Comment by torpor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by torpor | Hacker News Reader

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A couple things from this forty-year old:

1. If you want to have kids, do it sooner rather than later. The sooner you have them, the better: they grow up so fast, you'll still have time in your 40's to enjoy life with them as teenagers, if you're lucky. If you leave it too late, you'll be pretty disconnected from their teen lives, and hell .. what 40-year old doesn't enjoy the odd jaunt with their teenage kids, eh? I know I wish I'd had my kids a decade sooner .. and don't let anyone tell you its hard, either. Its not hard, if you love them enough, to keep your lives together and do well as a family. Family units are the strongest groups you will ever find or belong to, if they are indeed a unit ..

2. The wisdom of the Mob. It doesn't exist in nearly as palatable a form as most people might desire, and there is also the ugly truth that the Mob can be downright stupid. Collective truth is often full of lies. You would be wise to exercise your ability to disassociate yourself from collective thought as often, and as early, as possible. This means, always question "what everyone else knows to be true" four, five, six times, before you use it as a basis for life decisions .. The Mob wishes to Eat you, Individual, and Never Forget That!

3. Save. Save, save, save. 10% of your money saved on a regular basis now is a huge relief in the future. I wish I'd enforced this on myself a bit better in the 20's .. you simply cannot avoid the fact that if you save during your most productive years, your least productive years will be better off for it ..

> 3. Save. Save, save, save. 10% of your money saved on a regular basis now is a huge relief in the future. I wish I'd enforced this on myself a bit better in the 20's .. you simply cannot avoid the fact that if you save during your most productive years, your least productive years will be better off for it ..

I just got my first a few months ago and opted to save more than 20% of my gross income (tax-free, you pay taxes when you get it out later). I wasn't used to the money anyway, yet, so it was easy.

Also, if you are not saving already: I guess whenever you get a raise, you can comfortably afford to save like 50% of it--because that money isn't planned into your budget, yet.

One step further: if you get a raise, take all of the associated money and save it. The standard of living you're used to will stay the same.

If you can do pull it off, do so. I might even try it myself.

But saving "only" 50% of your raises is something everybody can do without too much discipline, and still feel rewarded with a higher standard of living for whatever they did to get the raise. (Unless it's an automatic raise, and not something you got for some achievement.)

1. If you want to have kids, do it sooner rather than later.

Having kids later is like letting them time travel to the future.

I'm glad my parents had me late.

Unless there comes a new ice age and people start fighting all over the place for food and shelter, or whatever. Let's hope it won't come to that - but anyway, the future might not always just be new versions of iPhones. I think we are actually one of the first generations that never had to experience a war in their home country (speaking from my countries perspective).

That said, I am also curious about the future and hope to experiences as much of it as possible...

    1. If you want to have kids, do it 
    sooner rather than later.

My issue is that kids cost a lot of money, which means you lose quite a lot of flexibility.

I want to start my own business within the foreseeable future (probably 1-2 years, currently saving money, gathering contacts and getting more on-the-job experience in the field I want to operate in).

Right now I know that if I save 20k Euros that could easily last me for well over a year, if you have kids - not so much.

EDIT: I'm 27 and have tried doing my own thing that didn't work so well in the past - that 'failure' taught me I should probably get more experience and contacts before trying again. Saving 20-30k Euros (or more) is not the issue and is a sum I can relatively easily gather in a 1-2 years time-frame.

I have a 3 year old, a 2 year old, an 8 week old, and a startup.

Having kids has no impact on having your own business. They're completely orthogonal. Using that as an excuse for not having kids makes as much sense as saying "I don't want to eat tacos for dinner because I want to have my own business."

Note: I'm not responding directly to your comment; I'm responding to the somewhat pervasive idea on HN that kids are a substitute for startups.

"Having kids has no impact on having your own business"

You're saying that raising children has no impact on your available time and money? That seems a bit far fetched. I'd agree that it's totally possible to have kids and do a startup, but frankly you'll be working with a bit less money and less time (and for a while way less sleep).

Of course raising children requires time and money, just like any other activity.

I have a friend who competes in Iron Man. It takes a huge commitment of time and energy, and every time I talk to him he has just spent $1000 for some new attachment to his super-bike. Iron Man negatively impacts his "available time and money". Oh, and he has a startup. And it's very successful.

I suspect that most of you have hobbies that consume 3-4 hours of your weekday and several hundred dollars of your monthly budget.

Now, in my case, my family is my hobby. Spending time with my kids is how I relax and unwind. I don't go out, or watch TV, or play a musical instrument, or compete in Iron Man, or participate in Renaissance Festivals. My life might seem empty and boring to you, if your idea of relaxing and unwinding is different than mine.

Having a family is one choice -- amongst many -- for how to spend your free time and disposable income. I'm not claiming that you can have it all -- for example, I don't think anyone could do startup + family + Iron Man -- but I do think that startup + family is eminently doable.

It very much depends on how you and the mother decided to split up the work load. If she is happy taking close to 100% of the work load and letting you do your thing then it shouldn't be impossible to have basically the same amount of time.

I'd argue that if you're spending ~0% of your time with you kids then you're doing it wrong. Something has to come first, and imho if you have kids then the kids need to come first. That means spending as much time as you can with them, both to help raise them, teach them, and also to experience parenthood.

Having a kid myself, and having turned down an awesome job opportunity since it would have kept away from my daughter for too long periods at a time, I totally agree with you. That being said, I know people who have made the opposite choice, and while I don't agree with it, their kids seem to be turning out OK.

Ok, I want to know more :) Is your startup funded and do you work from home? Is your partner working?

I'd like to hear a little more about how they're completely orthogonal, as most people I know with kids would probably indicate differently.

Paul Graham, exactly one year ago: "What a startup (bootstrapped or not) takes is 100% of your performance, not 100% of your time." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=679278

He was talking about exercise, but I think the same is true with having kids.

In my case, I spend 4 hours with my kids every workday: 6am - 10am. During that time, I get:

- Ridiculous, insane amounts of joy.

- A chance to see the way that little minds think, which usually triggers a good software idea at least once per week.

- The same kind of chemical response that I would get from volunteering. Before kids, I tried to volunteer about 20 hours per week because it released some kind of neuro-chemical that made me really happy. Helping - and in particular, TEACHING - my kids triggers a similar response.

- An opportunity to process the day's coming challenges (subconsciously)

- Lots of laughs, enough that I don't feel compelled to watch as many TV shows or movies as I did previously.

For me, it works out to a huge net positive on both personal fulfillment and professional performance.

I can't be a good dad to my 3 kids and have enough time to read a chapter in a book each day (along with employment, house chores, etc), let alone go forth with any business ventures.

Do you really find your statements to be true? If so, how do you balance them? Orthogonal seems to be an unarguably incorrect statement, though.

Agreed, if nothing else, kids motivate you. They represent something greater than yourself, which can cause you to work harder and be more determined. They also provide inate happiness and joy outside of your work life.

You will be less risky when you have kids. However, not all risk is worth it.

I often found that in college I performed better (higher GPA) with a higher work load than with a lighter work load. I think it is because I was forced to be more efficient, sharper, and wiser with my time. Having kids and starting a business is analagous. However, this is only my personal experience.

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