I thought this was a great article, because it acknowledged a fundamental fact: life is all about choices, and for too long many people were fed the lie that "you can have it all".
Time is finite. You can either spend some particular moment working at your job, or you can spend that moment with your kids - you can't do both. While some people may be better at balancing the two, the fact is in a competitive economy there will always be people without kids (or who don't spend much time with their own kids) who won't need to make the same tradeoffs. No amount of government policy will change that fact.
Its way worse than that. Western culture right now says, "You need it all." Learning to make choices that fit with reality, instead of this lie, is hard. There's a lot of implicit judgement for choosing different priorities than the people around you.
Coming to the realization that I can't have it all a few years ago was liberating and has greatly improved my mental health. I used to pursue too many things naively thinking I could excel at all of them. I'm now content with knowing that picking one path 100% means you're excluding other paths, and there's nothing wrong with that.
> Everyone knows kids consume your time. But what people without kids may not realize is the extent to which people with kids want their time to be consumed by them.
This is one of the hardest parts of parenthood to communicate to non-parents: Yes, children demand a lot of time and attention. However, as a parent you actually enjoy spending that time with your children.
To the author's point: Different people will want different balances between time spent working and time spent with kids, and that's fine as long as it remains a balance. There are different ways to divide up time and attention that don't require sacrificing everything for the children. It took me a while to learn that having both parents available on demand 100% of the time isn't necessarily great for the child's development as they grow up. Dropping your kid off at daycare is hard the first few times, but watching my child have fun and develop relationship skills with other kids and people was eye-opening. There are many ways to split the load between parents that are fine in the end.
It also helps to remember that "they grow up so fast" is cliche, but it's true. The most demanding early years of child raising fly by quickly. I don't mean to downplay the effort involved, but the situation continues to change as they grow up and become more independent, eventually spending more time at school, on independent activities, with their friends, and so on.
It's very difficult for anyone trying to balance demanding startup needs with demanding infant needs, but I also know many people in the startup world who simply had young kids and did startups at different stages in their career rather than overlapping the two. There's nothing wrong with working for a relaxed, big company while your kids are young and need attention, then switching gears to startup mode after they're more independent.
> It also helps to remember that "they grow up so fast" is cliche, but it's true. The most demanding early years of child raising fly by quickly.
It blew my mind when I heard someone say "kids are only toddlers for a couple of years". As a kid you feel like childhood lasts an eternity, and their developmental stages are so significant, but in comparison they spend less time at each phase (infant, toddler, little kid, etc) than most people spend on a bachelor's degree. I can't imagine how fast the time must feel as a parent, and it helps put into perspective for me why it's difficult for them when kids grow up, since it's not necessarily intuitive to think of their growth in terms of quantitative time.
> It also helps to remember that "they grow up so fast" is cliche, but it's true.
Here's another one for you - "The days are long, the years are short."
There's a song that I also often play in my head during frustrating times "You're going to miss this." To me these are both good daily reminders.
Very important side note for your health! NEVER EVER say any of the above three things to your spouse when they're stressed or had a bad day. They don't want to hear that. Just listen & comfort them. Remind them on a good day only.
I think a lot of that comes from parents often expressing all the negatives of parenthood rather than the positives. Even the ones who love spending time with their kids, in my experience, talk more about how much attention the kids need, taking them to school, the diaper changes, the crying, and so on. This isn't to say that all parents are like this; I've met some really passionate parents, and my parents relished raising me. But in interpersonal discussions as well as popular media, parenthood is usually portrayed as a chore and even a "whoopsie".
One comment a friend said that always stuck with me was "I have never regretted any time I spent with my children".
Compare that to work. I'm sure we all have regrets with work. Late nights or weekend working on something that didn't turn out to be worth it. Or working for somebody that didn't turn out to be worth it. But kids? Always worth it. Spend your time wisely.
One of the biggest issue with all this is "We lost the community in the pursuit of individuality". It takes a village to raise a child. I grew up in kind a commune. Most of the days kids would be on the streets playing, eat / sleep in their neighbours house. Moms were able to manage house as stay at home moms (hardest yet under-appreciated job) relatively better because of this community care provided for children.
Easy to ask, Free to use community driven child care. People who are less-fortunate are better in forming communities than wealthier ones. Cities dwellers lose out on such things.
As a whole, we need to do better to support parents and extra more for moms. I would not hesitate to offer to keep my friends / neighbours / colleagues children under my care for few days / hours if they need it. No fuss / No fee - just classic pure help to my fellows.
Investing in children / women lot more than we do now is vital for all our success, sooner we realize it is better.
Depends on the environment. I grew up in a city, but your first paragraph matches my childhood pretty well.
Our neighborhood was a cluster of short, twisty streets, with narrow roads and broad sidewalks. Our street had about 40 houses/apartments (mixed zone), and at least 10 of those had school-going children. In my street, I was one of the oldest so I mostly played with a few other kids from "'round the block", but I never needed to go beyond a 100meter-radius from my home.
Our moms took turns doing the school runs, supervising the little ones when they were outside, even cleaning or babysitting if needed. But right now, I don't see much of this happening where I live: a faceless street with a broad road and narrow sidewalk, more than 100 apartments but hardly anyone knows each other. Maybe it's just because I don't have children so I don't look for it, but I hardly ever see children playing outside on the streets here.
I think this is true only in certain Western countries. I was born and raised in Turkey, and was an apartment dweller until I moved to the US for college. Growing up, I knew all the neighbors in our four or five story apartment complexes, and I knew their kids. So did my parents. And the community aspect was pretty strong — when my parents both had to work late, I just headed over to one of the neighbor's condos and played video games with their kids, and sometimes stayed well past dinner.
In the US though I have trouble envisioning such apartment communities. Maybe they exist, but based on my own living in apartments in America myself, the experience is a lot more... sterile and cold.
I think the root of that problem is also investing in reducing single mothers. The US has the highest rate of single mothers globally iirc and that isn't a good thing. Not only are these women likely raising a child in a single income, but they most often are raising them during times of their lives when they should be in college or forging careers...or frankly getting married.
Now this isn't some sexist rant that women should marry, but it's the antithesis of "takes a village to raise a child." Most of these single moms tend to have smaller social groups, have sporadic family ties, and often have mental health issues due to poverty that comes with being a single mother. It's harder than going to college and working full time but doesnt pay. And paying them off to live that lifestyle doesn't incentivize men to want to want to support a spouse. I really hate to say it in all my life, but I honestly think conservatives were right about the aspect of a family. It's vital and for some reason it's being tossed aside as though it's not needed anymore and that the root problem isn't somewhere else.
Yes, and we just threw away what little shared child-raising community we did have with Covid restrictions. Raising children isolated and alone is absolutely against every instinct, and (I think) incredibly bad for the long-term health and welfare of all involved.
We will see how this plays out, but in my experience so far, it's women who have ended up returning to defacto and fulltime childcarers. Our response as a culture to Covid may mark the high point of women's progress in the workplace.
This doesn't take care of the aspect of parents wanting to spend time with their kids. It's just "we need more daycare options so that mothers can focus more on their careers".
I feel the same pressures. Like I'm a failure for not wanting what it feels like so much of silicon valley thinks all of silicon valley wants. But nope, I'm supposed to be passionate about work. This sort of toxic work culture seems worse in startups especially.
> Everyone knows kids consume your time. But what people without kids may not realize is the extent to which people with kids want their time to be consumed by them. And, on the whole, I’d guess women more so than men.
That last sentence makes me sad in all sorts of ways. It's probably true, but the expectations are self-reinforcing, expecting women to be more family oriented than they might want, and expecting men to me more work oriented than they might want.
Indeed. I don’t think it really helps women in the workplace if we just go along with the assumption that men are more work focussed and women more family focussed.
I worked two startups where I had kids. One where I had one kid, and another where I had two kids. Startups plus babies is hard no matter what sex you are.
Up all night with baby and always-on work. Its a recipe that will drive anyone to the brink.
There is a very cool startup in Brazil creating a startup accelerator meant only for moms. Check it out if this interests you: https://www.b2mamy.com.br/
> I remember chatting with a woman at a work event one night and asking if she needed to go home soon because of her kids. She replied, “No, I see my kids on weekends.” I couldn’t help but cringe thinking about what it would be like to only see my son on weekends. It seemed horrible!
If you work 9-5 (really 8-5 most places) this is basically true anyway. Most of the time you get with them on weekdays may have some quality just for existing, but is really pretty poor. Rush around in the morning, send them off to wherever, get back home at 5:30 or later just in time to throw together or eat dinner (depending on whether your spouse stays home), then bed-time routine, or they run off and do their own thing for an hour or two (friends, bike riding because god knows they don't get enough time outside at school for e.g. basic eye health, homework, whatever) while you try to get the house in something resembling order for the next day, then bedtime routine.
Any way you slice it, weekday time-with-kids for someone with a normal job is pretty crap. If you're a super-parent you might be able to make some of it a little better or more valuable. Finding maybe an hour a couple nights a week is doable, especially if you shift all your clean-up into your "alone time" and basically live kids, cleaning, and work all your waking weekday hours (ugh, no).
If you're in the founder set and see loss of weekday time as a huge sacrifice, then I'd guess you're paying someone to handle a bunch of the bullshit in your life. At least regular cleaners and maybe you don't do much of your own cooking, and possibly you have one of those kid-chauffeur services. Ordinary working people don't spend a ton of quality time with their kids during the week. Again, seeing them at all may have some value, but you're not gonna hang out undistracted by other life-junk for any serious length of time.
Weekends? That's where the good times are. Morning and evening weekday hours are just too eaten up with trying to get by. About the best you get is a smooth routine that's at least not a negative experience for all concerned.
> Ordinary working people don't spend a ton of quality time with their kids during the week.
Quality time was a invention of the in-retrospect rather entitled parents of the 1970s who justified their neglect with the idea of "well I don't spend much time with my son but when I do it's quality time!".
The truth is kids, particularly young kids just want time. They want to see you around and have you take a active role in their lives. You can be around and clean the house and cook dinner at the same time, have the child help. Kids would much rather have a parent who sits on the couch to watch TV with them for a half hour every night then one that takes them to Disneyland one Saturday a month.
EDIT - Jerry Seinfeld on the topic:
“I’m a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. These guys that talk about ‘quality time’ — I always find that a little sad when they say, ‘We have quality time.’ I don’t want quality time. I want the garbage time. That’s what I like. You just see them in their room reading a comic book and you get to kind of watch that for a minute, or [having] a bowl of Cheerios at 11 o’clock at night when they’re not even supposed to be up. The garbage, that’s what I love.”
I have fond childhood memories of my dad on weekday evenings: card games; scrabble; quick swims in the ocean; sneaking out of bed if he made nachos late at night.
Of course I have weekend memories too (more of the above, plus also trips/camping/whatever). But they actually stand out less in my memory than the almost-habitual kind of weeknight stuff.
I think the author makes a great point. In fact, I think that your attitude to parenting even determines the kind of startup you're able to run.
My experience matches closely to that of the author. Our second kid got born a few months into my startup and on average I think I've spent more time raising our kids than my wife has. I'm a man, but in terms of old-fashioned gender roles, I've become the mom.
I think that this has profoundly influenced the kind of startup we've become. Even if I wanted to, I could never do those typical mad coding frenzies, or spontaneous multi-day deep dives, or working through the night because of some important customer/opportunity/deadline. After all, my kids wake up at six (if I'm lucky) and much it's going to be on me.
Our company became the kind of company that has a healthy work/life balance, lets people work flexible hours and trusts that they do the work. No pressure to do overtime, no arbitrary deadlines just to create a sense of urgency, no chaos just because we're a startup so there's gotta be chaos, right? We ship fast not by stressing everybody out but by aggressively scoping down and then shipping that when it's done.
Thing is, my personality is actually much more hectic than that. I could've totally been that enthusiastic founder that drives half the team into a burnout through sheer passion. Mad beer-fueled coding nights, going for the Ballmer Peak. But I have two kids, I'm off at five, you're gonna have to drink that beer without me. Might do a few hours in the evening but to be frank, I'm often all out of energy once I finally got the boys to bed.
I sometimes envy those male founders who just drop everything and go all-in on the company, and just "let the wife handle the kids". In some ways it's almost offensive to me, what is it, 1960? Give your wife some space too, man. But it also sounds exceptionally luxurious.
At the same time, why would I want kids if I didn't want to be with them? That context switch twice a day is harsh, it's killing. But I think it's also the only thing that keeps me sane.
EDIT: I just noticed that the author makes a related argument in an earlier article: https://femfosec.com/start-a-startup-before-you-have-kids/ I don't fully agree, but I do think that you're unlikely to be able to run a stereotypical VC-treadmill super-high-intensity startup while raising small kids.
Kids are a distraction to intense work. At the same time, becoming a parent is a potential growth experience that is unrivaled and brings value. Healthy kids are a value to society. Non-parents benefit from a society full of healthy children. Parents should be rewarded--or at least equally as compensated--with pay and/or status that tracks with the successes those unburdened with parenting achieve.
Pay/status/compensation from your employer? If that's what you're suggesting, I strongly disagree. That's hardly the role of any company. And it implicitly ties value judgments to your workplace, which is a very sad state of affairs. You don't need corporate recognition to validate your decisions.
I think one thing the aristocracy got right was that your children are a reflection of you as a parent. That seems to have been lost nowadays in the US. Nowadays, a problem kid is due to video games, school, peers, you name it. No, it's the parent, 95% of the time. But we let the parents off with they did their best..but did they?
It strikes me that there is some kind of cognitive dissonance that prevents people from recognizing their time as a commodity. I understand and support the push to normalize women in the workplace in leadership positions but there seems to be a failure to recognize the cost.
I think the "traditional" family roles of mother stays home and father works are outdated but I think the train goes off the tracks when people want to throw the whole idea out completely. To me, the outdated part is just the gender roles. I don't think both parents can be CEOs, someone has to be the primary caretaker because, as so many mothers have said in the past, it's a full time job. Couples of any configuration need to have an understanding of who is going to take what responsibilities when they have kids and often/sometimes that's going to require sacrifices in both career and earning potential for one or both parents.
Who doesn't want twice as much time? I wish I didn't have to sleep sometimes. But if my wish came true I still wouldn't have enough time. Alas, we all have to decide what to spend our time on and, therefore, what not to spend our time on.
Nowadays everyone in society is lured into higher education and paid work. They naturally grow their lifestyles to fit the dual income and things are looking good. Then all of a sudden they're running out of time to reproduce but now nobody has any time to dedicate to it.
Where did it all go wrong? Women are trading husbands for bosses. Seeking freedom as a gear in the corporate machine, working to line the pockets of billionaires instead of cleaning their own houses, cooking their own food and, yes, raising their own children.
Expect more and more women to come forward as they realise that choosing to be a wage slave probably wasn't the best idea after all.
To be fair, it's a blog targeted at female founders. I think it's treated as a mom problem because of the audience, not the problem.
(I say this as a startup founder and dad, i.e. a man in exactly the situation the article describes. I first felt dismissed until I realized what website I was on)
Perhaps the issue is classifying it as a "problem" in the first place. As in, why is it considered problematic to want to spend more time w/ kids knowing it affects work-related opportunities? We generally accept that we can't master dozens of hobbies at once due to the inability to put the necessary time and effort into all of them, so why then is it considered a failure to pick one of the choices if the two conflicting activities are family time and main job?
I think the author comes to the right conclusion: they come to terms to the fact that spending time w/ kids is a good reward for them, for making the trade-off of not becoming a CEO.
I suppose one could argue that guilt for choosing kids over work is more of an issue for men because of societal expectations wrt income earning responsibilities. But then again, at the end of the day, regardless of whether you're a man or a woman, do you really want society to dictate what happiness/success should look like for you personally? If anything, someone who is in a position to be able to turn down a CEO position ought to be considered a highly successful individual by any societal standards </two-cents>
Hell, I'm having the same problem as the foster parent of a cattle dog! Near constant demand for attention, wanting lots of play time and exercise and mental stimulation and affection... I don't have kids but I imagine it is similar!
Yeah, as a busy new dad dipping my toes in the startup world, I was cringing the entire time wondering why they seem to assume this only applies to women.
I’ve worked harder established companies than I ever did at startups.
Being a parent is hard no matter where you work. Those who talk about balancing their career with their desire for children might as well dream about winning the lottery.
All of your high minded ideals will be directly confronted by a screaming baby who can’t clearly express their needs for another 6-12 years.
I don’t think this problem is truly unique to startups.
The focus on "start-ups" here, while not exclusively, does sway far toward the VC-model, of course because that's also YC's model.
Is that model nearly incompatible with parenting? It might be. But that doesn't mean that there aren't parallel eco-systems of "start-ups" for those with various lifestyles (I know, lifestyle b**** is a dirty word here.).
The hypergrowth, VC-funded startup model virtually depends on founders and executives investing 100% of their time and energy into the company. With most startups trying to capture new markets, if you don't give 100% then your competitors will.
Obviously any job that requires 80-hour works isn't going to be compatible with spending a lot of time with your kids. Like you said, there are plenty of other businesses and business models that don't have such onerous demands. They may not become the next unicorn and VC darling, but they leave room for a more normal life outside of work.
I think they are quite incompatible. Me and my wife have a 1y4m old and we mostly don't do anything else nowadays.
Other than that we have (had?) a startup that is now mostly on hold, except for some hacking that we do now and then when one of our mothers is around.
We are very lucky that we are mostly financially independent from before our son was born, otherwise I would have to go work in an office and it would be a lot harder for my wife to look after the baby.
We can’t expect more women to succeed in the startup world until we’re able to talk honestly about how much harder startups are for those who want to spend a lot of time with their kids.
I think the expectation of being able to do both is quite unfair, at least the expectation of being able to do both well. There are many things that aren't compatible with being a cofounder. For example, you're not going to start a successful SaaS company while being a deployed Marine rifleman, or an NFL quarterback, or EMT, or solo truck driver. We need to stop telling people they can not only do anything they want, but everything they want.
I think it's possible that male, man, men can be substituted for female, woman, women in this article and have it be just as true except for this:
> But what people without kids may not realize is the extent to which people with kids want their time to be consumed by them. And, on the whole, I’d guess women more so than men.
"talk honestly about how much harder startups are for those who want to spend a lot of time with their kids. Combining startups and kids is not only difficult, but the difficulty varies"
Everything in this article can be said about certain dads as well. I know, I’m one of them. Before I had kids I started a company, raised VC, and sold it.
The fact is that there are 24 hours in a day. If you put 4 into your kids that’s great, but there’s someone else putting those 4 into the company. Success is not all about time invested — Elon Musk at 1 hour a day will outperform me with 8 hours a day — but people make their choices in life and I don’t think it’s fair for my group putting in 8 hours a day to ask for the same outcomes from the market as the group putting in 12+.
I'd have to say it's partly a "grass is greener" kind of thing.
Just like that one person at a job who apparently "does all the the work". At least according to them. To hear them tell it, the entire enterprise would collapse if they weren't holding it together by sheer force of will. But surprisingly, the place operated just fine before they were brought on and it'll operate fine after.
It's just that we get so focused on our contributions that we don't see what others do as contributions. I'm sure the parents who don't take the kids to soccer practice see soccer practice as "time off" to some degree. Sure, you have to drive and what not, but once you're there, you're just sitting around. And blah blah.
I think I may be experiencing this right now. We just bought a house and we've been getting it set up and what not. My wife is an elementary school teacher at the school her son attends. So she's finishing the school year in that district. And since it's an hour and half drive each way, it's easier for her and the kid to stay with her mother.
It's been a steady stream of ordering what we needed, building those things, etc. I've felt like I've not really had any time off. Especially since I'm doing this around work. I'm under the impression my wife has not seen it that way. Either through underestimating build times or just not being aware. I've pointed out things and she's said that she flat out did not notice.
Also, there's a thing the kid likes to do. There's a certain game we play and it's me and him. She can spectate, but the actual play involves me. I'm not 100% into this game for various reasons, but I recognize that it's important to him and it's also important to spend that time with him. It may be a response from my own childhood, but I do not brush off his requests for time lightly. And I don't dictate how we play or socialize either. I leave that mostly up to him. He needs to explore his own creativity and whatnot. I think my wife gets a touch jealous about the ways he favors me in some regards. And it's hard to talk about it, because in my opinion, it's because if she wants to do something else, she'll push it to "later" or she'll try and change the manner in which he plays because it's not "right". Basically, she's trying to define the interaction on her terms, while I allow him to define it on his.
But she probably sees some of the time I spend with him as "time off" whereas I see it as performing not exactly a chore, but not as leisure time either.
But who gets to define work and who gets to define leisure?
So, I have issues with the whole "emotional labor" movement. It reeks of the person I mentioned in the beginning, someone who can only see their own contributions.
Ultimately, it comes down to the question of whether or not something makes your life easier or harder. If it makes your life easier, maybe don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Personally, I think everyone should live truly alone, no roommates, no partners, just them and whatever pets they may have. See what it takes to literally do everything required. I think it would give a lot of people perspective.
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|4 years ago|reply
Time is finite. You can either spend some particular moment working at your job, or you can spend that moment with your kids - you can't do both. While some people may be better at balancing the two, the fact is in a competitive economy there will always be people without kids (or who don't spend much time with their own kids) who won't need to make the same tradeoffs. No amount of government policy will change that fact.
[+] [-] intrepidhero|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] feistypharit|4 years ago|reply
You can do anything you want, but you can't do everything you want.
[+] [-] dgs_sgd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|4 years ago|reply
This is one of the hardest parts of parenthood to communicate to non-parents: Yes, children demand a lot of time and attention. However, as a parent you actually enjoy spending that time with your children.
To the author's point: Different people will want different balances between time spent working and time spent with kids, and that's fine as long as it remains a balance. There are different ways to divide up time and attention that don't require sacrificing everything for the children. It took me a while to learn that having both parents available on demand 100% of the time isn't necessarily great for the child's development as they grow up. Dropping your kid off at daycare is hard the first few times, but watching my child have fun and develop relationship skills with other kids and people was eye-opening. There are many ways to split the load between parents that are fine in the end.
It also helps to remember that "they grow up so fast" is cliche, but it's true. The most demanding early years of child raising fly by quickly. I don't mean to downplay the effort involved, but the situation continues to change as they grow up and become more independent, eventually spending more time at school, on independent activities, with their friends, and so on.
It's very difficult for anyone trying to balance demanding startup needs with demanding infant needs, but I also know many people in the startup world who simply had young kids and did startups at different stages in their career rather than overlapping the two. There's nothing wrong with working for a relaxed, big company while your kids are young and need attention, then switching gears to startup mode after they're more independent.
[+] [-] silicon2401|4 years ago|reply
It blew my mind when I heard someone say "kids are only toddlers for a couple of years". As a kid you feel like childhood lasts an eternity, and their developmental stages are so significant, but in comparison they spend less time at each phase (infant, toddler, little kid, etc) than most people spend on a bachelor's degree. I can't imagine how fast the time must feel as a parent, and it helps put into perspective for me why it's difficult for them when kids grow up, since it's not necessarily intuitive to think of their growth in terms of quantitative time.
[+] [-] mattferderer|4 years ago|reply
Here's another one for you - "The days are long, the years are short."
There's a song that I also often play in my head during frustrating times "You're going to miss this." To me these are both good daily reminders.
Very important side note for your health! NEVER EVER say any of the above three things to your spouse when they're stressed or had a bad day. They don't want to hear that. Just listen & comfort them. Remind them on a good day only.
[+] [-] ravenstine|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hapticmonkey|4 years ago|reply
Compare that to work. I'm sure we all have regrets with work. Late nights or weekend working on something that didn't turn out to be worth it. Or working for somebody that didn't turn out to be worth it. But kids? Always worth it. Spend your time wisely.
[+] [-] FireBeyond|4 years ago|reply
> Like there’s a single standard of interest that women have in being with their kids when, in fact, it varies a lot between women.
If you have "little" interest in being with your kids, well, what's motivating you to have them, and is that fair on them?
[+] [-] hvaoc|4 years ago|reply
Easy to ask, Free to use community driven child care. People who are less-fortunate are better in forming communities than wealthier ones. Cities dwellers lose out on such things.
As a whole, we need to do better to support parents and extra more for moms. I would not hesitate to offer to keep my friends / neighbours / colleagues children under my care for few days / hours if they need it. No fuss / No fee - just classic pure help to my fellows.
Investing in children / women lot more than we do now is vital for all our success, sooner we realize it is better.
[+] [-] tremon|4 years ago|reply
Depends on the environment. I grew up in a city, but your first paragraph matches my childhood pretty well.
Our neighborhood was a cluster of short, twisty streets, with narrow roads and broad sidewalks. Our street had about 40 houses/apartments (mixed zone), and at least 10 of those had school-going children. In my street, I was one of the oldest so I mostly played with a few other kids from "'round the block", but I never needed to go beyond a 100meter-radius from my home.
Our moms took turns doing the school runs, supervising the little ones when they were outside, even cleaning or babysitting if needed. But right now, I don't see much of this happening where I live: a faceless street with a broad road and narrow sidewalk, more than 100 apartments but hardly anyone knows each other. Maybe it's just because I don't have children so I don't look for it, but I hardly ever see children playing outside on the streets here.
[+] [-] enraged_camel|4 years ago|reply
I think this is true only in certain Western countries. I was born and raised in Turkey, and was an apartment dweller until I moved to the US for college. Growing up, I knew all the neighbors in our four or five story apartment complexes, and I knew their kids. So did my parents. And the community aspect was pretty strong — when my parents both had to work late, I just headed over to one of the neighbor's condos and played video games with their kids, and sometimes stayed well past dinner.
In the US though I have trouble envisioning such apartment communities. Maybe they exist, but based on my own living in apartments in America myself, the experience is a lot more... sterile and cold.
[+] [-] MeinBlutIstBlau|4 years ago|reply
Now this isn't some sexist rant that women should marry, but it's the antithesis of "takes a village to raise a child." Most of these single moms tend to have smaller social groups, have sporadic family ties, and often have mental health issues due to poverty that comes with being a single mother. It's harder than going to college and working full time but doesnt pay. And paying them off to live that lifestyle doesn't incentivize men to want to want to support a spouse. I really hate to say it in all my life, but I honestly think conservatives were right about the aspect of a family. It's vital and for some reason it's being tossed aside as though it's not needed anymore and that the root problem isn't somewhere else.
[+] [-] ppf|4 years ago|reply
We will see how this plays out, but in my experience so far, it's women who have ended up returning to defacto and fulltime childcarers. Our response as a culture to Covid may mark the high point of women's progress in the workplace.
[+] [-] scientismer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] filleduchaos|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6gvONxR4sf7o|4 years ago|reply
> Everyone knows kids consume your time. But what people without kids may not realize is the extent to which people with kids want their time to be consumed by them. And, on the whole, I’d guess women more so than men.
That last sentence makes me sad in all sorts of ways. It's probably true, but the expectations are self-reinforcing, expecting women to be more family oriented than they might want, and expecting men to me more work oriented than they might want.
[+] [-] scooble|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] annoyingnoob|4 years ago|reply
Up all night with baby and always-on work. Its a recipe that will drive anyone to the brink.
[+] [-] haolez|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intergalplan|4 years ago|reply
If you work 9-5 (really 8-5 most places) this is basically true anyway. Most of the time you get with them on weekdays may have some quality just for existing, but is really pretty poor. Rush around in the morning, send them off to wherever, get back home at 5:30 or later just in time to throw together or eat dinner (depending on whether your spouse stays home), then bed-time routine, or they run off and do their own thing for an hour or two (friends, bike riding because god knows they don't get enough time outside at school for e.g. basic eye health, homework, whatever) while you try to get the house in something resembling order for the next day, then bedtime routine.
Any way you slice it, weekday time-with-kids for someone with a normal job is pretty crap. If you're a super-parent you might be able to make some of it a little better or more valuable. Finding maybe an hour a couple nights a week is doable, especially if you shift all your clean-up into your "alone time" and basically live kids, cleaning, and work all your waking weekday hours (ugh, no).
If you're in the founder set and see loss of weekday time as a huge sacrifice, then I'd guess you're paying someone to handle a bunch of the bullshit in your life. At least regular cleaners and maybe you don't do much of your own cooking, and possibly you have one of those kid-chauffeur services. Ordinary working people don't spend a ton of quality time with their kids during the week. Again, seeing them at all may have some value, but you're not gonna hang out undistracted by other life-junk for any serious length of time.
Weekends? That's where the good times are. Morning and evening weekday hours are just too eaten up with trying to get by. About the best you get is a smooth routine that's at least not a negative experience for all concerned.
[+] [-] willcipriano|4 years ago|reply
Quality time was a invention of the in-retrospect rather entitled parents of the 1970s who justified their neglect with the idea of "well I don't spend much time with my son but when I do it's quality time!".
The truth is kids, particularly young kids just want time. They want to see you around and have you take a active role in their lives. You can be around and clean the house and cook dinner at the same time, have the child help. Kids would much rather have a parent who sits on the couch to watch TV with them for a half hour every night then one that takes them to Disneyland one Saturday a month.
EDIT - Jerry Seinfeld on the topic: “I’m a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. These guys that talk about ‘quality time’ — I always find that a little sad when they say, ‘We have quality time.’ I don’t want quality time. I want the garbage time. That’s what I like. You just see them in their room reading a comic book and you get to kind of watch that for a minute, or [having] a bowl of Cheerios at 11 o’clock at night when they’re not even supposed to be up. The garbage, that’s what I love.”
[+] [-] adwn|4 years ago|reply
I generally get what you're saying, but the difference between
a) sharing dinner with your kids, putting them to bed, and reading them a bed-time story, and
b) not seeing them at all in the evening,
is huge.
[+] [-] panzagl|4 years ago|reply
It's not crap for the kids, and that's all that's important.
[+] [-] SECProto|4 years ago|reply
Of course I have weekend memories too (more of the above, plus also trips/camping/whatever). But they actually stand out less in my memory than the almost-habitual kind of weeknight stuff.
[+] [-] skrebbel|4 years ago|reply
My experience matches closely to that of the author. Our second kid got born a few months into my startup and on average I think I've spent more time raising our kids than my wife has. I'm a man, but in terms of old-fashioned gender roles, I've become the mom.
I think that this has profoundly influenced the kind of startup we've become. Even if I wanted to, I could never do those typical mad coding frenzies, or spontaneous multi-day deep dives, or working through the night because of some important customer/opportunity/deadline. After all, my kids wake up at six (if I'm lucky) and much it's going to be on me.
Our company became the kind of company that has a healthy work/life balance, lets people work flexible hours and trusts that they do the work. No pressure to do overtime, no arbitrary deadlines just to create a sense of urgency, no chaos just because we're a startup so there's gotta be chaos, right? We ship fast not by stressing everybody out but by aggressively scoping down and then shipping that when it's done.
Thing is, my personality is actually much more hectic than that. I could've totally been that enthusiastic founder that drives half the team into a burnout through sheer passion. Mad beer-fueled coding nights, going for the Ballmer Peak. But I have two kids, I'm off at five, you're gonna have to drink that beer without me. Might do a few hours in the evening but to be frank, I'm often all out of energy once I finally got the boys to bed.
I sometimes envy those male founders who just drop everything and go all-in on the company, and just "let the wife handle the kids". In some ways it's almost offensive to me, what is it, 1960? Give your wife some space too, man. But it also sounds exceptionally luxurious.
At the same time, why would I want kids if I didn't want to be with them? That context switch twice a day is harsh, it's killing. But I think it's also the only thing that keeps me sane.
EDIT: I just noticed that the author makes a related argument in an earlier article: https://femfosec.com/start-a-startup-before-you-have-kids/ I don't fully agree, but I do think that you're unlikely to be able to run a stereotypical VC-treadmill super-high-intensity startup while raising small kids.
[+] [-] aklemm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bllguo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] feistypharit|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] parineum|4 years ago|reply
I think the "traditional" family roles of mother stays home and father works are outdated but I think the train goes off the tracks when people want to throw the whole idea out completely. To me, the outdated part is just the gender roles. I don't think both parents can be CEOs, someone has to be the primary caretaker because, as so many mothers have said in the past, it's a full time job. Couples of any configuration need to have an understanding of who is going to take what responsibilities when they have kids and often/sometimes that's going to require sacrifices in both career and earning potential for one or both parents.
[+] [-] globular-toast|4 years ago|reply
Nowadays everyone in society is lured into higher education and paid work. They naturally grow their lifestyles to fit the dual income and things are looking good. Then all of a sudden they're running out of time to reproduce but now nobody has any time to dedicate to it.
Where did it all go wrong? Women are trading husbands for bosses. Seeking freedom as a gear in the corporate machine, working to line the pockets of billionaires instead of cleaning their own houses, cooking their own food and, yes, raising their own children.
Expect more and more women to come forward as they realise that choosing to be a wage slave probably wasn't the best idea after all.
[+] [-] denimnerd42|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skrebbel|4 years ago|reply
(I say this as a startup founder and dad, i.e. a man in exactly the situation the article describes. I first felt dismissed until I realized what website I was on)
[+] [-] lhorie|4 years ago|reply
I think the author comes to the right conclusion: they come to terms to the fact that spending time w/ kids is a good reward for them, for making the trade-off of not becoming a CEO.
I suppose one could argue that guilt for choosing kids over work is more of an issue for men because of societal expectations wrt income earning responsibilities. But then again, at the end of the day, regardless of whether you're a man or a woman, do you really want society to dictate what happiness/success should look like for you personally? If anything, someone who is in a position to be able to turn down a CEO position ought to be considered a highly successful individual by any societal standards </two-cents>
[+] [-] enraged_camel|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] u678u|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] feoren|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DaniloDias|4 years ago|reply
Being a parent is hard no matter where you work. Those who talk about balancing their career with their desire for children might as well dream about winning the lottery.
All of your high minded ideals will be directly confronted by a screaming baby who can’t clearly express their needs for another 6-12 years.
I don’t think this problem is truly unique to startups.
[+] [-] anotha1|4 years ago|reply
Is that model nearly incompatible with parenting? It might be. But that doesn't mean that there aren't parallel eco-systems of "start-ups" for those with various lifestyles (I know, lifestyle b**** is a dirty word here.).
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|4 years ago|reply
Obviously any job that requires 80-hour works isn't going to be compatible with spending a lot of time with your kids. Like you said, there are plenty of other businesses and business models that don't have such onerous demands. They may not become the next unicorn and VC darling, but they leave room for a more normal life outside of work.
[+] [-] skrebbel|4 years ago|reply
According to the author, pretty much.
https://femfosec.com/start-a-startup-before-you-have-kids/
[+] [-] loxs|4 years ago|reply
We are very lucky that we are mostly financially independent from before our son was born, otherwise I would have to go work in an office and it would be a lot harder for my wife to look after the baby.
[+] [-] causality0|4 years ago|reply
I think the expectation of being able to do both is quite unfair, at least the expectation of being able to do both well. There are many things that aren't compatible with being a cofounder. For example, you're not going to start a successful SaaS company while being a deployed Marine rifleman, or an NFL quarterback, or EMT, or solo truck driver. We need to stop telling people they can not only do anything they want, but everything they want.
[+] [-] djoldman|4 years ago|reply
I think it's possible that male, man, men can be substituted for female, woman, women in this article and have it be just as true except for this:
> But what people without kids may not realize is the extent to which people with kids want their time to be consumed by them. And, on the whole, I’d guess women more so than men.
I have no data on that.
[+] [-] lstodd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antattack|4 years ago|reply
Quote applies equally to men and women.
[+] [-] spoonjim|4 years ago|reply
The fact is that there are 24 hours in a day. If you put 4 into your kids that’s great, but there’s someone else putting those 4 into the company. Success is not all about time invested — Elon Musk at 1 hour a day will outperform me with 8 hours a day — but people make their choices in life and I don’t think it’s fair for my group putting in 8 hours a day to ask for the same outcomes from the market as the group putting in 12+.
[+] [-] toomuchredbull|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bena|4 years ago|reply
Just like that one person at a job who apparently "does all the the work". At least according to them. To hear them tell it, the entire enterprise would collapse if they weren't holding it together by sheer force of will. But surprisingly, the place operated just fine before they were brought on and it'll operate fine after.
It's just that we get so focused on our contributions that we don't see what others do as contributions. I'm sure the parents who don't take the kids to soccer practice see soccer practice as "time off" to some degree. Sure, you have to drive and what not, but once you're there, you're just sitting around. And blah blah.
I think I may be experiencing this right now. We just bought a house and we've been getting it set up and what not. My wife is an elementary school teacher at the school her son attends. So she's finishing the school year in that district. And since it's an hour and half drive each way, it's easier for her and the kid to stay with her mother.
It's been a steady stream of ordering what we needed, building those things, etc. I've felt like I've not really had any time off. Especially since I'm doing this around work. I'm under the impression my wife has not seen it that way. Either through underestimating build times or just not being aware. I've pointed out things and she's said that she flat out did not notice.
Also, there's a thing the kid likes to do. There's a certain game we play and it's me and him. She can spectate, but the actual play involves me. I'm not 100% into this game for various reasons, but I recognize that it's important to him and it's also important to spend that time with him. It may be a response from my own childhood, but I do not brush off his requests for time lightly. And I don't dictate how we play or socialize either. I leave that mostly up to him. He needs to explore his own creativity and whatnot. I think my wife gets a touch jealous about the ways he favors me in some regards. And it's hard to talk about it, because in my opinion, it's because if she wants to do something else, she'll push it to "later" or she'll try and change the manner in which he plays because it's not "right". Basically, she's trying to define the interaction on her terms, while I allow him to define it on his.
But she probably sees some of the time I spend with him as "time off" whereas I see it as performing not exactly a chore, but not as leisure time either.
But who gets to define work and who gets to define leisure?
So, I have issues with the whole "emotional labor" movement. It reeks of the person I mentioned in the beginning, someone who can only see their own contributions.
Ultimately, it comes down to the question of whether or not something makes your life easier or harder. If it makes your life easier, maybe don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Personally, I think everyone should live truly alone, no roommates, no partners, just them and whatever pets they may have. See what it takes to literally do everything required. I think it would give a lot of people perspective.