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Comment by dennisgorelik | Hacker News Reader

I'd recommend to have children early too:

1) The wisdom that comes with age does not really help much dealing with kids, but that wisdom would definitely help to run successful startup.

2) With age it's harder to have healthier babies. Especially for women.

So it's better to slow your start-up development (or even postpone it if necessary) and have kids first.

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I'd modify those slightly: 1) I'd say that age-induced wisdom does help you parent well. Years of watching other parents have their mistakes and successes and the vicissitudes of your own life add perspective on human nature and parenthood. But it's not the be-all, end-all of parenting. 2) It is harder for women, and that's a major consideration, maybe the biggest one. For men, not so much. One of the benefits of being male is that you can keep having children (disclosure: my wife is significantly younger than me).

While men can keep having children longer than women, there are genetically-based mental health risks (schizophrenia, autism, bi-polar disorder) for children of older men.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/about-fathers/200901/old...

We had our first child when I was 26. It's a young person's game. Lots of late nights, lots of tiring days. I'm pretty certain that I will still work the same 60-70 hours a week when I am 40 or 50, on some startup or another. The idea that you can "get the work out" young and then wait to have kids is a fallacy (at least for me). I'd rather burn the candle on all ends when I'm still young enough to handle it.

So far so good.

EDIT / PS: Moving to Boston to be near family has been a lifesaver for us. Despite all the negatives (from a startup standpoint) of being here, there's actually very little chance I could work as hard if we didn't have the support.

This is very good and interesting advice that I actually haven't seen before. It particularly hit home for me because I'm young, single, and my career's started to really hit its stride. That said, I'm at a point where I feel like I need to choose from the more chill jobs or the more aggressive gigs such as equity jobs at startups, or even doing my own things.

As much as I'd like to do a startup at this time in my life, I get a feeling I'd really enjoy having a family as I'm a bit of a softie.

Something for me to digest.

Thanks for sharing your wisdom.

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