, almost as if they know they have extra bargaining power over them because they have dependents to worry about.
If you have something to live for, you're less valuable to the company. That's more about corporate politics than some fundamental underlying truth about your productivity potential as a parent
I have had to very deliberately and repeatedly let myself off the hook for ambitions while parenting. There is SO MUCH that I am hungry to do, and none of it is as important as being fully present with my kids.
Will there come a time when these are more complimentary than in conflict? Maybe! But while the kids are young, not often. And while I feel the conflict, it’s helpful to have somewhat pre-decided what I’d regret more, and it would be not having connected with them.
If there’s time later to do great things, especially with them, so much the better.
> Steve Jobs literally abandoned his daughter Lisa because “the time wasn’t right” (he was focused on Apple).
Steve Jobs is also a criminal. See the court cases where he underpaid developers and conspired with other companies to avoid hiring people away. That is criminal.
See https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jan/23/steve-job... and many similar reports. It is time to stop idolizing this guy. The "time was not right" is not surprising by someone who steals money from developers, which Steve did here. Apple owes people money.
I had roughly the same realization about the pillars of math & science years ago. Many terrible, terrible parents whose children suffered mightily. While I had aspired to intellectual impact all my life, I had an unexpected realization. I could not bear the thought of being famous and intellectually successful yet having totally failed my children. It reversed my longstanding priorities, and I realized I wanted to be a parent more than I had thought.
I still believe that having passionate and driven parents is good for kids.
This is something that makes me really sad, because as an extremely ambitious man, I've found it difficult to make friends with men who are similarly ambitious. It seems that everyone gives up once they have a kid and becomes a helicopter parent. I like to think I'm a good dad (have four kids; work from home; regularly do sports, music, etc with them; cook regularly) and also pretty ambitious (work in a MAANA company, have side businesses and gigs, have a good marriage, hobbies, exercise, etc), but it's difficult to find other dads into this. Or at least that's my perception here in Portland, OR. I've met a few, but most ambitious people seem uninterested in kids, and the ones interested in kids seem thoroughly unambitious in my opinion.
What really stands out reading this piece is how different this attitude is than what we as a society thought 50 years ago. The great men name-dropped in the article surely had more on their plates than the average 1960s middle manager at G.E., or corporate attorney, or advertising agency VP, or shift manager at a Ford plant, and thus were surely more absent parents than their contemporaries. But in that era, fathers didn't even lose any sleep over it. It was just accepted that their primary role was to bring home as much money as possible to pay for a better life for their family, and if you're lucky to leave a legacy as a builder of great things or organizations. It was the mother's job to raise the children (or in the wealthiest families, perhaps that fell to the nanny(s) while the mother focused on socializing or hobbies).
In two generations, we've gone from that to most dads constantly asking themselves "Am I a good enough dad? How could I be better?" Fathers feel that they aren't good enough if they merely provide for a good life for their family and set a good example. They try to find a way to, while of course not dropping the ball at all on the provider role, also be a 'fun dad' and a friend to their kids and be deeply involved in their lives.
I would say this is also kind of a mirror image to women's very real struggle post-1980 or so -- before, you were absolutely acknowledged to be a success if you cared well for the next generation of children and taught them to be good people. Some would say (and still do) that's one of the most important callings. Now women worry that they're not good enough unless they - without missing a beat on that first mission - also have an impactful and meaningful commercial career.
This isn't arguing to force people to perform only one sex-prescribed role or anything. And I don't want any parents to just be absent, because frankly being there for your kid is incredibly rewarding. I'm just saying, I think it's an insane amount of pressure we put on mothers AND fathers to be everything to everyone both within the family and in the professional world.
Reality check: this guy worked on "Mocha is an online AI powered app builder. It allows everyone to build web apps, no coding required"
He 'loves' building. Building what? Crypto thing when crypto is hot and AI thing when AI is hot? Is there a word to describe this behaviour that we may be familiar with?
I believed this idea of kids = dead dreams for a long time. I don't think it's true. I think the author of the blog is letting his particular interests and cherry-picked examples cloud his judgment.
If you look beyond the narrow sphere of technology and founders, you'll find many of humanity's greats had kids, or more broadly, family responsibilities, at some point. Their ability and involvement as parents varies widely, but this idea that kids are some kind of an inevitable death-knell for "being successful" or renowned whatever that means, isn't true.
An alternative lens would suggest that having kids reveals a lot about life that you can use in your other pursuits.
Your kids also eventually become adults, at which point the demands likely lower significantly.
Just like the "starving artist" myth, it's mostly baloney hyperbole that people promulgate because there's some obvious basic truth to it, but it isn't a law of the universe by any means.
We have one life and so much we want to do. This was me, now I have kids. Wake up, read news reply to email. Get kids ready for school. From drop off at school straight to work, from work straight to pickup the kids.
My working hours are 6-9 most days. Wish I had more hours in the day.
I don't know if I'm ambitious. I've worked my way to a high-paying tech job I enjoy. I'm not looking to found a startup or job-hop my way to a fancy title, and plan to stay here until I retire if I can. On the other hand, I put a lot of effort into my work, not because I'm angling for a promotion but because I like what I do and I want to do the best I can for the users.
Does that count as ambition? Doesn't really matter. The basic tension described here is strong, in any case, between work and family.
> Some figures in technology (Paul Graham, DHH, Jeff Dean, even Mark Zuckerberg) seem to be pushing on both fronts with rare success
Possibly true, but who knows. Especially Zuck, who does not lead a remotely ordinary life (imo).
Dad of 2 girls. 8 and 4. Maybe this should be titled “being ambitious because you’re a dad”
I am better than ever post kids. Always great, no. Always amazing, no. Not sure I agree with the post otherwise, especially quality vs quantity. High quality interactions are the best.
Focus on your kids, your health, and your work? It seems like a very tall order.
You've studied many notable builders, but have you studied the great dads? How much time does one have to spend to be a great dad? Do they get to pick the times when they can spend their focus on being dad, or do they have to be present at times they'd rather be doing other things? I think being a great dad might involve a lot of taking your children to sports practice, music lessons, play dates, libraries, and tons of other activities until you discover what clicks with them, and then there's many years of supporting those interests. I don't think you can just put it on pause during the week. To be a great and present dad, I think you can only count on being able to spend maybe 55 to 60 hours a week on work (with a lot of that being after bedtime and/or starting very early).
Looking at the great builders, I think the common element is that they picked the right thing to work on at the right time, in the right place, executed better than their peers, and also had a ton of luck.
* Zuckerberg was in the right place at the right time with ample luck and he chose to drop out of Harvard to spend a few years doing the hardcore startup house thing working exclusively on building Facebook, and nine years later he had his first kid. Right place, right time, strong execution, and much luck.
* Bill Gates was in the right place (a high school where he got extensive access to a mainframe computer, then in a local company that gave him and his friends unlimited computing time in exchange for them finding and fixing bugs) at the right time (when mainframe computers were an extremely rare and expensive thing and before operating systems existed) and he dropped out of Harvard to go all in on building Microsoft, then 21 years later he had his first kid. Right place, right time, right skills, great execution, and much luck.
* Paul Graham was in the right place (a Harvard CS Ph.D. who studied design at RISD living in NYC) at the right time (during the Internet 1.0 boom and before both the bust and before anyone else had brought a site building cloud application SAAS offering to the market), and he brought a great idea to market in time to sell it to Yahoo in 1998 for $49M of stock and he correctly elected to cash out his stock before the bubble burst in March 2000. And then he leveraged his great technical and business faculties to identify and develop great business ideas via YCombinator (2005-present). Then he had his first kid in 2009). Right place, right time, right skills, great execution of a novel great idea, and much luck.
* John Carmack is probably the platonic ideal of focusing and getting things done. His work ethic and habits are legendary (8 hours of sleep a night, 10 hours of focused work a day, and 60 hours of work a week) as is his output (Doom, Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake). In 1978 he discovered video games and in 1982 (at age 12), his family bought an Apple II computer and he quickly learned BASIC to start making games before digging deeper to learn assembly code. He gained deep and extensive knowledge of how computers work, motivated by his drive to make games, and this enabled him to make the limited PC hardware of the time do things comparable to purpose-built arcade machines. He came up at the right time, had sufficient interest, drive, and vision that motivated him to deeply explore and master computing as well as design and develop many iconic games of the 1990s. Then in 2004 he had his first kid, at which point he started working less, although still a 50+ hour per week workload. Luckily his children are interested in programming, which makes it easier for him to get quality time in. Still, right time, great skills, great ideas, much luck.
* etc.
Having a child already, you might be a bit constrained. But if you can manage getting into the right place to seize upon a great and novel idea that you are uniquely positioned to execute on, you might be able to build the idea out while the market and need is unserved.
Another potential strategy is to work on an established business model that someone else came up with, and spend your evenings and weekends with your children. The best dad I knew growing up did this (he was/is a database administrator and was the dad of three of my friends I knew through my boy scout troop who have all grown up to do incredible things and also be deeply happy people) and is still one of the coolest, most interesting and well-rounded people I've ever met.
In 100 years nobody will know who you were. In 200 years, only a few hundred people will be remembered from today. So what is the goal of your ambition? Is it the self-satisfaction? Temporary bragging rights that will be soon forgotten? Whatever wealth you accumulate, you can't take it with you. The pharoahs already trie this. It doesn't work.
Nobody's going to give a shit that you founded an AI company and sold it to Meta for $600 million. Sure you can enjoy the material benefits while you're here. Maybe you can even pass some of that onto your children.
The Good Place was one of the best TV shows of the best shows of the last decade (IMHO) and it brought up a relatively recent (1998) book "What we owe to each other". It makes the point that it's not a question (ie "what do we owe to each other?"). You're only meaningful impact is on the people you affect around you, positively or negatively.
Personally, I have no opinion on whether people should or shouldn't have children. That's none of my business other than this: you have to make a choice between having and raising those children and chasing material "ambitions". Bringing people into the world without their consent and then neglecting them makes you an objectively terrible person. Pick a lane.
And if you do choose ambition instead, at least ask yourself why. Studies have been done on this. Money does buy happiness but only to a very limited point. Beyond that it's isolating. So why are you doing whatever it is you're ambitious about, really?
The older I get the more I realize ambition and "being ambitious" is a completely misplaced way to orient your life.
The chance of validation from others is not a good reason for making one choice or another and a life made of choices of that kind will eventually leave you spiritually bankrupt.
Make decisions based on what you're passionate about, based on what will bring and keep meaningful relationships into your life, based on what will leave you with habits that take you outside, into the sun, moving your body and eating healthy, and, sure, that will afford you the ability to pay for those things.
Focus on the process, not the outcome.
Making decisions based on what will make you more "successful" will make you a slave to others approval. And those others will use you up and waste your life to achieve their own objectives.
Also, if you pick the right partner, having kids does all the good things in life at once. It is the most efficient way to get yourself into the good life possible.
Your last paragraph sort of contradicts all the advice from the previous paragraphs.
Not to sound too cynical, but if someone can tell they've 'picked the right partner', then they have probably made other good decisions in their life and happiness, ambition, are less of issues and there's not much conversation to be had.
The article is really about happiness, and how ambition affects it. He begins with his idea of ambition being completely career related: he wants to build and change the world. Kids will change his time management and ability to reach the goals of his ambition.
He ends by redefining ambition: he wants to be a good dad, and also have a good career. So ambition to him is now about being the best dad he can be, while keeping up with his drive to build.
In other words, he is rebalancing his emotional state so that he can be happy in his current situation. If he keeps a good head and keeps things in balance, I'm sure he'll be happy.
If he fails, then I'm sure there will be more conversations about ambition, happiness, time management, and 'being happy with your station in life.'
I don't disagree, except that you've taken ambitious to mean climbing the corporate ladder, which is a relatively narrow reading.
It can also mean wanting a achieve a large dream or goal e.g. writing a book.
Or the dream of keeping a stable job.
[delayed]
I kinda agree with you but Could you please elaborate on “ having kids does all the good things in life at once” as I dont see how is that so straightforward. I’m actually currently really conflicted on the idea whether I want or dont want kids.
I started off and a shy, awkward (probably autistic) computer programmer wondering if I could ever convince a woman to marry me. Now I'm on my 3rd kid and hoping for more.
Parenting gives to access to a part of the world you never knew existed. The school events, sports, Cub Scouts, neighbors down the street. You meet people who are trying to create a great world for their children. Your interests align, so you end of working together on it. You actually become part of the community.
I used to be Mr. Career, and maybe someday I'll get back to it. But right now my job plays such a small role in my life compared to my family.
A lot of juggling with words here: being ambitious, a builder, competing etc. It really boils down to the same thing: making more money + fame. The author should really stick to that and stop with hiding behind big words. There's nothing noble about the recent slop-producing startups that YC funds. They do not make the world a better place.
The passionate hunger to do something significant and meaningful with my life was a major reason I took care never to have any children. Having grown up in a large family within a religious subculture full of other large families, the amount of time and attention children consume was crystal clear from a young age, and I knew that I was going to need every scrap of energy I could spare for the work I wanted to do.
Years later, after I had to accept the failure of my ambitions, there was an opportunity to become the dad of a kid who needed one. So here I am being a dad after all, and it's been a good experience. Difficult, of course, and often frustrating, but worthwhile; I have no regrets - neither about this choice, nor the one I made when I was young.
> The passionate hunger to do something significant and meaningful with my life was a major reason I took care never to have any children.
Raising kids is probably the most meaningful and significant thing I have done with my life.
Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood.
Which frustrates me immensely, because I feel that society at large did everything it could to convince me that parenthood is terrible. Movies and TV shows portrayed only the bad. Teachers told me that becoming a parent was the worst thing in the whole world. A wide range of celebrities spend their days posting about how amazing it is to be without children.
I accept that there are some parents out there who regret their decision, but research shows them to be a vanishingly small minority. The VAST majority of parents report greater meaning, more love, personal growth, enjoyment, fulfillment, etc. Something has become quite sick in modern society when we provide such an imbalanced and untrue message to young people.
I've thought about this and while I agree with you completely, I think the reason why is not just society at large. Externally what most people see is the time suck, money suck, and frustration with teaching behavior, fixing bad behavior etc.
What's so easy to miss is the immense feeling of love, of being needed, of being loved, that words can't describe. I frequently tell people I feel like the grinch after he discovers Xmas - my heart is three times bigger. But you can't really see that it's just a feeling I carry with me.
You don’t need children to have these sorts of feelings, unless you can only get them from some small people who don’t have any choice but to love you.
As much as I sometimes wonder what life would have been like as DINKs, the feeling of my 7 year old girl sneaking up behind me to give me a cuddle outweighs all of the fast cars and long walks on the beach I personally could ever have.
Kids love beaches!
Alas, they are not so keen on long walks!
Interesting perspective. Your first paragraph also describes my experience, perfectly.
However, even though I also think nothing comes even close to parenthood for me, my perspective is that society strongly encourages —I'd even say strongly pressures— people to have kids, to feel that if you don't, it's almost like something is wrong with you. Maybe we're just different generations? :-)
I never felt that pressure to have kids. In fact, even though I waited until I was in my mid 30's, I was the first in my social circle to have kids (I guess I hung around with younger people?).
I knew since I was a kid myself that I wanted to someday be a father. If society pushed me, it would have been when I was still in elementary school.
After I had kids though… It was strange to scroll through coworkers social media feeds and see the same photos of groups of 30-somethings holding up wine glasses while the waiter (I assume) takes their photo at some fancy restaurant in the Bay Area. It all seemed so… hedonistic? Or maybe just kind of empty.
Becoming a father gave me purpose that was (finally) not about me any longer.
And now, the nest empty, I still am unable to go back to that person I was before. (Whoever that was.)
I think it's social pressure in some cultures, but even in those (sub)cultures which don't have the explicit pressure to have kids, people have a drive to procreate. I cannot tell you how many couples I know who decided they would not have kids, or would only have one, and at a certain point one partner (usually a woman in their late 30s or early 40s if I am being honest) decided this was the most important thing and no amount of money or career setbacks or relationship turmoil wouldn stand in the way.
Yeah that biological clock had a surprisingly loud alarm!
No modern western society does that, for quite some time. Maybe specific people around you behave so, but society as a whole? Nah
> Teachers told me that becoming a parent was the worst thing in the whole world
That’s…unhealthy and unusual.
> Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood.
I completely agree with you. But I can't say around me, people, movies, society ever sent the message that parenthood is terrible. The way I interpret the message was always "this was hard, this was grueling, but I wouldn't change it for the world". I didn't get this apparent contradiction until it was my turn.
I think the people who miss almost all of these "tickboxes" and can somehow link it to the kids become unhappy with parenthood. If they ever feel their personal time, romance, career, success suffered because of the focus on the children, they will end up in the "disappointment" camp.
I never personally met anyone who was willing to admit regret of having children but I did meet people who were disappointed and put a veiled blame for their failure on the children.
That's great insight. My sister missed some of these milestones and I hear echoes of what you describe in some of our conversations.
I feel a lot of regret having had children. Not 100%, but it's always going to be more than 0%. I adore my kids but it's too much for my brain and it makes me miserable a lot of the time. I don't bring it up except to counsellors (or anonymous internet bros, apparently) because (a) it's not actionable - there is no going back (b) it's a bummer and no one has anything to say about it.
This is one of the things I think about when considering kids++, when does the regret start (if at all)? Or as posted in other comments, will the health lottery have me regret having +1? Time will tell.
How old are they? I honestly felt like that sometimes for the first few years but no longer now that they are somewhat capable of not dying without constant supervision and are becoming their own new persons
One is 6 years, the other is 6 months.
This is arguably the toughest it will ever get. It's very normal to feel all kinds of tough emotions right now. If this were climbing Mount Everest, you'd be near the top.
Or maybe they’ll run away at sixteen to join a gang.
> it's a bummer and no one has anything to say about it.
I think a lot of people could have something to say about this but they're afraid of being branded bad parent or bad people.
> it's not actionable - there is no going back
Going back isn't the only way to take action. If you can't change the trigger you can try to control to a degree how you feel about it.
> Raising kids is probably the most meaningful and significant thing I have done with my life.
That might say more about what you haven't done than what you have.
"First-time fathers show longitudinal gray matter cortical volume reductions: evidence from two international samples"
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/33/7/4156/6691667
I feel like when young people think they want to do significant and meaningful things, they think about things that will make them famous in one way or another. Most of such things are neither significant nor meaningful.
This is very true :)
I used to think this way, and then I realised that I actually want to be famous and respected. After some time, I realised that I just wanted the approval of people. And finally I realised all I wanted was to feel loved and cared for.
That's unnecessarily pessimistic. I think it's much more common for drive people to want to make a significant positive impact on the world, rather than becoming famous.
Doesn't matter either way, though, once you realize you're just a blip like the other 8,000,000,000 people on this earth.
Everybody says that because it makes them feel good.
In reality, simply adding more children to the pool doesn’t accomplish anything real.
Why? Noy disputing you but I am childless yet primarily I cannot think why bringing up a kid would be significant or meaningful.
Like once I have a kid, then that kid has to be the most significant part of my life. But before that, why?
I’m surprised this hasn’t come up yet: Because by being a parent, you become responsible for someone else’s life besides your own, permanently and beyond the transactional or contractual sense of a job or a passion project. It is a life experience unmatched by anything else (though I think that being a teacher or the caretaker of children in an orphanage come close). You get free reign over the shaping of a person who will touch the lives of others, and the good or the bad that becomes of it is the consequence of your own values and way of existence.
Not disputing you either—I once said I will never have children, too—but indeed and as with other life decisions, you should stay childless while you find the meaning of it incomprehensible. It’s not for people who are not ready to stop thinking about themselves.
Because any fault of theirs feels like a fault of yours, but you learn that you cannot fix faults of theirs like you can (try to) fix faults of yours. You learn to become a parent, a teacher, a guide, a kind of friend, in the most deeply connected relationship you’ll ever have. A relationship that exposes you to every fault of yourself, while you feel the deepest love for and connection with your children. A connection that’s not even always reciprocated. Parenting is the true Aristotelian politeia.
(I’m halfway through our main parental fase.)
Thank for your answer. I appreciate that.
>Why? Noy disputing you but I am childless yet primarily I cannot think why bringing up a kid would be significant or meaningful.
Its because they are more important than anything else to a parent. You are invested in their outcome more than anything else. I don’t see how this isn’t obvious.
It is kinda weird, because you feel so much more tired all the time. Yet at the same time you have so much more motivation to do _everything_. It is like I feel 50% more tired, yet 200% more engaged with everything I do. It really makes your life a lot more meaningful.
Before I would waste so much time engaging on video games / internet-browsing / TV-youtube / etc and just not enjoying the time I spent. It felt very meaningless, like why even bother working? I have (had) savings to go take several years of sabbatical if I wanted.
When I actually boot up a video game today I actually enjoy it. And that is all on top of normal stuff you hear about having kids.
Thanks. I have a friend who says the same as you.
It’s because of the opportunity to truly learn responsibility to others, instead of selfish responsibility to self.
Ever built something and felt proud of it? Like 'that was cool' or 'that was neat'. It's like a never ending source of that feeling. Most things you do in life just don't last that long, but raising kids lasts a really long time.
Yes. I keep getting that feeling everyday with my work as of now. And I also got a PhD after fighting a lot of hardship including huge opposition from my parents to the effect of having lost contact with them. But what you said does ring a bell in that, I need to be constantly doing my work in getting that feeling. (apart from my PhD which every once in a while makes me go wheeeee).
I guess with kids, its like my PhD but a constant source instead of static fading in time?
My own accomplishments make me go wheeeee but my kids’ accomplishments, even mundane ones, make me go WHEEEEEEEEE!
Because it's evolutionarily favourable - the same reason sex feels good. One is instantaneous pleasure, and the other is sustained doses of feelings of satisfaction, because they optimise for different things; but ultimately you can understand them easily if you think about how core they are to what evolution favours.
Why is anything significant or meaningful? This will always be subjective.
Although there is an evolutionary reason why our brain would make our offspring significant to us.
> I cannot think why bringing up a kid would be significant or meaningful.
I don't think it's something to think or reason about. You feel it (or don't, in some cases). As an atheist, I suppose this is how truly religious people feel about their religion: it brings them joy and meaning. (And much like in some religions, you sometimes feel you're beholden to a demanding, whimsical god!).
Agree with the sibling comment. As a new father, nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - can describe the love, adoration and reverence that parents feel for their children. To be understood, it must be experienced. There is simply no other way.
Thanks for the answer. And I understand that. But for me, that answer is potentially a very biased answer. Is it a feeling that comes naturally or is it forced in the sense that you realise you are everything for the kid and the kid is everything for you and both you the kid have no other choice.
Talking to a lot of people (bit you) i felt it was more the latter.
It didn't come naturally for me. Babies aren't much fun. There were plenty of times I wondered why everybody else finds being a parent fulfilling and here I am trying not to swear at a crying six month old at 1 am.
Toddlers though... toddlers are fun. Not always, but a lot of the time. Once both of my kids cleared the baby stage I finally would describe myself as a proud parent, mostly happy.
Now we are empty nesters and both of my kids live far away and are doing great. With the space that leaves I've spent some time thinking about myself as a dad and boy do I have a lot of regrets. I don't think I was very good at it.
I understand now why so many people who weren't the greatest parents get very excited about grandchildren. I know if that happens for me, I'm going to be a much better grandparent than I ever was parent.
Let me paraphrase a scene from “Lessons in Chemistry”.
The main character confesses that twice she has wanted to give up her child for adoption. Another mom laughs... "Twenty times would still make you an amateur."
The point is: it’s not all love and adoration.
+1. I also felt this huge gap between knowing (intellectually) what parenting is and actually experiencing it. It really changes you, to the point that now, when I talk to childless people my age, I feel like we're fundamentally differently. I think I can perceive fairly accurately whether someone my age is a parent after just a few minutes of general conversation (obviously, without having to visit adjacent topics).
I experienced this so strongly I spent some time actually writing a poem (in Spanish) about it: https://alejo.ch/39l
> It really changes you, to the point that now, when I talk to childless people my age, I feel like we're fundamentally differently.
As a childless person, the inverse is equally true. I have wildly different levels of obligation and constraint - and that difference typically becomes obvious very very quickly. I don't say that as a better/worse, just different.
Once you have kids you quickly discover that you get forced into it. You have to engage. If you don't, they scream. They get in trouble at school. They are unhappy and it breaks your heart. Once you have no choice but to do something, you will find it's better to find meaning in it. Meaning is ultimately something you create for yourself.
>But before that, why
You can ask that question about a lot of things whether it's one entrepeneurial baby or their nature conservation effort which reveals it to be somewhat meaningless question.
As a parent, I get to give you The Most Infuriating Answer: once you have kids, you'll understand.
I'd modify that to once you have kids, you might understand. It's for sure not a given and there are a lot of really terrible people out there who probably shouldn't have the kids they do.
You can say that about any life experience, and those who do shouldn’t even be chiming in discussions
Except... a million reasons where they will either not understand, or they should have not become a parent.
The problem with the "The Most Infuriating Answer" is that it entirely neglects facts, and only those say it who do have a good experience with it.
Happy for you, internet stranger. Just like I am happy for all of those around me: you all are the ones who do good parenting.
In case you also want to become a better person in general, I recommend to stop being condescending, and not to say this ever again to anyone. You hurt more than you think you are wise.
> I recommend to stop being condescending
Said in perhaps, the most condescending way possible
I don't see OP's comment as condescending but I'm also not in these "should have not become a parent" shoes to tell, for sure. Insensitive? Perhaps. On a discussion board, it is hard to know who you're talking to. OP likely assumed some "persona" (different to those that might find it hurtful) before they wrote the comment.
> You hurt more than you think you are wise
We are all fighting some demon or the other. I appreciate you for bringing forth the kind most of us are (fortunate enough to be) oblivious to. Ignorance is bliss.
I also dont think the OPs done was condescending.
Some do try:
On Parenthood, https://blog.codinghorror.com/on-parenthood / https://archive.vn/zxDzb (Oct 2011).I mean, ok, they might just understand or they might hate their children with a fiery passion and never miss and opportunity to vocalize it and ruin innocent lives like my parents did?
One of the two I guess.
I’m sorry to hear that about your parents.
Absolutely. What happened to the old “no one ever wishes they’d worked more on their deathbed”?
Exactly how I feel too. They bring magic into my life that I didn't even know I was missing. I'll be sad when they grow up and leave.
Thanks for sharing! I remember thinking pre-kids mostly about how much work they would be but not really considering the joy they bring too. Like I knew they would, but vastly underestimated what effect that would have on my life.
I don't particularly regret any of my choices either, but knowing what I do now, would have chosen to have kids earlier in my life.
I find it funny that I spent my 20s and 30s doing everything in my power to avoid having kids and at this stage in my life I’m doing everything to have kids.
I do feel that 30 year old me would definitely be in better shape to chase kids around.
100% on this. In my life I have 0 regrets except not having kids younger. I was never especially fond of kids, but it turns I out love my own more than I imagined possible, and have more fun with them I ever thought I would! I only wish we could have many more but given when we started, the odds of having more than 2 are very low. The amount of joy and life they bring to you and to your house is something you can't really appreciate until you've had them. To say nothing of the sort of fulfillment and life satisfaction they bring.
My parent's goal was to get me to go to college. My goal for my kids is to teach them the importance of having kids early. The fact it might help in having a grandkid or two before I kick the bucket is just a wee bit of icing on that cake. I think the ideal time to start is probably in your 20s. This also maximizes the amount of time you'll get to spend with your kids. I'm quite 'jealous' (sans the negative connotations) of those who will get to see their kids live til retirement, but hey - they made wiser decisions, so hopefully I can help encourage my children to do the same.
> I was never especially fond of kids, but it turns I out love my own more than I imagined possible, and have more fun with them I ever thought I would!
That's because we're designed to have kids.
I for a change am happy I had my kids in late 30s / 40. I am certainly wiser, way more experienced with world, humans, got to be successful and in much better financial position which also helped my parents to have better retirement.
I wasn't a full adult in my 20s, too naive, too trusting, undefined for the lack of better words, not experienced with various types of women (laugh all you want, this was probably the most important experience from all for me, it afterwards formed my choice of wife which is often the most important choice in one's life).
Plus I've managed in a decade before having kids to travel the world backpacking, various experiences that changed me for the better and basically reinvented myself, on my own. I don't come from competitive or nurturing environment, nobody expected anything from me. I've found my passions in various mountain/extreme sports. None of that would happen if I had kids earlier, thats very clear when looking at peers who took the other trajectory.
If my kids will have their kids young or older is completely up to them, I find it selfish to push any expectations on them, they (will) live vastly different life compared to me, I can just respect their choices and love them regardless.
There’s never a right time to have kids. But having them older has its perks. You are much more calmed, patient, you are wiser and likely financially stable. Throwing money at problems definitely makes life 10X easier when you have kids, something most people can’t do in their 20s or even 30s.
I disagree. As a father of nine children, I submit that the best time to have children is when you’re young. The next best time is now.
Sure, you’ll be poor, and you’ll make lots of mistakes. But how do you know you’ll be able to have children later? And what’s so important now that makes it worth putting off children?
[delayed]
As a father of nine you have to acknowledge your perspective is an extreme outlier. Not criticizing, just, not a generalizable take.
Yes. Had one kid mid thirties. And now I realize I want nine of them too. Or four maybe. We started too late and I doubt we will make it. Biggest mistake of my life. In my environment I see people delaying kids because they think 33, 34 is still alright to start. And it is. If you want to have 1 or 2...
We will go for the third one next year and that would be it for us. I come from a family of 8 children and my wife is a single child. I don’t think I had a better childhood, just different. She has a lot of good memories of traveling with her parents and does not regret not having siblings. I saw my dad a few days a week for a good portion of my early childhood and regret that a bit. My wife and I are equally social, I’m actually more of an introvert in some circumstances. We are both considered of others, and like to share. I would say the one skill I developed that she lacks is the ability to focus and concentrate in public spaces with noise. Because that’s how I did homework and studied all the way from elementary school to college, always around a bunch of loud people, no place in the house where I could close a door and be alone.
You’ll feel poor anyhow. More money just means you want more.
I’ll say there’s benefits to having a single child, but not nearly as many as there are to have multiple.
Explain this please.
I mean: siblings.
Not to discount that it’s great when you play with your kids, but it’s different when your kids play together, and in particular when you can’t play that they have someone to interact with.
Not only do they play but they also learn to care for each other. Parental effort doesn't increase uniformly with each child – if you're lucky and have done a good job parenting them, children create a society and help with raising each other.
Yeah, the group dynamics of, say, a family with two children:
As compared to a three-child household: So, in a bigger family, many more communication patterns between children can arise, which, among other things, might develop the child's empathy etc.Adding mom and dad as "players" would give us many more possible scenarios here (Kid A playing with mom, Kid B alone or with dad, etc).
I'm a father of two with a low income, and I would like to have a third child for precisely the above described reason. As a sociologist in my country put it -- somewhat harsh words maybe, but probably largely true: a single child might get spoiled, two children may start competing too heavily, but three children and above is company.
I disagree, when looking at 3-kids setup out there in the world. Ie my wife comes from such, she is the oldest and all 3 follow the typical 3 kids pattern - oldest was pushed into most responsibility to the point of trauma, middle one feels unappreciated and has inferiority complex as middle ones often do, and youngest is by huge margin the most spoiled one. This is the default for 3 kids that many parents end up with, unless fighting hard against this natural direction.
And yes a lot of interaction, but it doesn't guarantee anything further down the line - when long time adults youngest is still spoiled and selfish and not really a pleasant person to be around with for anybody, including siblings and their own mom. Middle one is scared to have kids, a decision that she may end up regretting later easily. And my wife is also carrying her part of the burden, won't bother you with details.
The grass is always greener behind the fence and all that.
Insightful comment, got me thinking, thanks for sharing. I suppose, in the end, there isn't all that much logic in human relations, or there are always far too many "unknown unknowns".
There's very few humans that have enough time, energy, skills, wherewithal, and money to devote to 3+ kids to make these sorts of positive "three's company" interactions happen in the modern world. I am not saying that it's impossible, just that it's difficult and doesn't happen naturally like you're implying.
On a personal note, I never had much positive interactions with either of my siblings, certainly not as children as not now that we're in our 40s either. Lots of fighting, absolutely zero closeness or positive feelings.
This. I’m an old dad. I realized two years ago that to keep up with my pre-teens I had to change my lifestyle. For me that meant cutting out alcohol, not eating processed foods, avoiding sugar, reduced caffeine, way more protein and doing calisthenics. I sleep well and I have energy. I just have to keep this up for 10 more years when my youngest will be 21, then I can die. ;-)
Same here in almost all ways, except the caffeine. What was the benefit there? My hot pots keep me going. Once my wife hits menopause I might also consider TRT. I'm almost certainly not low by the standards of the average American, let alone for my age, but it's gonna keep falling as I age and wouldn't mind that extra oomph.
Previously, when my head touched the pillow I was asleep. Two years ago I noticed that wasn’t happening and I would wake frequently through the night. I cut back my caffeine intake and my restored my sleep. Without knowing the physiological reason I assume my metabolism is slowing down and I had to alter my lifestyle to fit to it, hence my strict diet now. The calisthenics has been awesome for me. I love the progression moves to unlock skills and levelling up. Pushing weights just to stack more plates wasn’t motivation for me - cali is. It replaces my caffeine.
As for menopause, or more accurately, perimenopause, my wife has been in that for years. (She’s an old mom) She started HRT about 6 months ago and it has been amazing. She no longer wants to murder me or anyone else that irritates her.
Haha! Very interesting life goal - When your dependents have sucked all the life out of you, you can kick the bucket:) (And am sure it’s worth it)
> When your dependents have sucked all the life out of you, you can kick the bucket:)
Don't laugh, there's a reason for it. Read the book "The Red Queen" which explains all this.
Is this the teen novel or something else? Curios how a teen novel could address these issues?
Rather sounds like they’ve given them their life back.
Am not sure what your statement means? :) who is "them" and who is "their" in this?
I read it as “them” and “their” is the OP and “they’ve” are OP’s children.
Exactly, good for them
> I do feel that 30 year old me would definitely be in better shape to chase kids around.
Can confirm that starting at 30 makes it relatively easy to keep up. Still not early enough though. Wish I’d started at 25.
It’s mostly a matter of effort though. You’ll become very good at it out of sheer need if you genuinely want to keep up. In far better shape now than I was at 30, mentally and physically.
I was 41 when my daughter was born. I think it’s a great reason to stay for, strong and healthy.
My goal is to keep up with her mountain biking, snowboarding and hiking for as long as I can. Hopefully I’ll be on the game well in my 60s and her 20s
My dad was 42 when I was born, and he was keeping up with me on hikes in my early 20s (his mid 60s). I haven't done much hiking with him lately, but he's going on 50 mile bike rides at 70.
I think having kids late can help people stay young longer, if you let it.
> Having grown up in a large family within a religious subculture full of other large families, the amount of time and attention children consume was crystal clear
Similar experience here growing up Mennonite (they’re sorta like the Amish but more moderate).
I’m one of the only remaining men in my family without kids, but those that do have kids (and there’s a lot of them) are super busy. This is at least partially offset by their wives who are more on the traditional side.
They all do seem very fulfilled however :)
I think one of the reasons that a lot of successful founders are in their mid-40s is because they combine 20ish years of experience with an empty nest after kids are out on their own.
Nothing to back it up, but it makes sense to me.
Raising kids is fabulous experience for management. If you can convince a five-year-old that greens are tasty, you can motivate almost anyone.
Having been on the receiving end of someone trying to manage me like they do with their kids - No. A really strong NO to that behaviour.
That just tells us the person wasn’t a good parent either. Your comment assumes the only way to parent is to manipulate, patronize, etc. That’s just one perspective though.
There are other ways to parent that are actually fantastic management training - figuring out how to think from another human’s POV, acknowledge their frustrations, help them build the skills to handle their feelings, etc.
It turns out great parenting is to a first degree about great relationship skills.
You can achieve that trivially with such young kids by simply leading by example, not having snacks and junkfood at home and so on. We eat a lot of healthy stuff, so our kids do. You are still their world and define many patterns they will follow later subconsciously.
That doesn't translate that much into say teens but it lays a solid foundation.
Raising kids is a fabulous experience for management of kids. Trying to apply the lessons to adults... I pity either the manager, or the adults.
Add in personal networks too.
May I ask you what significant and meaningful thing you tried to do, and why you think you failed at it?
I've spent my 30s doing something similar and it's still unclear whether it will work out or not. And I've foregone essentially all else, including family.
I think being a proper dad (or mom of course) you realise that that is something extremely "significant and meaningful".
My ambition is to become a dad. I have other ambitions too whcih require a lot of time but if need be i'll make my choices.
I got sort of lucky early in my career because I had a talent that was discovered in a national network. Which meant I found myself writing national strategies for IT in our public sector (Denmark) at my late 20ies. It felt great for a year, or maybe two. When it stopped being fun though, it sort of hit me hard. I did enjoy writing and working on the strategies with other people. All the "glamour" around it, advicing politicians, going to conferences, networking with all sorts of "important" people. That got to me on one of the many train rides I had to take. I know a 3 hour commute might not be a lot to Americans or people in larger countries in general, but here it's a life time. Eventually I didn't know why I was going on them, so I quit and went back to being a nerd in a basement. Having my first child was the kick I needed to push me to where I was already heading though. I would've likely ridden the career ladder for a lot longer if I hadn't become a dad.
I rarely speak about it but something about reading you accepting the failure of your ambitions made me want to do it. Are you sure it's a failure? For me family life turned out to be what I wanted and work is just a fun place which makes me money, but I totally get why people want to do it the opposite way. In some ways you could say that I did something significant, but it made me misserable. So I failed just as much as you, if not more.
I don't regret any of it either though. It's what made me who I am.
I'd also agree with this. Children don't make you give up your ambitions in the least. However they will almost certainly make you rethink what is important in life. It's not even conscious like an 'ok I give this up, in order to get that' but rather they just make you feel very differently, in a way that you can't really explain. But it's good, very good.
100% agree with this. But its not uniform for everybody, mothers generally change and throw away previous life after having kids in ways that most men don't. Some fathers are similar (and few mothers are similar to average guy) but difference is pretty big when you dig deeper.
and yet most nobel prize laureates seem to be family people. I found that adult responsibilities have a way of making me very very intentional about how i spend my time.
Most nobel prize laureates have children because the vast majority of humans have children.
[delayed]
very happy for you that things turned out this way
When I was in high school, my dad was an executive at a large international Fortune 500 finance firm.
His main job was to fly around the world and train salespeople on how better attract and retain clients.
One year, he was traveling for 180 days aka half of the entire year.
For many years I was somewhat conflicted about this b/c on the one hand he wasn't around much but on the other hand my mom didn't have to work, we had a great life and got to take international vacations every year.
As a father now, I appreciate the sacrifice my dad made to not see us as much but to provide a great life for his wife and kids.
I kinda miss the argument why so many “ambitious” people are bad parents. Maybe because it is too obvious? If you are not present for your child at the time your kid grows up (before and after school, weekends, etc) you are not a parent at all. You’re a roommate with certain privileges, but no child is interested in that.
People who work 60+ hours a week will be “worse” parents than others.
On my end, becoming a dad didn’t make me less ambitious, just more focused.
I was vp of engineering at a Series A startup when my kid was born. It was a challenging job, but one that felt increasingly devoid of any meaning for me (maybe also because I'd been there for 5 years). I was compensating by working on side-projects at night and on weekends. I even wrote a novel that took me 4 years to finish.
Then my son was born, and nights and weekends disappeared! Suddenly, all my non-father activity was dedicated to a job that was boring me more and more. So what did i do? I started a company, so I could decide what to work on during the day!. Basically, I took a side project and put it at the center of my working life. Now my days feel rewarding enough that when I disconnect, I can completely devote myself to my son and my wife and ignore everything else.
Of course, I don’t have side projects anymore. I barely even have hobbies: I completely stopped watching movies, which used to be the love of my life. I read books before bed and on the subway, and work out occasionally to stay sane. My life = my startup, my son, my wife. That’s pretty much it.
But I feel much more balanced than before, when I was always chasing something.
I became an engineering manager when my daughter was 2. Way back in the old days before LLMs so I had to both code and manage. Completely burnt me out. I never fully got back into traditional tech career after I was laid off in '23.
I did start two businesses: One brick and mortar and one app. The brick and mortar has the biggest drain on family time since with the app I can grind at night and only miss out on sleep.
I have a relatively good stable job, working in tech. When I came across generative AI and how it could be used to solve difficult math problems and materialize amazing codebases, the feeling of awe makes me want to understand the magic. I am contemplating choosing between changing my career and being in my stable job, raising my kids. Of course, I am probably unqualified for frontier labs, where I want to work on models. Ambition seems to have gotten a hold off me and won't let me go.
"Behind every great man there's a great woman." I thought I was killing it at work and as a dad when I was answering emails about complex bugs while hiking with my first kid riding in a backpack. But then I quit working to be a full-time dad for kid #2 and found out how much work my partner had been doing that I didn't know about. I suddenly understood why so many of the men at my former workplace had been divorced. So be ambitious, but check in with your partner and make sure they are on the same page.
This quote certainly comes to mind:
Housework is not situated outside of economic production. It is simply non-salaried and paid through the husband’s salary.
Thats why, when divorcing in Switzerland, retirement savings are bundled and then split equally between two. So if woman was a stay-at-home mum, she still gets good savings. If both brought cca same income, not much changes.
(original author)
this is true for me, wouldn't be remotely possible without my wife.
Personal ambition is often a poor signal for living your life because it tends to have an arbitrary and empty goal, being successful or powerful or wealthy just for the sake of it. It will never feel like enough, each milestone is as arbitrary as the last.
The people I have known who were the most grounded, happiest, productive, and fulfilled all understood their lives on some level to be in service of something that has value to more than just themselves. That can be being a mom or dad, furthering the knowledge of humanity, serving your community, it can be anything that you recognize as greater than yourself.
It brings you into contact with other people who share the same goal. It is a stronger fuel than personal ambition, and one that doesn't leave you empty along the way.
YC reject so I bootstrapped and was thankfully able to hit profitability before my first kid showed up. I’ve now got two. I also have dreams bigger than ever.
In fact, writing this while sitting on the couch with the kids watching Muppet Treasure Island while my kids are wearing pirate hats and waving foam swords.
I’m still extremely productive and prolific. Probably less compared with before. But before, I had friends and TV shows subtracting from my time.
Today, my life priorities are kids, work and sleep.
There is no Netflix. There are no hobbies. No downtime. No friends unless I happen to like my kids friends parents.
I’m up at 5:30/6 and get 90 mins of focused work in. Skip breakfast. Then workout and walk/bike with the kids. Then ready for work at 10 - and thankfully my office is two blocks away. Skip lunch. Home at 5/5:30. Dinner with kids and play. Work from 8-10. Every single day.
I love my kids, work and learning is fun, and I value sleep. Everything else is a nice to have.
The way I see it, when I’m 100 years old I won’t regret drag on my ambitions because I had kids. In fact I’ll probably think the ambitions were nice but kind of pointless in the end anyway. I will see the kids as important and meaningful, and will write a life story where I was the best dad I could be and still hustled like hell.
So you're basically a machine that spends their time working and taking care of your children? This feels like a one-way ticket to a burnout.
I love my work and I love playing with the kids so it can be exhausting but in a good way. Never a drag (not usually anyway).
Super thoughtful consistent schedule with little room for anything else is my tradeoff if I want to maintain high quantity of high quality output with my business. And TBH, it lasts for 15-18 years at most.
I didn’t mention the weekends - those are more of a free for all. Lots of family time, work sneaks in. It’s a lot more thinking than working though.
Isn’t it unhealthy to skip both breakfast and lunch? How are you getting the energy to do stuff without eating?
As a fun project, you should look up the history of eating schedules. They vary wildly between different cultures. Some have a single large meal at the start of the day, others have 5 smaller meals spread through, and everything in between. There is no standard even if it feels like it simply because that is how we are raised.
It is but social convention.
Social and historical conventions don’t necessarily align with “good for your health”.
Most "good for your health" advice is pop culture driven with a half life of 5 years anyway and breakfast being the most important meal of the day is a marketing slogan. In other words, no better than any various convention.
About the only things that stick are "don't stop physical and mental activity as you age" and "do stuff in moderation".
If you call it "intermittent fasting" and write a book about it, you can get a whole movement behind how healthy skipping breakfast and lunch is. And another movement preaching about how bad it is. And a followup book about what you REALLY should do ad nauseam.
Pretty much, so much of what we take for granted in culture was actually intentionally designed from the top down to have masses of people fall into line and become good servants of the economic system.
As for good diets, for instance, there is a wild meal schedule that has shown to be fairly good at managing weight, it is just intense. It is the 16 to 17 meals a day plan. One meal every hour you are awake, each one only about 100 to 150 calories. It does potentially work but try selling it to people and worse getting folks to stick to it.
Agreed. This view also makes sense if we look at pre-agriculture humans - they’d eat heartily when there’s a good catch, maybe eat some leftovers the next day, go without food for some time, etc. Evolution by natural selection doesn’t move fast enough for humans to have adapted strongly to a fixed 3 meals a day schedule by now; eating times are still very much a convention.
hey hey don't interrupt the hustleporn
Your body has energy reserves that it can use when you aren't eating.
Intermittent fasting and calorie reduction are the only known way to EXTEND lifespan and wellness. 10 years of low carb + fasting is the single most important health decision I have ever made.
Kind of a strong statement there. Happy that fasting’s had such a positive influence on your life but:
No: fasting has not been proven to extend lifespan in humans.
Also no: exercise has been far more provably correlated with healthspan improvements than fasting.
You are more correct, but I think the truth lies somewhere between your statement and theirs. We have correlative evidence that lower calorie diets and/or fasting results in longer lifespans, improved insulin sensitivity, pancreatic cell responsiveness, blood pressure, oxidative-stress measures, and more, in humans. We also have animal testing showing causative evidence that fasting produces longer lifespans. Of course, animals are not humans, and correlation does not imply causation. Still, we do not currently have causative evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, and we widely agree that that is harmful for lungs. With enough correlative evidence I think it becomes reasonable to accept it as actionable evidence.
The secret is to have your children eat for you, then just do blood transfusions when they’re at peak nutrient level. You can do that while you work for optimal efficiency.
Yeah I had a schedule like that when the kids were very young but it caught up with me, frankly. Having the computer be the first and last thing I interacted with every day was not great for my mood either.
Granted, I do need to take a break from that schedule every so often. If I catch myself being unfocused I just go to bed.
Also, the first thing I work on is usually a high leverage project that excites me. Reading news or answering emails (things that can affect my emotions) are usually avoided during that time. Usually.
break-fast is for farmer that do hard work
No idea but worth remembering that modern breakfast was invented to sell cereal.
It's only unhealthy if you get hungry.
Wellllll, kind of... I've realized hunger is often just another habit because we're used to eating N meals a day, like the GP comment implies. I've done a quasi OMAD (1-meal a day) thing on-and-off for 3+ years now and don't feel hungry the rest of the time, given my current physical activity levels. It took a few days to get used to, but now I can start and stop OMAD on demand.
I'd recommend everyone try fasting and figure out what their bodies really need (preferably over the holidays, because the adjustment period can be a bit rough and could interfere with work.) I suspect most of the developed world is over-eating by quite a lot given our largely sedentary lifestyles.
Oh no you see this is now called intermittent fasting not "lunch is for wimps".
> Isn’t it unhealthy to skip both breakfast and lunch?
No, why would you think that?
> There are no hobbies. No downtime. No friends unless I happen to like my kids friends parents.
this sounds miserable
I appreciate people like OP because they create jobs for people like me. I am more than happy to let him keep his profits and his lousy existence while I take it easy, do some work and then hang out with kids and friends and collect the paycheck. Yeah, I will never get rich, but I don't care. Work is just something I do to get by, I did find meaning in it earlier in life, but since I hit 40 work is just a thing I do so I don't end up under the bridge.
Really just thoughtfully and consistently disciplined. Some people think diet and exercise are miserable. Others put more weight on how they feel when in good health.
Not just miserable, but also unhealthy for the kids - You're really not going to teach your kids to socialize?
Beyond that, he's admitting he's ignoring the kids to post hustleporn on HN instead of engaging with them.
My block is crawling with kids and usually playing baseball or hockey - they are pretty much never on screens apart from watching something on Disney+. Other than that we play outside year round.
I noticed housework wasn’t mentioned in this idealized schedule.
I noticed the same. Housework consumes a LOT of my time. But maybe that's just because of income level and failure to delegate?
Man good motivating schedule. Are you married as well? I notice this is missing the wife time. I feel like I really have to wreck my sleep to get worktime between wife and kids.
But time to post on HN?
He posts less than once a week so yes
When do you spend time with your spouse lol
I can't say is this sarcasm or is this guy serious?
yep all of this resonates
If we are talking about points people don't make, how about this: your life is going to get harder and worse as you get older. Your dreams will very likely die. Having kids will make that more clear, but honestly I know plenty of people with and without kids and they all struggle with the not fulfilling their ambitions (or realizing those ambitions and finding they weren't what they imagined), the fading of youth, disenchantment with their jobs, etc. Kids are all the horrible things you have heard, but it is a way to grow, it is a very concrete reason to live, at least until they move out. I very much feel the author of this post and I hope that they (and I) keep the fire that drives ambition, but grow enough to enjoy the fire itself, not care quite so much about being productive or scoring points in whatever game.
> it is a very concrete reason to live, at least until they move out
Even after that, I think being there for major life events is important too; college graduations, weddings, birth of grand babies.
The author seems self-aware and I think there's a lot of good observations in this post.
At the same time, I think ambition needs to be paired with humility and acceptance of you can't have it all.
There's no perfect life. You can't optimize everything such that you achieve a hypothesized balance between all the things that are competing for your time and energy. In the final analysis, most people, if given the chance to reflect before they die, would choose more time with the people they care about than more time working, even if, in the moment, they felt they were doing a good job balancing the two.
Kids are also not always a joy. I love my kids, and there were certainly moments of joy, mostly when they were young. As they grow up, they turn out to be their own people. They may ignore your advice and learn life lessons the hard way. They may not live up to the hopes you had for them. Be prepared for some disappointment. Doesn't mean that you don't love them, but they can be frustrating.
To be fair, I'm sure I disappointed my parents in some ways or times also.
Not sure what this has to do with the post?
Work is also not always a joy. Success is not always a joy.
But there's more than enough evidence to show that, when people look back on their lives, most of them most highly value their relationships and have the most regrets around how they managed those relationships.
Having a child doesn't guarantee happiness. Raising a child is not always going to be rainbows and I suppose learning to accept that the life you create doesn't mean you get to dictate what that life becomes is a form a wisdom. But none of this takes anything away from the experience if you accept it for what it really is.
I think this is the point though right? The author is saying that he rejects this dichotomy and he's attempting to take on both even if others might perceive it as impossible.
Yes, he seems to be going in that direction, which I think is the fallacy. This is where I think humility should balance amibiton.
I don't think he is guaranteeing success, but stating his aim. Gotta have a goal to work towards if you claim to be ambitious.
You can have the best ship but if you're sailing in the wrong direction, you're still sailing in the wrong direction.
Which is good if sailing is what you wanted and like to do, which is what the author and the OP is implying. You don't necessarily have to "succeed" or "reach" somewhere.
What I wrote isn't about "success". It's about direction.
What the author is at risk of doing, in my opinion, is pretending to a certain extent that he can have his cake and eat it too. As I wrote in my original comment, "you can't have it all."
Please don't take this to mean that you have to choose between your family and career (or a business). That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that, at a certain point of "ambition", there is no perfect balance possible between all the the things you're trying to maximize.
The wise person accepts that sometimes you have to make choices, and choices always require that you give something up to get something else.
I have a good friend who has a special needs kid and we've discussed his struggles at length - suffice it to say that it takes an order of magnitude more time and attention than what's described here.
The thing is, you of course don't get tipped off that you've been selected for that particular curse (and yes, I'd say it's a curse. It's not some inspiring after-school special thing, it's unfair as f*k to all involved).
The point of this is, I suppose, it's okay to choose not to have kids if you don't feel like gambling, because it turns out, you are. And I say this as someone who is very in favor of having kids and who worries about the looming population collapse in all developed countries.
> And I say this as someone who is very in favor of having kids and who worries about the looming population collapse in all developed countries.
Complete aside, I hope that this happens via the demographic collapse and not due to resource/environmental blow back. It would be the smoothest path down. In the same way that inflation is a smoother way to grow a pool of poverty.
Demographic collapse is happening due to resource/environmental blowback, but many of the resources in question are artificial ones like money and jobs.
Demographic collapse is happening because women finally have the choice to have fewer or no children and can have them later in life due to career options.
Their wanting to do that is due to resource/environmental blowback.
> Complete aside, I hope that this happens via the demographic collapse
The problem is, there isn't _going_ to be a population collapse in developed countries. The path these governments have chosen is to import anyone and everyone in order to keep the numbers growing. Why? Because all those wonderful social programs collapse without people at the bottom of the pyramid to keep things going. The main problem is there's only so many net contributors that can be imported, so we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for people to bring in and oh yeah, they're eligible for social programs from day one. It's going to be a disaster long term, but it's the future we chose -- "I don't want kids, but I don't want the systems that are in place to collapse either, so sure, bring in the entire world, I'm sure we'll be fine."
For that particular issue you can improve your "gambling" odds by having kids at a younger age, rather than waiting until you've optimized your career and environment.
Perhaps, but that often means selecting a partner more quickly, which is another gamble with potentially terrible consequences.
Life is full of such gambles and it's inevitable.
Anyone who drives risks their life more than they risk having a special needs child at reasonably non-late age.
We just brush off most such gambles because:
1. People have a terrible intuition for probabilities.
2. If it were better, they would go insane.
I agree. I'm saying that "just have kids younger" isn't a good solution to the risks of developmental defects, because it's usually merely a trade of that risk for a different one.
I wonder how much of that is because people who are autistic (for example) find love later, and then pass down their autism.
Almost everyone are having children later.
Easy to prescribe, hard to implement for the last two generations or so
It's not like people had an established career when they had kids at 19 in the 1940s. They just didn't view "being halfway to a comfortable retirement" as the prerequisite to having kids, the way my generation thinks it is.
I think the best advice to having kids young is to lower your expectations. The only reason people ‘cannot’ have children young is because they want a specific kind of life for themselves and their kids that is incompatible with that.
The difference likely there is in the ‘40s you were seeing improvement after the Great Depression and employment during WWII, followed by the postwar boom. Whereas the past two generations have seen precarity increase while living standards falter if not drop compared to their parents’ generation. So they are striving to recreate what they once experienced in their childhood, yet may never return.
Also the entirety of society including their families emphasizing the importance of higher education, good careers, etc. even as the latter is harder to achieve and the former becomes increasingly devalued, yet pricy.
The gamble is basically only a gamble if you wait longer. The graph for pre-35 parents is practically nonexistent.
I could live with the 2% chance at 42, but not with the 15% at 45.
Where the chance is of random abnormalities. Who knows what exciting variant you get.
15% at 45? You better have a source for that number.
It's widely known that maternal age causes more genetic defects and it's especially significant later on. The term "hitting the wall" came from the charts. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.05.21254264v...
My parents were both teachers, who, before moving into admin rolls (when I was somewhat older) worked in special ed.
My mother later ended up back in a classroom for a period of time with severely handicapped children. Bound to beds and wheelchairs, non verbal, never going to have independence.
For years after she left her admin job she would go back and spend an evening or two every year watching the kids, so the parents could have some sense of "normalcy".
Her lament was what would the outcome be for these children. Because every one thinks they are doing the best for them by keeping them at home, and close. But the reality is (in so many cases) that the plans for "family to take care of them" almost never works out. Years later my neighbor was an older woman, with an adult special needs child. She died, suddenly, from breast cancer. The brother, who was to take care of him, shipped him off to a group home (because he had kids of his own and lacked the time to care for him properly). That poor mans trauma was doubled when his living situation and life and loss of mother all happened in such a short period.
My own family, I have a severely handicapped cousin (who, became that after a high fever). He too is wheelchair bound and non verbal. However his mother, heeded my mother's advice and transitioned him into a group home early. It worked out well for him as he had a more fulfilling life, and the family (sister, aunts) weren't under pressure for his care, rather just rounding out his life. He still gets out a few times a week with them, and is always around for the holidays.
It's a tough thing for parents to understand that what's best for your special needs kid is sometimes going to be harder on them than all the hard work they doing. And I remain grateful that is isn't a choice I ever had to make myself.
It's very frustrating that behind every "you should be eternally grateful for every child no matter what" warm fuzzy message is an implicit "and if you ever express regret for having a kid who wound up non-verbal and violent and destroyed your marriage and your relationship with your other kids you're a horrible person".
Not referring to your cousin specifically but my mom's life's work is with severely autistic children (the "can't talk and hits people" sort, not "I'm a bit awkward and love math and doing anything to help autistic kids is abject cruelty!" sort), and the experience for parents mostly seems to be abject misery.
First, I respect anyone’s choice not to be a parent. It’s constant, demanding work, far more intense than any job I’ve ever had as a baseline.
Second, this is the third time in two days I’ve seen some variation on “I dreamed of doing something significant and never wanted kids.” That’s a wild construction. Having kids is incredibly significant, and more world-changing than most of us will ever do. Having kids didn’t give my life meaning, but I’m certainly able to pour life’s meaning into my kid and family more than into anything else before it.
Life insurance companies and federal agencies estimate the value of the life of an average US citizen at around 10 million USD, last I checked. If you consider that anywhere close to accurate, it's hard to imagine anything you could do with a higher ROI than having a child, at least from a public goods perspective. You'll never see the 10 million but they're out there enjoying themselves because you helped bring them into being. And if you consider it a woeful underestimate, or that it's wrong to put a price on something priceless, that argument only gets stronger.
>Having kids is incredibly significant, and more world-changing than most of us will ever do
This is a strange thing to say. Where does the "world changing" part come from, is it just in the parent's head? Or are you expecting it to be in the actions of your children? Surely your parents would have also done something "world changing" by having you, which implies that your existence is already world changing.
Maybe this is just a saying and not to be taken literally. But I feel like people divorce the concept of "having children" from the reality of that child becoming an adult and having all the same worries and neuroses you do.
Creating a sentient person and equipping him or her to exist in and affect the world is by definition world changing, and to a far greater and more sustained degree than almost any entrepreneurial activity. The usual construct is “I thought I knew what was important until I had kids,” which I have historically actually been uncomfortable with (because imho being a good parent is as much about being fully you than putting on a parent uniform), but what’s notable about the meditations on the topic I’ve seen in the last couple of days is the persistence in bifurcating “something of significance” from “having children”, as if the writers never quite accept that having kids is significant. I fully accept that people have wildly different ideas about having kids, but it’s odd (to me) to not see parenthood as at least as significant as starting a business.
I guess sure, but if the main "world changing" thing you do is have children, then that would imply that the main "world changing" thing your children do, is again have children. So if your child turns out to be infertile or something, has your "world changing" effect suddenly vanished? If the only real value you have as a person is to create more people.
> “I thought I knew what was important until I had kids”
I wouldn't doubt this, obviously in the mind of the parent their children are going to be an almost spiritual experience. But it seems like the most important thing children -actually do- is make their parents happier.
People usually talk about children in terms of how it makes them feel I guess, "my children give me meaning" etc. With the children being more of an abstraction of "potential".
> “I dreamed of doing something significant and never wanted kids.” That’s a wild construction. Having kids is incredibly significant
Sure, but you have to remember that there is most likely a silent "and new" in there; most jobs in a competitive industry are significant, because otherwise they would be cut. Being a cleaner at a hospital you are doing significant work too, but at the same time it is probably not what was imagined by an author of the phrase "I dream of doing significant things".
> I dreamed of doing something significant and never wanted kids
This wasn’t a sentiment I took away from the post
No, but the conflict between significance and kids, a variant of the opportunity cost of being a parent, was clearly there.
"Be ambitious enough to be an ambitious dad." - agreed! Being an ambitious dad IS exhausting. And the successful people telling you that you can't be a present, ambitious dad and be successful -- that you have to trade successful fatherhood for professional success -- are weak. They are not heroes.
The real heroes are the ones ambitiously raising the next generation while changing the world right now. That's what I aspire to be... and those are my role models. Not the ones who abandon their kids or wife to pursue their own dreams and make excessive amounts of money.
If you really can only muster enough time or energy to be ambitious about one thing, be ambitious within your home/family.
I would also add that, at least in my experience, those who are professionally ambitious and maximizing professional success, while being highly confident they are also succeeding at home, often have an inaccurate view of their home life. It's not until the kids are grown and openly fighting their demons that they realize the bargain that they made.
It's that old adage of, anyone who thinks they're a great parent, probably isn't. And almost all kids would be happier with a less wealthy (or even poorer) upbringing, and a tighter family.
The number of wives who have complained to me privately about the lack of family commitment of rock star husbands whom everyone admires (often precisely for their apparent family commitment) was a real eye-opener.
I'm not convinced that stratospheric success in business is very often compatible with high levels of parental and spousal involvement. It is sometimes, but those are anomalies we shouldn't build our fairy tales around. I know very few old-timers who wish they'd spent less time with their families when they could have made the difference of a lifetime.
There’s a pretty interesting self-help book that is designed to help couples share domestic and family work equally; I thought it was an interesting read. It makes exactly the same point about rockstar husbands that contribute less than their spouses.
https://www.fairplaylife.com/the-book
The central idea is a set of 100 cards representing various tasks that are necessary for running a household, that you split up between the two partners. Supposedly women tend to hold ~80 of the cards in most relationships.
The online discourse around this book can be kinda vitriolic (lots of examples of it starting arguments) but I do think that it’s a good starting point if you want to genuinely try to contribute equally.
I haven't read into them much, (so maybe I shouldn't be repeating it here;) but there are studies about how even when women are the higher earners in relationships, they end up taking on a greater share of household management and maintenance work. (The rhetorical context is usually around why young women aren't as interested in dating.... But again, that's something I'm throwing out there w/o due diligence)
But the idea of having physical cards that you split up and assign does sound really helpful. I might look into that. I would say in my experience breaking out household chores even amongst roommates, some tasks that seem even aren't remotely so once you get into it (I have been the advantaged and disadvantaged party in different apartments) and some are simply different such that some are trivial for one person and not so for another person. But that's a part of dealing the cards, even when splitting evenly. (now I'm wondering if I can see where people are getting into arguments.... ^_^')
> The online discourse around this book can be kinda vitriolic (lots of examples of it starting arguments)
Yeah, no wonder given that it starts with an unrealistic view that the average man is a lazy slob that sits around playing video games while his wife has to handle everything with children and the household. You keep waiting for her to mention that anything else might be possible throughout the book, but that never happens. I think gay couples were mentioned maybe once.
Yeah... I do have some issues with the book. I think that the cards tend to be weighted towards things that women care more about, which naturally means that women end up being responsible for more of them. And different cards require different amounts of time to handle.
The way that I’ve tried to handle this is to focus on equalizing “total time per week spent on managing cards”, which requires time-tracking but is more fair, and also negotiating a modified set of cards.
The book kinda suggests both of those but I think that in practice most people don’t implement them.
And, as you said, the tone of the book can be off-putting at times. I still feel like it’s the best available resource for this problem.
I had no problem with the cards or the system, I like and have tried them with my partner.
I don't know what the right answer is but I do kind of feel this desire for equal effort might be misguided. My sister wanted to spend her time raising kids. Her husband less so. That is decision they made together. It's no different than any other difference. He like working on cars. She likes knitting. She doesn't require him to spend equal time on knitting and he doesn't require her to spend equal time on cars. Why are children any different?
Further, many cultures, past in particular, seem to be very different in terms of parent involvement. To take an example from fiction, Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts at 11 years old. Yes, that's fiction but it's based on current and past cultures. It's still a thing in the UK for "elite" kids as young as 7 or 8 to go to boarding school, away from their parents. Kids in places too far for a public school are often sent to other cities, to boarding schools. East Asia & India also have famous boarding schools.
The point being, this idea that parents must be with their kids many hours a day until they kids move out of the house at 18 or 21 is not a fact of life, it's a cultural choice. I am from that culture and wish to spend as much time as possible with my kids. But I can also see it's a cultural choice, not some universal way things must be or else bad stuff happens.
A good example is the crushing stories of Frank Zappa's kids. Here is the guy touring the world making millions of dollars, releasing albums non-stop. His kids, barely saw him. For instance, his daughter Moonunit said the most time ever spent with him was recording lines for the song Valley Girl, beyond that he was fairly absent.
I have heard similar stories from many you wouldn't know, they say the same thing about their partner or parents. The desire to have it all ends up trading one thing over the other.
This is a conversation that ambitious women have been having for decades. To the point where it's a cliche. Having it about men and women is valuable, having it be about them separately I think masks some of the structural problems- e.g. better childcare, more and better laid out parental leave(1), etc.
Two things I've heard from different ambitious women: "To really achieve, you need a wife" is something I've heard a lot- that it takes one parent sacrificing some of their career priority; traditionally that was the woman but it in theory could be the man (2), it just rarely is.
The other thing an ambitious woman told me once is that her mom told her "husband, career, kids, pick two." Basically, there is just only enough energy for a given person per day to invest in two of them. I've seen some women who managed, from the outside, to at least look successful at all three, but it's rare indeed.
1: When my kid was born the software company I worked for (I'm an American at an American company, but this was an area of competition for software devs at the time) offered a 14 week paid parental leave, even for men. Most men took a four week ("secondary caregiver" leave) and overlapped it with their wives 12 week unpaid FMLA. I took mine (14 week "primary caregiver") after my wife's leave expired, such that our kid had one of us caring for him every moment of his first six months. I remain convinced that was absolutely vital as the basis for both my relationship with my son and with my wife- she had to rely on me, trust me to care for the kid, and I couldn't hand him off, it was all on me every day. And so we both developed the parental muscles, could trust that the other one understood the reality of the situation, in a way that many father's don't get a chance. And that experience convinced me that the US needs maternal leave, obviously, but it also needs paternity leave- and the policies need to be designed such that the woman has to be back at work for at least some of the paternity leave, it can't all be used concurrently.
2: In a recent survey of American households https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/04/13/in-a-gr... about 55% of American heterosexual marriages the man makes 60% or more of the household income, about 30% both halves of the couple were between 40-60%, and just 16% saw the woman make more than 60% of the household income. In the majority of the 16% the woman still spent more time on unpaid household chores and carework than the man they were out-earning. Only in the 6% of heterosexual marriages where the woman earned 100% of the income did the number of hours per week in unpaid labor of men even equal that of their female partner.
> and the policies need to be designed such that the woman has to be back at work for at least some of the paternity leave, it can't all be used concurrently.
Not sure how to apply a legal framework, but in my area this is often enforced by the lack of daycare options for <2yos (the threshold might be lower, but about that much).
Very rare to see parents around me take their parental leave at the same time bc they'd be risking still being on a waitlist when they're done.
Nitpick comment. But is kids and career really a valid pick two choice
I think the point that my friend's mom was making to her was that for a woman (with significantly higher social expectations for the amount of care work and housework) you can only be good at two of the three, because you are a human being with a finite amount of time and energy.
As for how you end up with just those two, I think the answer is divorce: you don't spend the energy to maintain your relationship with your spouse. Before you had kids you could invest your time and energy in your spouse and your career, then the kids come along and your relationship with your spouse weakens, either all the way to divorce or to just a degraded state.
> As for how you end up with just those two, I think the answer is divorce:
Does that solve the problem? Now you're trying to prioritise kids and career while also being a single parent for half the week.
Yeah I can accept that point of view. I think this is highlighting a certain relationship expectation delta between men (or at least myself) and women (or some women). If my wife is doing well in her career and we are doing well with the kids, I could easily see this being considered ‘good’, but my wife may view the relationship as being neglected. I see the core functions working and consider the relationship doing well.
This situation is in development for me so we will see. 0 and 3 year old
Yeah, this is also what I see as the main threat to my relationship with my wife: my complacency, taking it and her for granted. We both work hard on our parenting our 9 year old, and our careers, but then you need to spend the time with each other, lest you become roommates who run an unpaid childcare service on the side.
And I do wonder if this is about the engineer mindset ('I've reduced this to a previously solved problem, I just let the subroutine handle it') or about the way that men are socialized in my culture (just take her out to dinner twice a year- Mother's Day and Valentine's- and remember her birthday and you're meeting social expectations) or what. But it's the biggest threat to my (and I'd hazard a guess most other) marriages.
> we shouldn't build our fairy tales around
Being self-aware and self-critical is one of those changes that instantly improves everyone's life around us, including our own.
Yes, for most I would guess it's hard to get criticism in the right dose/frequency
I've started peering behind the curtains when I get the chance, and I've not yet found someone wildly successful who is also a model parent. Time after time, their spouse is quietly shouldering an enormous load, or their children spin their wheels and wind up rudderless, etc.
You can certainly be successful and be a good parent, but one of the first steps is recognizing and picking out the false prophets. You can't hold yourself to a superhuman standard, which is what a parent maximizing career while letting family malinger will present. They will say, Look at me, a captain of industry with vaults of gold, who has the physique of a twenty-five year old and is also an all-star parent. And you have to figure out that it's a lie.
One little clue - start to notice: of your professional idols who are good parents and seem to have it all, how many have a spouse working a demanding full time job as well? I realized for me it was zero.
> how many have a spouse working a demanding full time job as well? I realized for me it was zero.
Zero for me too, but boy are people quiet about it. Almost taboo to let on that that is the arrangement
“Lol dude can’t their mom do that?”
-Random manager ca. 2018 when I explained I couldn’t join an 8 AM meeting because I had to take my kid to daycare.
Unfortunately, I think that this is possible, but it requires a superhuman well of energy, sleep deficit tolerance, and benevolence that very very few people possess. :/
Seriously, aside from the folks with the “2hrs of sleep is enough” gene, it’s not. It’s an actively harmful myth that is sold hard. Start gathering your own evidence, with a critical fact-finding eye. Don’t just accept the narrative. It’s one of those legitimizing stories that serves the teller.
Try watching The Dawn Wall or Free Solo, keep notes, and fill in the blanks on how long they were gone from family. It’s a canned example of how it gets glossed over.
The same attitude as towards gear in weightlifting is appropriate. They tell you it’s natty all day long, but you know delts don’t get that round without gear.
Yeah I think that word is spelled i-m-p-o-s-s-i-b-l-e.
"People telling you"
That's the real problem. People need to stay in their damn lane.
parents dont do shit to change the world for their children
> The real heroes are the ones ambitiously raising the next generation while changing the world right now.
so pedagogy and psychology researchers? giving that having biological children is the worst ecological offense someone can do in an ever increasing worldwide population? [0] how about adopting and getting into voluntary programs or even do pro-social things with your money?
giving birth on the current societal status-quo not only screws with the future of our own specie but also a bunch of others which may go extinct because of our greed
[0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541/...
Things are considered important in the context of humanity. Environmental concerns only exist because of its impacts on humanity. The planet does not care.
Calling having children an ecological offence is like saying that best way to reduce emissions is for all people to die.
Yeah, sometimes I think people lose track of why they support environmental movements. I've had people question my choice to have kids along these lines before. I just don't understand it - surely we only care about all this stuff because it is observed by humans? For humanity to continue, someone has to have children.
I can sympathise more with the idea that humans are destroying everything and life won't be worth living for my descendants. But that feels like giving up on the possibility of humans. I don't want to do that.
In any case, it turns out that global fertility rates are in freefall and we're facing population decline faster than anyone predicted.
Speak for yourself. We’re not all raising gas guzzling kids who eat beef three times a day.
giving that having biological children is the worst ecological offense someone can do in an ever increasing worldwide population?
Have you ever heard of fracking? Or mining Gold using mercury?
you can perfectly justify whatever you want based on whatever else... will take myself for example: i just slave workers on my IT firm because there are sweatshops elsewhere /j
like there isn't a correlation on more resources being used or explored in a bigger population?
Or RTO mandates
Pretty unbelievable how much the near urban wild life managed to actually recover during covid lockdowns.
Just wanted to say thank you for this. In particular, the part where often it seems the "Founder mode" icons some evangelize (seem to) neglect their children and/or effectively put childrearing entirely on their partner.
I wish I had a good term (or some other concise way) to reject/criticize this aspect of tech culture.
I say founders above but I see it happen in lots of my peers who are simply workaholics. The closest saying I have (which I repeat often) is:
"The only people who will remember you worked late are your kids."
> "The only people who will remember you worked late are your kids."
I really need to kick my engrossing tech hobbies. :(
And yes to the wider point. There are many people more capable people than me, but sometimes it's about priorities, and top achievers in fields will usually be sacrificing something else.
I was thinking lately how lucky I am to have gotten good guidance from my parents and grandparents that oriented me well to life and work. I think this is / used to be more commonly understood or maybe just seems that way.
Ambition and drive are important but there's an important "so what" there as well. Am I aimlessly ambitious or am I ambitious for the sake of being able to support my family and make a significant impact on the world? If you are lucky enough to have the second orientation then I think there's less conflict between these things.
I have plenty to tech and finance friends who are successful and in our mid 40s, and unfortunately for those who neglected to have the family side of the equation, the shine is wearing off. What's the point of making the next level promotion and making the next 200k pay bump when what you do with it is come back to your apartment by yourself? Sure it's more comfortable and could still be fun to be ambitious and successful but it's lacking the goal piece.
The other half of my friends have family and then the financial etc success feeds directly into it. Can you give your family a good home, a good education, good experiences? It's easier for me to call a "success" a friend with a 4 bedroom house with 3 kids on it, than one with a Manhattan penthouse with no kids in it, even if the homes cost the same. It's just a different dimension.
The other thing is - making the world a better place for the future. The kids you raise and the work you achieve both feed into that. And also the future you are building is something that will benefit your kids - so all the things are aligned.
Then it becomes a "simple" balance - what's the thing that maximizes what I actually want to achieve. I want to be a good father and that takes both being with the kids, and working to make money - and also to set a good example for them of what work looks like. So yes in a simple sense you become less productive because you are going to work fewer hours, but I don't feel less productive in the grand total of life because all the things I am doing across work and family add up to what I want to accomplish.
I am curiosit - I bet many people will read this and think "of course, I feel the same way and what other way to feel is there" and others will say "I disagree at the root" which goes back to this being something with how your family raised you and the perspective you have from it.
I think men in this day and age have been hoodwinked just as much as women when it comes to the career vs. family debate. For a man there is truly nothing more important in life than having a family and providing for them. It is what we are evolutionarily tuned towards and anything short of it will leave you empty and hollow. There's a desperate longing for fulfillment and meaning among our generation that a lifetime of being told "having kids = dead dreams" has left us confused and lost as to how to achieve. But having them makes it crystal clear what you were put on this earth to do, and nothing comes close in the realm of professional success to that feeling of meaning and purpose.
Yup. And would you agree that being sufficiently "indoctrinated" into the right thinking by your own parents and grandparents is the only way through?
I'm shocked by the amount of time people who don't have kids waste.
So while PG may believe that people may have their "act already together" pre-kids, I sort of look at the amount of time people without kids waste and think "if only I had that much free time..."
At every point in my life after age 25 or so, I could look back 10 years and be appalled at how much time I wasted back then. 50-year-old me is angry at 40-year-old me for wasting my 40s, as 25-year-old me was angry at 15-year-old me for wasting my high school time. What a waste my youth always seems!
I generally tend to not have that feeling.
For me to feel like it is wasted is to put on a definition of the time period that wasn't there. It is internal personal fan fiction at that point.
I don't feel like I missed out on anything.
There is also the added point of whatever position you take, it is always a trade off with something else.
To be awfully reductionist. The fat people envy the skinny because their health is in check, the skinny envy the fat because they have a sense of care free freedom.
Reminds me of that saying "The youth is wasted on the young". It's only once we truly have no time do we realize how much time we really had.
I love my kids but they take a lot of time. Wouldn't change it for the world though.
Yes. Before I became a dad, I didn't realize how physically and financially constrained people are with regards to number of kids that they have. For me and my wife, our first child took all our time, resources and energy.
This was a shock to me because my parents had 4 children and never seemed to struggle. Also, they were much better off than me financially and could afford to hire help.
My biggest achievement as a dad is the fact that my son speaks 3 languages. In spite of the fact that I was working full time, he still learned to speak my native language fluently from me. And I still did house chores too. And still worked on side hustles at night and weekends.
But yes, I had no life at all for 5 years straight. No life at all. I'm a shell of my former self. My main concern is that I'm showing my son a bad example of how a dad should be. I literally can't afford to raise him with the same values as I was raised with... Because he would grow up into someone like me and that would be my greatest fear.
Now I understand why some parents spoil their children and focus 100% on boosting the child's confidence. This is what you have to do if you're poor. Because you need your child to believe they are above you. That way when they see how shit your life is, they don't have to believe theirs will also end up like this.
> I literally can't afford to raise him with the same values as I was raised with...
If it's any consolation he would have to figure out that himself anyway, because the world is currently changing faster than ever.
I was on vacation a while ago, where I had to explain to my kids the concept of not being able to pause a TV broadcast.
They live in a world of entertainment on demand and LLMs. My values were coined way before all that.
As for myself I'm wearing the skin of that young man I was 10 years ago and don't understand what was the big deal with some of those things he cared so much for.
I appreciate the intention you and others are bringing. Not to be defeatist, but I do wonder how much of trying to set it straight sticks long term?
People have been trying to straighten things out for millennia and we are still in this predicament.
That isn't to say, don't try. It is to say, don't cling to an out come.
The old "I won't raise my kids like my parents raised me" problem, which inevitably seems to lead to raising kids with a different set of grievances and unresolved issues.
I realised it was a lost cause when I realised that literally everyone I knew had some sort of "my parents are imperfect and it's broken me somehow" story. I think it might just be part of the human condition to grow up and realise your parents were flawed humans who made mistakes raising you.
The outcome I'm clinging to is freedom. Until I have that, nothing else matters.
Nothing teaches productivity better than being a participating parent.
Not sure this is fully accurate. Managing kids can use up one's will power or self control resources considerably. There can also be sleep deprivation with young children and other energy drain. I'm not really sure but my focus / ability to avoid distractions at work may actually have gotten worse since having kids.
Yeah, work is now my time for tranquility.
My passion for tech remains, and now work is the time I spend on it, but not on my assigned priorities, sadly.
> I'm shocked by the amount of time people who don't have kids waste.
I'm shocked by the sanctimonious tone of those with kids; it's likely professional bias from having someone that needs schooling at home.
Then, I will always be amazed by how those with offspring feel the need to constantly validate and justify themselves for their choice, while those without barely touch the argument.
Having extreme career success (like the kind referred to in the article) is basically a lottery ticket. I spend a lot of time with my kids, because I figure even if I halve my chances of winning the lottery, well, the odds haven’t changed that much, all considered.
The way I think of it is: my family comes first and work and whatever is second, third and so on. I have no ambitions of running a company (the horror) or even being in charge of anything - it takes a special type of person to do that, and I am 100% not that guy. My goal is to always be employable - so I can always provide a middle class existence for my family. Anything beyond that is of no interest to me. Having a successful career used to be a thing to aspire to, but since I hit 40 I stopped caring about that. I used to learn a lot, but with AI I see little value in adding knowledge to my repertoaire - I would rather read a good book or fool around with my kids or go for a walk with my wife. Work isn't going anywhere, but family time is definitely a finite resource that's slipping away every second.
I will leave the world-changing to someone else who is willing to lay it all on the line for an imaginary medal.
Exactly this! When I had my first two kids only a year apart and early in my career, I thought I'm giving something up because I could no longer invest as much time and effort into my projects and research ideas as before. But in retrospect, looking at how the field has evolved since etc., those ideas, which I had regretted I couldn't push harder, anyway had only a small chance for some grand success (beyond the low-medium success of the low-medium effort versions I managed to put together).
I felt very conflicted about this topic when I was young and working for Apple. I decided the Valley commute and rat race wasn’t very family conducive so I took a remote job and moved a few states over and it’s been great.
I’ve been fully remote for 12+ years now, and I’ve had a very successful career in engineering and engineering leadership. I also have eight kids that I get to spend a ton of time with. There’s a remote tax on career growth, but my RE side hustles have more than compensated for it.
Every now and then I wonder what might have been if I had stayed at Apple. No way to know for sure, but I probably couldn’t have afforded the family and lifestyle that I enjoy now.
8 kids! Well if anyone wants to ask for parenting advice, they can go to you as you are a lone human data set.
How is having numerous kids correlated with being a good parent? If anything, the reverse is probably true.
There’s “how to be a good parent” advice and there’s also “oh boy how do we manage mealtimes and laundry and the school run” type advice. Someone with lots of kids is going to have great insights into the latter at very least.
If he’s the father, he may have no involvement in the logistics whatsoever. Especially if he has a large family.
RE side hustles, as in, reverse engineering?
I'm assuming real estate
Probably would have just remained as an apple lifer
> I know many ambitious parents; it’s not an uncommon combination
That is a weird statement. Most people eventually have kids, so obviously the average ambitious person has kids.
My experience is actually that there is a bias towards more ambition among the childless. Not because of laziness of parents, mind you. But in the decision whether to have kids or not, ambition may play the decisive role, everything else being equal. It goes so far that I have heard otherwise reasonable people resent childless colleagues because of course those workaholics can afford to push overtime while those with kids are pushed into carreer disadvantages, so they say.
Maybe ambitious is not the right word. It's more like, at some point you have to go home.
Before my kids, I started at sunrise, and coming home was optional. Then I got married and divided my attention. Then I got twins, so I divided it even more. But it doesn't make me any less ambitious, in fact, I have more fire behind me to ensure I give them a bright future. It's just that, I come home on time now.
Edit: and thank you for writing this post. It's rarely something we mention in our personal blogs, but it's always nice to know how diverse this culture is.
Exactly. If he means successful instead, then we can have different definitions of successful. That being said, I don't think most startup founders have the same definition of successful as that meets: dad that wants to be there for their children.
Twins is a different league entirely. Hats off
So this piece really resonates with me. I have a five month old child who I really like/love - but I am filled with a passionate software idea and everytime I get a tiny bit of time to work on it, it is heaven. A while back I was able to do one hour in the morning before work on it - but have lost that hur recently. At night, I occassionally look wistfully at my computer sometimes and wish I could build - but I am just trying to be patient and I am hopefully I will soon get back 'one hour' a day in my evenings. One day...
My partner and I are considering paying for a weekend nanny to look after the boy when he turns one on Sunday- so again we have free time to work on our passion projects. Its great to be a dad but it is so time consuming with young children.
Free time will return!
Not much, but some evenings will soon be available!
Thanks for your words - I live in hope :)
…or just don’t have kids. Reproducing is the ultimate in self-centeredness. It’s entirely optional.
Replace having kids in this article with rebuilding a vintage engine from scratch in your garage to see how ridiculous this attitude is.
Do one thing and do it well.
Hits hard. I know this is wrong, but I often find myself resentful when I see colleagues burning the midnight oil (or otherwise putting in time that I no longer have) in service of career progression.
I think the author is spot on about ruthlessly optimizing the time you do have, though. That seems to be the only way to keep up.
> I often find myself resentful when I see colleagues burning the midnight oil
I don't care, especially with AI. I just let it do all the work and I take credit. Plus career progression after a certain point is useless - more responsibilities for smaller increases in paycheck. I found that being a senior developer is the sweet spot for me - others have to think about the product and requirements and communicate and I just sit autistically in the corner and ship at my own pace.
Right now you have a window. AI can do a huge chunk of the work you were doing last year, and outside of programming, nobody seems to know about it yet. I've cut 10 hours a week out of my schedule in the last several months just in time to have my first kid, at the ripe old age of 46.
They'll figure it out and we will be right back to the same pressure we had before, but for a short time at least, if your field is competitive, you have a huge edge.
First definition of ambition in merriam webster is "an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power." Ambition is basically definitionally antisocial.
A desire to accumulate power is tantamount to a desire to accumulate wealth. Most ways to wealth these days involve finding ways to consume more of the world's resources or siphon resources to yourself.
Consider refining word choice. (Though if your notion of ambition corresponds to building a sillycon valley startup, then 'ambition' is probably the right word.) I don't mean that nothing good ever comes of technology; I mean that VC-funded startup tech is mostly done in the pursuit of money, damn any social consequences.
A flip on this reading. Rank, fame, and power all rely on others to enable it.
Sort of like how a narcissistic person ultimately needs others to validate them.
You aren't wrong, it just can be read two ways.
> having kids may make one less ambitious
Can't say this resonates with me. Though being a dad has wildly changed what I'm ambitious about.
'Ambitious' often means doing optional things that take time.
A single person who cuts back on time spent doom scrolling / tv watching / beer drinking to teach themselves enterprise Kubernetes sysadmin best practices is ambitious.
A new parent who cuts back on time with their kids to teach themselves enterprise Kubernetes sysadmin best practices needs their head checked.
Unless you need a job to keep that kid housed because you made the unfortunate decisions of taking jobs at companies that didn't use kubernetes...
Man, re-read this comment in 10 years
I’m far less ambitious, but not less driven. It’s just that what I’m driving for is to maximize time doing things I and my family enjoy. In fact it’s a lens through which I analyze jobs and career opportunities.
I once bumped into a couple of very high profile VCs sitting outside a coffee shop. Somehow the conversation got round to the fact that we were potty training our 12-month-old. One of the VCs told me their two kids, 2 and 3 years old, weren't yet out of nappies, just used pull-ups, because there hadn't been time to potty train them. There are reasons why this could have been legit (failed attempts, developmentally challenged children, etc.) but it was delivered as a kind of admonishment that I was involved in potty-training at all (even though their fund hadn't invested in my business or even been pitched).
It really depressed me at the time, realising there was a class of entrepreneurs and backers who were genuinely stop-at-nothing, even if it meant their three-year-old at day care was wondering why he was the only nappy-wearer, and carrying that subliminally into later life.
What I learnt from that and host of other experiences over time was that a young family and running a venture-backed, high-growth trajectory business aren't very compatible, but...
What I've also learned is that your first venture's going to be imperfectly executed anyway, so get the learnings out of the way anyway, with kids in the picture, then go again when the kids are school-age, and hope they get to enjoy the fruits of venture number two as teenagers.
Also, I never saw consistency from the people who put venture before family. They'd be buying shots for young staff at 11.00 at night on a week night, checking their crypto-balance continously, micro-managing, taking unnecessary business trips, etc. There are some absolute time-management machines out there, who never seem to waste a moment of their working days (I know two, and they both combined successful startups and young families), but in reality everyone needs some downtime/respite and family time is a better restorative than anything else except pure rest.
On that point, there's the famous adage, 'Startup, sleep, parenthood. Pick any two.' I picked startup and parenthood. Sleep deprivation means I look 10 years older than I am, but no regrets.
Finally, I think kids give you a second wave of competitive determination after your initial ambition wanes. Problematic investors, cheating competitors, over-demanding enterprise customers, careless execs, etc. could leave a lone individual feeling sorry for themselves, and defeatist. It's amazing how creative and determined one becomes when it feels like these different personas are causing setbacks that, rathervthan just interfering with your personal ambitions, might be stealing your kids' future opportunities and financial security.
I've seen something similar with regards to neglecting child development, but instead of nappies, they're just not fed properly. People who have more disposable income than I could imagine, but are strapped for time, feed their children the simplest, most low effort food imaginable. Think a cheeseburger from McDonald's, plain pasta or bread, frosted flakes, etc. Their excuse is that their child won't eat anything else, but more often than not it's a matter of getting them accustomed with other foods, which of course takes time and effort.
I'm getting to the point where I too feel like I most likely won't be noteworthy in any professional sense (i.e. a name known across the industry), but at moments like that I take solace in the fact I'm taking time to spend with my son, learn alongside him, and provide him a life that I never had in so many other ways.
Kids cured my nihilism. Since my first was born I feel more focused and find it easier to prioritize what's important. Could have never had this without the appropriate partner though.
I dont have kids and this post is really making me think about the future, wether i want kids or not, reading the comments i see people that say "i wish i had started having kids earlier"... Is it really that impactfull? Are parents really linked that hard towards their childrens? Im sincerely very courious about this...
There are two things that jump out at me being a parent of two children.
Until kids get to about 10 years old they need 24x7 supervision. Which means your time and energy is spent there. Your schedule completely revolves around them.
It’s hard to be 100% committed to anything else because you could get a call to attend to them regardless of your situation.
So yes, kids need their parents most of the time in early childhood.
However it also depends upon how much of community, relatives & governmental support you have. So take my words with a grain of salt.
Depends on each parent. Some are pretty distant or absent.
To me, my daughter is my world. But children are work too, however doesn't tell you this is lying.
As an ambitious engineer with a 10-month-old baby, this perfectly captures my situation and how I’ve been feeling. Thank you for writing it.
This resonates a lot with how I felt while building our company. My kids were born during the early days of our startup and it was pretty much what he described- work and being a dad. Thankfully the startup was pretty successful and I made a good amount of money that’s allowed me the luxury of not having to work when the older one was 10. I am really enjoying not working and being a full time dad :-)
thank you for this, very well written, and rings true.
I will say for me this is the root contradiction:
> I do not believe the quality time theory. I firmly believe in maximizing the quantity of time spent with them; there are no diminishing returns for them on that front.
If you believe that to be the most true statement, then it leads to the conclusion that you should work as little as possible to spend as most time with them, up to and including not working at all. The ambition to be kidmaxxing, if you will. This is incompatible with career ambition obviously.
I guess i'm just sharing the same frustration but with a stronger conclusion - it seems fundamentally contradictory to be ambitious in both, at least at young ages. Seems like we're fooling ourselves if we think you can, we're compromising on one aspect at least.
"Maximising time within reason" is probably a better construction. As usual if you follow these arguments to their absolute meaning they become ridiculous
But what’s “within reason”? Right now I have an unlimited list of ambitions of things to do with my kids. Traveling, sports, skiing, mountain biking, surfing, camping, building, electronics, etc etc… there are not enough hours in a year to do just those with zero paid work. Is that ridiculous, assuming I can afford to do so?
"Define nuance" I dunno, it depends on all of the factors that go into your life. There might be a lower level construction of the logical argument but it eludes me and begins to feel arbitrary
Ultimately any two ambitions will compete with each other for finite time and energy. (Assuming each ambition benefits from more time and energy being spent on it, which is usually the case.)
You can be reasonably successful in multiple areas, but you can't max them all, you have to compromise somehow.
i agree. But i read the blog post as the author trying to escape having to compromise. Which, as we seemingly both think, is not possible.
I read the post as the author acknowledging the compromise, expressing frustration about it, and determining to live on the pareto frontier with his strategy of focus and discipline and so on. Sacrificing other things in order to achieve both ambitions at a high level (though not maximizing either one).
I believe parents should definitely aim for both.
If you have kids and you prioritize your career to the point you never see your kids, and you will have huge and legitimate regrets later in life. Especially if you don't achieve Jobs / Musk level of financial success. That's pretty common knowledge.
But the opposite is also true. As parents, we're always examples for our kids, for better or worse. Do we want our kids to see us abandon our dreams 'because of them' or do we want them to see their parents showing them how to go after their dreams, because that's what life is about ?
The middle way, perhaps? What "dreams" are more important than having a strong connection with your kids? Not only are the regrets that will come later in life huge and legitimate, they would also be irreversible. But, assuming you're in relatively good health midlife, you can always attempt to build the 5 startups that will almost definitely fail. Just my opinion of course.
That's what I'm saying, maybe not with right words then.
Strong connections with kids are the most important thing, but it cannot be the only one. It wouldn't end great neither for both parties.
Ah, I may have misunderstood your comment. I thought you were leaning more towards the "dream" part. But so my comment also meant to say that the definition of ambition and success changed after becoming a parent. I know I won't be curing cancer in my lifetime and so what thing is really important that I have to sacrifice time with my children for? To me, being the founder of the next failed facebook for cats is just not it.
Note that I am not talking about earning a living and thus necessarily sacrificing time doing that and showing your kids that sometimes you have to work hard to survive in a decent way. I am talking about the parents who outsource their children to childcare to work to pay off the loan on their third car and newest iphone and tell you that they have no choice.
Just wanted to say thanks for putting words to the anxiety that lurks in the back of my mind most days. Glad to know I'm not alone.
This person is gonna burnout soon. If you have no clue why I would say this after reading this article, you might burnout soon as well..
Like OP with my first kid, I constantly had itchy fingers -- too many ideas to ever execute on. Tired and no more flow state. Work seemed like a waste of time with politics. My hobbies were my outlet - and now it was reduced to maybe 1 hrs a day.
Then AI got good. I've always been able to solve problems fast in my head, but was bottlenecked by fingers and dumb infra.
AI gave me my time back honestly. Nix solved infra. backlog CLI kept the work clear. Good engineering, in spurts.
Now I have more execution power than ever, and I can steer my minions. Yes, I don't get to code and there is little flow state, but I always better liked to solve a problem and go to the next than actually typing it out.
From my phone, wireguard and aVNC to my homelab, I conduct ralph loops on my architecture and principles. This is so powerful, that my brain poops out even more ideas - and so I find myself fully immersed - another kind of flow state.
Consequence: Brain fry and less sleep, so sometimes I just crash out and sleep for 10 hrs. Usually get 5-6 hrs nowadays.
Being a parent teaches you how to stop procrastinating and use every second you have available. You are at your most productive era (work items per minute spent).
The bad news is that the day still has 24 hours, and that means that your career needs to adapt.
For example I had to turn down an opportunity that would require me to be putting 70 hours per week and I stayed at a job that I could do 9-5. That opportunity went sideways (the startup failed) so overall my career is fine.
A lot of good stuff in this thread. The party I'll add and haven't seen yet is that I think being a dad has made me a better people manager at work. I think about humans more than ever and that has helped make me more efficient at work
I knew one lovely guy who was a young dad. He started in the server team and was team leader in 6 months.
Not because he knew about the tech, though he was learning fast, but because he knew how to wrangle and intermediate the man-children.
i've always given priority to my family and kids, at the detriment of my career growth. i viewed the job as being something in service to my higher calling of being a dad, not the other way around. I have no regrets.
In fact, I was sharing with my wife the other day that now that my kids are older I am finding myself able to give more to my work in a way I didn't/couldn't before. So my perspective is that, if you abandon the retirement mindset, you can have a fruitful and abundantly productive career later on after having prioritize your family. Especially in this early years when time spent is the most important. This post is right about that.
Being a dad is fulfilling enough that I don’t want to do anything else but hang out with my kids. Perhaps that’s what Paul Graham meant when he said kids make you less ambitious? And I know the day will come when they won’t like to hang out with me, so I’ll have the time to go back to building things.
I don't have kids and I am struggling on this front in my marriage, I am going to start therapy soon. I don't know how much I should be sharing here, but after 4 years in marriage I am realising that perhaps a married life is not right for me.
The realisations have slowly creeped in, I am just hooked to the computer, reading, writing, watching "stuff". There's a feeling I have realised, some kind of inner complex, of not being recognised enough, or not being worth of my skills. That's why I am "ambitious" in the outside world. It's not just tech, I have low self worth in general, and I try to overcome that by being better (leading to perfectionism). Marriage made me realise I have so many deep rooted issues and I am just not the right person to take responsibilities.
Even before marriage, I was escaping my Parent's responsibilties, in the sense of their mental health. I grew watching them fight and attempted suicide when I was in 10th grade.
Some months back I got a dream where I was playing with a bunch of puppies (I don't have any pets) and then I go back into my house and then one thing leads to another, I completely forget about those puppies as now I am reading about some esoteric civilisation, I am doing conversations with historians, watching documentaries... and then maybe after couple of days I realise I completely forgot feeding the puppies. They are probably dead, lonely, whatever.
I have have a love/hate relation with dreams in general, although they provide an escape, they also create a "stress" in my mind. In those alternative lives, there is always something going wrong, in the morning when I wake up, I am already stressed before my real life day has even begun. I start my day criticising myself on my mistakes (in the dreams).
I am 32 years old now, and should have had therapy way earlier but unfortunately I was just too ambitious and never took time out for it. I can do a lot and I know a lot of "stuff", which attracted my wife towards me who had a bf who barely passed school. But now I realise all this ambition stems from insecurities.
It's not a new realisation, I have been reading Jung, Freud, Schopenhauer since many years, I justified those insecurities, the perfectionism as a tool to become "better" in life.
But now, I am not sure what "better" means, when I am not happy in my life. I cannot take any responsibility without feeling burdened by it.
I just wish I was a simple regular human, who is happy and content with a basic job, a loving wife and has aspirations to have kids and live a regular life.
I like the OP, very honest.
Here's my 2 cents: In life, like in economy, everything's about marginal utility. If you work 5 days a week and you reduce by one, you gain 50% (free/family/hobby) time, while reducing 20% of work time. In the lost 20% work time, would you have produced the corresponding amount of output? Or are you even more productive because you avoid unnecessary meetings etc.?
It's clear that being an involved parents doesn't allow you pulling all nighters all the time or work through weekends and doing additional sideprojects. Though I agree that without full involvement and ambition one will not achieve a top position or become a tennis superstar, I think a good mixture of all aspects (family/work/sports/friendships) makes everything much more worthwhile. And in my opinion, all involved parent parts should have their fair share of those aspects.
- Parent with partner both working part time, living in a country that allows for that, equally sharing child care for two that regularly make them crazy, but it's soo worth it.
“Completely removing time-wasting activities”
Is a bit harsh to me. You might be ultra competitive but it could also be how you define it. But in my opinion sometimes “time wasting activities” are needed for recharging your own batteries and this kind of phrasing sounds like burnout.
Like if I said fishing someone would justify it as not being time wasting etc or meditating or something you would justify as health work but that justification is even contradictory to meditation at all.
time wasting is an odd phrase and stressful wording to me I don’t like. “wasting time” can sometimes be a productive and useful endeavor.
Conflating low quality downtime (like scrolling on your phone) to fishing is not fair. I've probably been happiest during periods of almost zero downtime (but still separate days off)
You’re missing my point that is that any activity that does not have a means to an end or reaching some goal or objective does not make it a negative… unless you’re ultra competitive and every single activity (even spending time with your kids) has to be seen as a means to an end.
This is pretty accurately defined as spiritual materialism
Thanks for sharing
Being dad is really hard joyful, you watch they grow from a tiny one to some big one which argue with you also sometimes care you when you sad
I quit from a high pay job because I want to enjoy more time with kids because I feel not get enough in my childhood
I like to read philosophy and settled with existentialism, this helps with the stress of low earning compared the previous time
Life may all about trade off, we may not lucky to get everything we want
One of the biggest challenges I have as an ambitious engineer and a father of two, is that I do actually have plenty of time to be a high achiever in both facets of my life, but only if I'm working in isolation.
My kids are active in about 12-13 hour period between 6.30am and 7.30pm. The rest of the time they're asleep. On school days, window of time in which I can actually be present with them narrows right down to two blocks: 6.30-8.30, and 3.30-7.30. That's only 6 hours in a business day in which I can be active and present with them, leaving me with 18 hours to get everything else done.
There's obviously more to being a dad than just being actively engaged with your children when they're at home and awake. There's all this supplemental work that needs to happen to support them as well. But it's not _that_ much.
The problem is that this I spend with my children actively overlaps the time in which my peers and co-workers are working. Not being available to my teams for synchronous communication slows down their execution, and not having my team available to me while I'm working slows down my own execution. When my team or I need answers or collaboration to unblock us, communicating asynchronously means we can potentially be blocking for half a day or more on a task.
At that point you can either just wait and be unproductive, or start/continue a different task, maintaining multiple active work streams. The latter is problematic for a number of reasons, such as the increased cognitive load of regular context switching, an inability to work on dependent tasks, etc.
So ultimately for me, I don't think the issue is that there's not enough time to do both, it's just that both work and family generally need you at the same time.
I worked with some ambitious motherfucker who fancied himself so important and so busy his secretary scheduled when he would take a piss.
He told me once that his work was his passion and his legacy. No kids, no wife. And he was brilliant and hard working. But he was running from something in his mind. There was a shakeup at the top and he got pushed out in the ensuing politics.
His legacy is a cautionary tale. But I don’t remember his last name.
He forgot to talk about hobbies :)
I had a conversation about this topic yesterday with a colleague of mine. We both found some kind of career-family balance, and are continually honing it. However, we both lamented the loss of hobbies.
The so called human progress and advanced lifestyle made the simple and natural things such as having kids an adventure.
Where did the "progress" go wrong? Why did it take us backwards in the very basic goals of human life and why is it still called progress?
I don't know if progress made it more hard to spend time with kids, on average.
In older generations, men spent relatively little time with little kids. I don't know if it was social convention or lack of time. Either way, it seems that now a lot more dads are spending time with kids than 2 generations earlier.
I agree that it is hard, but I would not paint a bleak picture.
It was both, however where I lived, a few years before fathers would get up at 6am and go and work down a mine all day, or a shipyard or factory. They might get home at 6pm but after dinner they'd quickly go for a pint or go fishing or go to the football. Women often didn't work, or worked part-time so they could take the kids to school so saw a lot more of the kids and managed the household more.
Now women have the freedom to work, so both sexes can choose to avoid seeing their children if they want to. Bleak indeed.
> can choose to avoid seeing their children if they want to
The choice is there. It's sad how many people choose to not spend time with kids. But the fact that more people have this choice now than they did in the past makes me conclude that it is not as bleak.
A somewhat unpopular opinion, but personally I don't mind being kind of absent in my kids' lives relative to others' expectations. I think there's been some expectation creep around parental involvement for high-achieving couples without much concrete evidence that it hurts long-term outcomes, assuming the child is otherwise healthy and well taken care of. There's also something to be said for leaning on grandparents and other support structures more heavily than a lot of people currently do.
One "superpower" from being married with kids is that your life becomes a lot more predictable. Like, having sex regularly and spending quality family time is probably a healthy part of a balanced, productive lifestyle, and is a good counterbalance to the stresses of a demanding career - it's nice not to always be thinking about how you're going to get laid, or in the event that you do become successful, whether or not your partner is just gold digging you or something. Although a lot of that depends on who you marry and making sure you're both doing good maintenance.
For what it's worth, I had a "high-achieving" dad. The big house, going on vacation and all that jazz was nice, sure. My grandparents and the support system were cool too. I consider the grandma who raised us while he worked like my second mother. I definitely would have preferred to get to spend a lot more time with him before he got old. Cause he is now, that wheel ain't turning back, and I barely got to know him. He was present as much as he could with the career he chose.
We turned out okay, no major problems with any of us, decent careers, whatever. I guess we probably wouldn't have turned out much better. So yeah, I guess there wouldnt have been much in terms of better "outcome". Still, my siblings have voiced the same regret. I genuinely think he does too. The expectation of being more present than he was is one I give myself, not "expectation creep".
I think the difference between your opinion and others is that for many being a dad is the intention and not an expectation. They want the experience of being an active and present parent. If it were purely about obligation, in this day and age they probably just wouldn't have children.
aka helicopter parent. Taking all the time and all the space. Poor kids.
> without much concrete evidence that it hurts long-term outcomes, assuming the child is otherwise healthy and well taken care of.
Not to pick on others’ life choices, but I don’t think that this particular assertion is true. Depends on your evidentiary bar, I suppose, but just from googling it:
* Mass General’s Fatherhood Project (https://thefatherhoodproject.org/schools/the-research/): “Findings from the rapidly growing science of early childhood and brain development show that a father’s active participation and emotional engagement with his children leads to improved social, emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes.”
* NYTimes (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/health/fathers-child-heal...): “Research Finds Interaction With Father, Not Mother, Affects Child Health”
* https://firstfivenebraska.org/blog/6-ways-children-benefit-f... provides a catalog of evidence and reported benefits
Just because you don't see the many small moments when your children need you doesn't mean they don't exist; trust me bro, they do. Your partner or support network is probably doing too much to cover for your absence, to you and your kids' detriment. Unless you're a horrible bastard, they'd probably rather have you around more.
I grew up having a "kind of absent" father who focused on his high-paying career more than spending time with his kids. He no doubt rationalized it to no end, but the net result was that he wasn't there when I needed him the most. Growing up I often wished we were poorer so he could be around more.
I agree in the strongest terms with the article's rejection of "quality time" as a substitute for quantity, and the rejection of delegating away one's parenting.
I agree so strongly that I walked away from a promising postgraduate degree and millions of dollars of future compensation in my relatively secure MAANG position to be a full-time father to my young children.
I know not everyone can do this and don't know what the future will hold, but at least we'll be together.
"Startup, parenting, hobbies, friends. I think you can do 2 of these well. But you'll have to quite light on the others."
Someone on X, don't recall who, but it resonated.
Why not having a hobby that includes friends? Playing in a band, singing in a choir, hiking, learning a language in evening school, going to the pub, just to name some of the possibilities. There are a lot more.
For “parenting” and “startup”, I would say that each is extremely hard to do well even when it’s the only thing on the list.
Parenting is easy. Kids don't need the fussy obsessiveness that has become characteristic of modern parneting.
Uh, I think at the very least you have to caveat on the age of the kids. Babies need a lot of fussy obsessiveness. Kids arms aren’t long enough for them to wipe their own ass until they’re about 4. Don’t know when you get them to start doing laundry or dishes but that takes longer still.
Watching my kid grow up I realise that despite the modern world having/wanting so many kids we really don't build affordances for them.
Most kids 5-8 at the family dinner table are trying to eat from a plate at shoulder height. No wonder they don't care about cutlery use. It's pretty hard to put downwards force on a knife that is at shoulder height, let alone coordinate all the minor muscle movements required.
The bathroom sink in most houses, similar height, and they struggle to reach taps and soap.
Little stools abound around the home!
But then you go out and public toilets have hand driers right next to their head. No surprise they complain it is too damn loud!
In a world where we supposedly want kids, if for no other reason than to keep society going, we sure don't make it easy for them.
Parenting is work, but it's straightforward. People obsess and fuss over the kids.
It shouldn't be hard though. For me personally, I'm mostly friends with other dads with kids and I do my hobbies (music, rock climbing, skiing) with my kids. It's not that difficult.
This. Involve your kids in your hobbies. If they aren't interested, that's okay too -- you can be involved in theirs. Some hobbies have a finite life anyway. You aren't going to be a gymnast forever, for example, and that's okay.
Love the article. One question; how do you unwind? I think it's achievable to spend enough time on both your career and your children, but consequently personal time will suffer.
How do you balance that?
Preach!
Bryan Cantrill (inventor of DTrace and cofounder of Oxide Computer) comes to mind as someone who seems to do both. It’s hard to know somebody’s parenting quality from the outside, but he talks about his kids a lot.
In his case, I think he didn’t start his company until his kids were older. I’m not sure what the early childhood years were like for him.
Father of three and startup founder here.
In college, I burned out on normal coursework and dropped out to teach myself how to code instead. To support myself, I worked in restaurants. I found that working as a dishwasher was quite complementary to learning to code. It was tiring physically, but I ended each day in need of mental stimulation, so went home and coded all night.
Now, as a father, I've found there's a similar complementarity in some ways but not others. There's a huge physical component to parenting, and this is perfectly complementary. There's also an emotional aspect (sometimes 2 or even 3 cry at once). This can be complementary or not depending on how much emotional labor work required (usually very little).
The one area where both work and kids is exhausting is attention. A toddler demands a huge amount of attention, and performing at work does too.
Great post Nicholas.
I’d look outside Silicon Valley for examples of how to do this well.
Outside of the big coastal cities, raising kids and building a career aren’t treated as competing ambitions. They’re just what people do.
This feels really weird. I feel like I’m far more productive than ever now, even with half the time spent and zero crunch. When I was younger I was flailing around doing tons of pointless shit. I could make up for that with more effort, but it doesn’t change that I can achieve the same result with far less effort now. So the output with children is more or less the same as before.
There’s also the simple fact that it’s much better for your productivity to play a round of tag than it is to attend another stupid meeting.
I can think of three other great dads who were hugely ambitious:
* Jimmy Carter * Bill Clinton * Barak Obama
Do we really know?
Well said. I hope some day to make it and start parent.capital a place where parents can get funding. I believe there are thousands of people out there with great ideas and immense talent who are unable to leave their salary and benefits behind to pursue them.
How is that different than normal VC? Most people I know get healthcare as soon as they are funded. The problem is what happens before that.
When you become a parent, your risk profile changes immensely. I can hire some of the world’s best people tomorrow if i can promise them equal salary, benefits and retirement accounts for a set number of years. Plus the benefit of a large upside if it works. Most startups offer lower salaries and abysmal benefits. Security matters.
I still don’t get it. It sounds like the business plan is to fund companies so they can offer compelling employment. That’s great but that’s no different than any other VC.
The weird thing is how most of the comments here are from dads saying it's hard but worth it in various ways. I've been scrolling for a while and failed to find an alternative point of view.
I guess HN users like their kids. Maybe enough time spent on software increases the relative percieved value of hardware.
It is not hard at all but worth it in many ways, then.
Literally:
> 1. birds & bees
> 2. time
> 3. ???(more time)
> 4. legacy
Then again don't forget being ambitious enough to be an ambitious founder, ambitious dad and an ambitious husband/wife/partner. And then being healthy enough to have energy to do all three. I keep thinking if I divide 24 hrs by 4, that would be the optimal time allocation to all 4 endeavors, but that's naive.
This essay feels like the 2010s when feminists were debating if it were possible as a women to "have it all": successful/satisfying career, family, and personal life.
While I do not know anything about DHH's parenting, rarely have I heard of a racist shithead being a good dad, so I'll keep my reservations, thanks
The capitalist LinkedIn-dwellers are obsessed with productivity. They can claim that AI will raise productivity and that we will need to work even more at the same time. Ultimately, most of the productivity gains in the recent decades are focused on displaying more ads, in one way or another.
Edit: I have realized my original comment/rant might have come off as a negative sentiment towards the post author. While generally, I sympathize with the author and agree with the original post. My rant has been focused exclusively on the current market trends and double-speak of AI productivity gains, layoffs and increased workload.
And focused on raising the rent.
“All the people I admire most are builders.”
If parenting and building are both truly aspirations, why not have people you admire that are great parents as well? I guess they don’t have many biographies for great moms and dads.
I admire the ambition. I wonder how many people out there are chasing both of these things, thinking they are being great parents and great builders, but are failing at one, or both.
I wonder if the solution is simply to focus and effectively use resources so you can be effective and ambitious in a reasonable number of hours. Which is fine for 99.99%. Only if you are at the helm of discovering a revolution in physics or changing the world in some other way then go all in when you have kids. Which today is rare since team work makes the dream work way more. Of course there is greed. If you are greedy that is a different thing.
Solution to what?
Regret
Just have a rule that you'll leave the office at 17:00.
I try this, but it has issues.
* Sometimes I'm in flow state, and so breaking at 17:00 breaks that.
* 17:00 is rush hour, so if so leave then, my commute goes from 60m to 90m. So I leave at 16:00, and catch up later. But now I'm context switching more.
* If it's 14:30 and I know I'm leaving at 16:00, then I'm hesitant to work on something that might need more focus/debugging.
All these are workable, and many parents are testament to that, but at least for me, it's all contributing to less productivity.
I think the hardest part is how to define “waste”. Are you “wasting” your time if you go to a school event for your kids during the weekday? Is it a waste of time walking your kids to the bus? Is it a waste of time reading to my kids before they sleep? I argue it’s extremely hard to draw that line and a personal question for sure but being “efficient” is hard.
"I firmly believe in maximizing the quantity of time spent with them; there are no diminishing returns for them on that front."
This is something that should be self evident to any parent, no need to write or read a piece to establish that truism.
Time to close the laptop and spend time with the kids...
I don’t know about you, but sometimes ambition is just to put food on the table. That’s all it’s ever got me and the rest is the dream to escape a life of work work work.
It is not just the time. Having kids (dependents) consciously or subconsciously lowers your risk threshold. Makes you less flexible in a lot of aspects. All these little things will lead to tempering your ambitions or take on additional stress to keep it up..
Be a parent, ffs. And be it, 100%. Be it 500%.
Having kids is easily and by a huge distance the very best thing you can “build”. It’s the best project you’ll ever make.
If you can find a way to run a cool thing on the side then great. I’ve been lucky, or something, and I have. And I love it.
But my kids are a trillion times more important. And now they’re 21 and 19 I can live knowing that I’ve launched the best couple of projects in the world.
The IPO in my parental project arrived and stocks are doing well :-)
How much did you sell them for?
Kidding, I largely agree with what you have said, my 3 year old is amazing. Teaching him big words and concepts brings me a huge amount of joy.
Ha :-)
3 is fun. They get better and better I reckon!
I too have to disagree with pg on that line `> having kids may make one less ambitious`. The fact is that the world is very very multi-modal, i.e. the brains of people and how they think are wildly different. I think having kids makes me more ambitious and more focused, and more selective re the problems I work on, partly because I am also setting an example.
“You can’t have it all” frequently comes unbidden into my brain when thinking about this sort of thing.
I don’t know, my goals are more and more about cool stuff I can do with my kids, and far less about business stuff? I’m not less ambitious but my ambitions have changed?
I'm coming out of the period where my kids need less help and it's really great working on projects alongside my kids making stuff. I try to model working on my projects as something that is enjoyable to me and that I am working over a long time period.
The trade offs are real, but a suppressed desire to have kids can lead to dissatisfaction and with time that will be hard to ignore or fix.
Also, let's just not ignore that Musk is wildly successful in having shown you an example that you don't have to choose one thing
He sure as heck failed at the family thing.
True, but try being a dad to 14 kids in today's world.
With the billions he has, not a problem if he actually tried.
When he dies, I while track the titles of news articles about the inheritance fight with mild amusement. I won't read the articles however...
He's having kids only to satisfy his eugenist, white supremacist kink. He doesn't care about them and even hate them if they stray out of his worldview - just ask Vivian.
I like it. Great points made.
I would only add that if increasing general family cohesion is one of your goals, I think having lots of kids accomplishes that. Having a large family and multiple automatic life long best friends brings me so much joy.
> setting clear rules on time with kids (weekday dinners, weekends prioritize family) and
Are these examples or an exhaustive list? Eating dinner during the week is.. not a lot. So I assume it's about setting time limits for these activities?
Being a great dad is also enough. Raising good kids is a huge benefit to society.
Many years before becoming a Dad, I recall watching a video recorded by the Penny Arcade web cartoon folks while working where they reflected on both becoming fathers and asked themselves if it had been a net drain on their productivity and creativity.
They both concluded (not quickly, they discussed it) no, because it forced both of them to level up their time management game, quit whining and learn to get on with it, to the point where they generally got more done a couple of years in.
I have found this to be true. Our little one is turning 3 in November, and while the first two years were a bit slower (I took half a year of work while my wife finished up her Master's, etc.), in 2026 I've so far had a fantastic year and find myself much more capable of juggling more balls at the same time, finally learned the skill of grabbing sleep where I can, etc. I'm pretty sure I already "had my act together" (as per the article) and was doing well career-wise, but raising the stakes on the family side has definitely only improved things.
Got a whole lot of Open Source work done, reverse engineered an old cult video game I used to play, wrote HMI and firmware for a robot used in the Great Pyramid of Egypt for a scientific mission, taught myself GPRs and built a new radar control system, spent a week rolling around in the dust of millenia inside Khufu's Pyramid, etc., all next to the day job.
The most unexpected professional/skills growth and fun year I've had in a while, and it's all so much more meaningful when I get to share it with the little one.
I agree with this. Especially as you gain experience and your work becomes less day to day grunt work and more high level strategic thinking, having constraints on time actually has been beneficial for me.
Taking work problems into other spheres of my life, especially parenting, gives me distance and a new lens to view them through.
Love this thinking and wish we'd see more content like this on HN.
Have discipline, and you'll have all the time you need.
Easier said than done, I mean, what I am doing here?
If your ambition is to have lots of free time and not too much responsibility...that's also difficult to balance with having kids.
I am in nearly the exact same boat as the OP. I'll observe a few things after having 2 kids and running a startup at the same time for a few years...
* Your amount of "lost" time with kids is often less than you think. On one side, you very likely socialized more, traveled more, were less disciplined about what you worked on, etc. On another side, some things that you are going to do anyway (dishes, maybe calling your parents, groceries), you can often do with kids, and so this time isn't really "lost"
* If you are fortunate enough to have some means, you might consider not outsourcing parenting, but outsourcing "life admin" work. Specifically things like laundry, dishes, buying groceries, picking up around the house, etc. I recently got someone to come to our house 3x / week for 3 hours and it's a game changer for me and my wife (who also works). (I know my point above says you can do some of this with kids, and that's kind of true, but not always, and it still lets you do other things with your time)
* Assuming you have a partner, and the premise here is you still want to be a very active parent, then I recommend being very deliberate about almost never parenting together. As in, one of you take all the kids, and the other can do what they want for 1-4 hours at a time.
Lastly, while I'm a pretty active dad myself, I reject the premise put forth here that your job is to maximize the time spent with your kids, as if this is the main metric by which parenting success should be judged. Just no. Actively no. Kids having time alone and with their own friends outside of the eye or ear of their parents is a really important part of growing up. Kids having time with various caregivers who are not their parents (be that grandparents, aunts, uncles, friend's parents, camp counselors, babysitters) is also good and healthy.
The struggle is real though. There's no easy answer. Hope these thoughts help!
I feel like my dreams have died with becoming a parent and having a family. 2 hours of free time isn't enough focus time to do anything significant or learn anything. I thought abound going back to school recently and there's no practical way to pull it off. Once they're in school I'll be in my 40s anyway. I doubt I'm pivoting my life into anything fun at that point. It's been tough to deal with mentally.
I grew up in a huge family with a dad who wasn't particularly successful but spent all his time working anyway, with little attention to either the household or to building relationships with his kids.
I think this was mostly a matter of temperament; he liked to work and he didn't really care much about the operation he was funding, which is unfortunately why he has no contact with most of his adult children today.
All that to say, I didn't mind that he worked a lot, but it was pretty damaging that he almost never spoke to me other than for urgent logistical or disciplinary reasons. Just, you know, don't do that.
The modern (mostly western?) obsession with "parenting" as a job/hobby is truly despicable. Probably as despicable as the standard education factory farming most of these parents are subjecting their children to. It is a miracle that despite all this parenting and education, some children manage to grow into fully formed individuals.
I love my parents. They are not perfect, but as much as they could afford, they never stood in my way. I love my children and I will strive to provide for them the resources, space, and freedom to grow and become who they are as individuals with infinite potential. I will never treat them as extensions of myself.
I'm writing this for the log, so I can remember my ideals. I'm sure everyone here has disagreements, opinions and wisdom that they wish to impart, but I frankly don't care. A culture that condones keeping dysgenic inbred mutilated wolves in one's house to satisfy the pleasure of "caring" for an animal weaker than oneself has no lessons to teach me about raising children. Whatever lessons I could distill from it for myself, I have already done so.
family life is not about "compounding gains" -- in part because family life is not about "gain" at all. On the contrary - you sacrifice and are ultimately consumed! The language of investing is entirely out of place in this context.
So, a time-constrained ambitious dad spends his time on HN and reads extensive biographies.
Good luck :)
I'm a father. Best thing I ever did, but it is work, it is hard.
In ways, it really crisped up my time working on work. My wife and I have some bottom lines, we're invovled, we have dinner as a family every day. We go to school events, all of them. We go to sports and activities, all of them (although there have been some times we had to split up and each to a different one.) I'm at the table when my kids have breakfast, every day except when I travel for work which is a week or two per quarter. It's great for the kids, it's great for the family but suddenly it feelds like your day is shorter. Personally, I have tried to find other "thought time" and that has resulted in much better execution when I get to writing code or plans or whatever. I used to sit at the blank editor and start to compose but now I am forced to think more before hand. I've built a few things I honestly don't think I could have built before kids, just out of necessity, I've had to be more efficient and effective.
There are also times of utter exhaustion but I had those before kids. I'll also went through the process of sort of cutting out extras to make time, once your kids are in that 10-11 age, they'll have friends and interests, I've added some of those extras back because they are busy on Sunday afternoons or whenever.
Weekday dinners? Pff.. I'm 100x better parent, and probably 100x less productive. But my employer is happy with me, I'm happy too, and my wife and kids too. So happy, I do not need to write articles about it.
Beat that
You touch on the right point when you say “completely removing time-wasting activities.” Looking at a handful of biographies and trying to extract universal lessons from them is somewhat misguided/infantile.
I used to be more ambitious, but I am not anymore. I enjoy my kids, I enjoy nature, camping, friends... I will the pointless work drivel to someone else and just collect the paycheck.
Money can solve most of these problems? Send your kid to daycare, hire a nanny or two and then the world will believe you can be a great father and ambitious and successful in your career. They do not see the village taking care of your kid while you are busy with work
Articulates my thoughts and conundrums better than I could have.
>"This sucks. I am ambitious: I wake up every morning with a burning fire in my stomach to build awesome things."
And then his company is an AI slop no-code website generator...
My career plateaued as soon as I had kids. I don't regret it, but companies definitely don't promote people with kids as rapidly, almost as if they know they have extra bargaining power over them because they have dependents to worry about.
If you have something to live for, you're less valuable to the company. That's more about corporate politics than some fundamental underlying truth about your productivity potential as a parent
I have had to very deliberately and repeatedly let myself off the hook for ambitions while parenting. There is SO MUCH that I am hungry to do, and none of it is as important as being fully present with my kids.
Will there come a time when these are more complimentary than in conflict? Maybe! But while the kids are young, not often. And while I feel the conflict, it’s helpful to have somewhat pre-decided what I’d regret more, and it would be not having connected with them.
If there’s time later to do great things, especially with them, so much the better.
> Steve Jobs literally abandoned his daughter Lisa because “the time wasn’t right” (he was focused on Apple).
Steve Jobs is also a criminal. See the court cases where he underpaid developers and conspired with other companies to avoid hiring people away. That is criminal.
See https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jan/23/steve-job... and many similar reports. It is time to stop idolizing this guy. The "time was not right" is not surprising by someone who steals money from developers, which Steve did here. Apple owes people money.
I had roughly the same realization about the pillars of math & science years ago. Many terrible, terrible parents whose children suffered mightily. While I had aspired to intellectual impact all my life, I had an unexpected realization. I could not bear the thought of being famous and intellectually successful yet having totally failed my children. It reversed my longstanding priorities, and I realized I wanted to be a parent more than I had thought.
I still believe that having passionate and driven parents is good for kids.
Being a dad has brought more focus into my life as an entrepreneur.
Great parents are invisible.
Being a dad has made me a more focused entrepreneur.
This is something that makes me really sad, because as an extremely ambitious man, I've found it difficult to make friends with men who are similarly ambitious. It seems that everyone gives up once they have a kid and becomes a helicopter parent. I like to think I'm a good dad (have four kids; work from home; regularly do sports, music, etc with them; cook regularly) and also pretty ambitious (work in a MAANA company, have side businesses and gigs, have a good marriage, hobbies, exercise, etc), but it's difficult to find other dads into this. Or at least that's my perception here in Portland, OR. I've met a few, but most ambitious people seem uninterested in kids, and the ones interested in kids seem thoroughly unambitious in my opinion.
One thing I hate about SV culture is the bullshit. Are we talking about making lots and lots of money? If so, please for the love of god just say so.
Fame? Status?
What really stands out reading this piece is how different this attitude is than what we as a society thought 50 years ago. The great men name-dropped in the article surely had more on their plates than the average 1960s middle manager at G.E., or corporate attorney, or advertising agency VP, or shift manager at a Ford plant, and thus were surely more absent parents than their contemporaries. But in that era, fathers didn't even lose any sleep over it. It was just accepted that their primary role was to bring home as much money as possible to pay for a better life for their family, and if you're lucky to leave a legacy as a builder of great things or organizations. It was the mother's job to raise the children (or in the wealthiest families, perhaps that fell to the nanny(s) while the mother focused on socializing or hobbies).
In two generations, we've gone from that to most dads constantly asking themselves "Am I a good enough dad? How could I be better?" Fathers feel that they aren't good enough if they merely provide for a good life for their family and set a good example. They try to find a way to, while of course not dropping the ball at all on the provider role, also be a 'fun dad' and a friend to their kids and be deeply involved in their lives.
I would say this is also kind of a mirror image to women's very real struggle post-1980 or so -- before, you were absolutely acknowledged to be a success if you cared well for the next generation of children and taught them to be good people. Some would say (and still do) that's one of the most important callings. Now women worry that they're not good enough unless they - without missing a beat on that first mission - also have an impactful and meaningful commercial career.
This isn't arguing to force people to perform only one sex-prescribed role or anything. And I don't want any parents to just be absent, because frankly being there for your kid is incredibly rewarding. I'm just saying, I think it's an insane amount of pressure we put on mothers AND fathers to be everything to everyone both within the family and in the professional world.
One of my fears is that I can't live up to how my kids look up to me.
Reality check: this guy worked on "Mocha is an online AI powered app builder. It allows everyone to build web apps, no coding required"
He 'loves' building. Building what? Crypto thing when crypto is hot and AI thing when AI is hot? Is there a word to describe this behaviour that we may be familiar with?
I believed this idea of kids = dead dreams for a long time. I don't think it's true. I think the author of the blog is letting his particular interests and cherry-picked examples cloud his judgment.
If you look beyond the narrow sphere of technology and founders, you'll find many of humanity's greats had kids, or more broadly, family responsibilities, at some point. Their ability and involvement as parents varies widely, but this idea that kids are some kind of an inevitable death-knell for "being successful" or renowned whatever that means, isn't true.
An alternative lens would suggest that having kids reveals a lot about life that you can use in your other pursuits.
Your kids also eventually become adults, at which point the demands likely lower significantly.
Just like the "starving artist" myth, it's mostly baloney hyperbole that people promulgate because there's some obvious basic truth to it, but it isn't a law of the universe by any means.
We have one life and so much we want to do. This was me, now I have kids. Wake up, read news reply to email. Get kids ready for school. From drop off at school straight to work, from work straight to pickup the kids.
My working hours are 6-9 most days. Wish I had more hours in the day.
I don't know if I'm ambitious. I've worked my way to a high-paying tech job I enjoy. I'm not looking to found a startup or job-hop my way to a fancy title, and plan to stay here until I retire if I can. On the other hand, I put a lot of effort into my work, not because I'm angling for a promotion but because I like what I do and I want to do the best I can for the users.
Does that count as ambition? Doesn't really matter. The basic tension described here is strong, in any case, between work and family.
> Some figures in technology (Paul Graham, DHH, Jeff Dean, even Mark Zuckerberg) seem to be pushing on both fronts with rare success
Possibly true, but who knows. Especially Zuck, who does not lead a remotely ordinary life (imo).
Dad of 2 girls. 8 and 4. Maybe this should be titled “being ambitious because you’re a dad”
I am better than ever post kids. Always great, no. Always amazing, no. Not sure I agree with the post otherwise, especially quality vs quantity. High quality interactions are the best.
Focus on your kids, your health, and your work? It seems like a very tall order.
You've studied many notable builders, but have you studied the great dads? How much time does one have to spend to be a great dad? Do they get to pick the times when they can spend their focus on being dad, or do they have to be present at times they'd rather be doing other things? I think being a great dad might involve a lot of taking your children to sports practice, music lessons, play dates, libraries, and tons of other activities until you discover what clicks with them, and then there's many years of supporting those interests. I don't think you can just put it on pause during the week. To be a great and present dad, I think you can only count on being able to spend maybe 55 to 60 hours a week on work (with a lot of that being after bedtime and/or starting very early).
Looking at the great builders, I think the common element is that they picked the right thing to work on at the right time, in the right place, executed better than their peers, and also had a ton of luck.
* Zuckerberg was in the right place at the right time with ample luck and he chose to drop out of Harvard to spend a few years doing the hardcore startup house thing working exclusively on building Facebook, and nine years later he had his first kid. Right place, right time, strong execution, and much luck.
* Bill Gates was in the right place (a high school where he got extensive access to a mainframe computer, then in a local company that gave him and his friends unlimited computing time in exchange for them finding and fixing bugs) at the right time (when mainframe computers were an extremely rare and expensive thing and before operating systems existed) and he dropped out of Harvard to go all in on building Microsoft, then 21 years later he had his first kid. Right place, right time, right skills, great execution, and much luck.
* Paul Graham was in the right place (a Harvard CS Ph.D. who studied design at RISD living in NYC) at the right time (during the Internet 1.0 boom and before both the bust and before anyone else had brought a site building cloud application SAAS offering to the market), and he brought a great idea to market in time to sell it to Yahoo in 1998 for $49M of stock and he correctly elected to cash out his stock before the bubble burst in March 2000. And then he leveraged his great technical and business faculties to identify and develop great business ideas via YCombinator (2005-present). Then he had his first kid in 2009). Right place, right time, right skills, great execution of a novel great idea, and much luck.
* John Carmack is probably the platonic ideal of focusing and getting things done. His work ethic and habits are legendary (8 hours of sleep a night, 10 hours of focused work a day, and 60 hours of work a week) as is his output (Doom, Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake). In 1978 he discovered video games and in 1982 (at age 12), his family bought an Apple II computer and he quickly learned BASIC to start making games before digging deeper to learn assembly code. He gained deep and extensive knowledge of how computers work, motivated by his drive to make games, and this enabled him to make the limited PC hardware of the time do things comparable to purpose-built arcade machines. He came up at the right time, had sufficient interest, drive, and vision that motivated him to deeply explore and master computing as well as design and develop many iconic games of the 1990s. Then in 2004 he had his first kid, at which point he started working less, although still a 50+ hour per week workload. Luckily his children are interested in programming, which makes it easier for him to get quality time in. Still, right time, great skills, great ideas, much luck.
* etc.
Having a child already, you might be a bit constrained. But if you can manage getting into the right place to seize upon a great and novel idea that you are uniquely positioned to execute on, you might be able to build the idea out while the market and need is unserved.
Another potential strategy is to work on an established business model that someone else came up with, and spend your evenings and weekends with your children. The best dad I knew growing up did this (he was/is a database administrator and was the dad of three of my friends I knew through my boy scout troop who have all grown up to do incredible things and also be deeply happy people) and is still one of the coolest, most interesting and well-rounded people I've ever met.
In 100 years nobody will know who you were. In 200 years, only a few hundred people will be remembered from today. So what is the goal of your ambition? Is it the self-satisfaction? Temporary bragging rights that will be soon forgotten? Whatever wealth you accumulate, you can't take it with you. The pharoahs already trie this. It doesn't work.
Nobody's going to give a shit that you founded an AI company and sold it to Meta for $600 million. Sure you can enjoy the material benefits while you're here. Maybe you can even pass some of that onto your children.
The Good Place was one of the best TV shows of the best shows of the last decade (IMHO) and it brought up a relatively recent (1998) book "What we owe to each other". It makes the point that it's not a question (ie "what do we owe to each other?"). You're only meaningful impact is on the people you affect around you, positively or negatively.
Personally, I have no opinion on whether people should or shouldn't have children. That's none of my business other than this: you have to make a choice between having and raising those children and chasing material "ambitions". Bringing people into the world without their consent and then neglecting them makes you an objectively terrible person. Pick a lane.
And if you do choose ambition instead, at least ask yourself why. Studies have been done on this. Money does buy happiness but only to a very limited point. Beyond that it's isolating. So why are you doing whatever it is you're ambitious about, really?
Materialist ambition is not the exclusive worthwhile option besides raising children, for how to spend a life
Jesus. I couldn't imagine being a YC startup bro with kids.
If you can’t have a career and a family you may be in a death cult.