On a side note, I took parental leave last year and was basically told by a manager friend that it means a lower rating.
What is your experience?
* I ruthlessly prioritize — you have to when you're balancing a family.
* I don't dwell on mistakes – milk, quite literally, is spilled on a daily basis.
* I'm a better manager – kids teach you to be clear and immediate in your feedback, not to mention more empathetic
* I speak better – reading bedtime stories means you practice public speaking every night
A company that measures performance in hours or dedication will not reward those attributes. But the good ones will happily give you flexibility in exchange for good work.
If you're struggling to find a balance, know first that you're not alone. But recognize quickly that your employment environment may be incompatible with family life, and so what's "slowing your career down" is your management... not your kids or your own performance.
This may come from an already privileged position (I'm doing "well" by most standards and haven't lost my job due to the pandemic), but your relationship with your kids is for the rest of your life. If you don't get your kids right, you may need a high-flying career to pay for all their shit into the future. Get your kids right! If it affects your career, then refer to the above quoted comment, but I would also add that if your kids are slowing down your career then you have your priorities straight.
I don't always have time for my kids every single night, but I'll make up for it at opportune times. Sometimes I feel I'm not connecting with them for a week or even a month, but then a situation will come up where that connection-gap is entirely filled and then some - but you have to be aware of the situations in order to recognize the ones where you can help / step-in and make that connection.
Aside: This is something I didn't think about before having kids, didn't even cross my mind as a "thing". My kids are my reason for living. Life would be empty without them, I'd be potentially suicidal. My career exists to pay for the betterment of the kids. I could clean toilets for all I care, as long as they're on the right track.
Flipside: Bob Hawke, one of Australia's favourite Prime Ministers, is rumoured to have hushed up the rape of one of his daughters because the badly-timed controversy could potentially have slowed down his career path.
Make your choice by what suits your personality, likely somewhere between those two extremes. Not being able to sleep at night will probably drag your career down more than kids (although that's one of the early effects of having kids).
Kids don't make that easier—and in fact, make it harder because you simply can't roll over and let people walk all over you. That transition was painful. And, if I'm being honest, is still hard for me.
The first time our CEO suggested we meet at 6:30pm, and I said, "Nope, I have to cook dinner and put the kids in the bath" was... terrifying.
While there are still times where my family gets the short end of the stick, I've found it to be empowering, and I think begets respect.
No one respects a doormat—kids or no, don't be one.
All this is to say... it's not about fast or slow. It's about different and finding what works.
And there are counter-examples, too. I worked with a guy who ran a global business unit—a couple billion dollars, probably—and had 5 kids. Might he have been even more successful had he remained childless? Maybe... who knows. He was good either way.
I volunteered with a woman who is now the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. She brought her daughter with her, and doing social good as a family was an important part of her personal and. professional life.
If you're good and driven, it doesn't matter.
So I don't mean to be a pedantic ass here, but the "I'm a CEO and I have a wonderful home life" is probably the exception, not the rule. The reality is that you can't be a CEO on a 9-5 schedule. You probably have a lot of help for all those times you have to travel, stay late, leave early, etc. Something is going to be scarified.
That being said, you can have a successful career without becoming a CEO or running a global business unit. So it's not 100% career or 100% family.
My point was the simpler one that having kids in of itself doesn’t hold you back.
Amen
Not having kids means that you get to be selfish. That's pretty much it. If you want to devote yourself completely to your job, you can. I did that for some time. It was fun for some time :-) If you want you can travel a lot. I did that too. If you want you can quit your job and live in a shack by the ocean and teach English. I did that too.
Having children is always going to be a tradeoff. It requires time, energy, focus, and huge amounts of money. It requires you to be responsible, to prioritise and above all to be selfless.
On the other hand, based on virtually everybody I know who has kids (and doesn't have other significant problems in their life), there is a pretty significant payback. If you have a child, I assume you understand that payback.
I realise that it's tempting to want it all. It seems unfair that people who prioritised other things got advantages that you don't have. Trust me, I understand that. I've lived all around the world. I've worked in many super interesting jobs. I've been able to literally say "Fuck it" and forget about money and just do what I want. But I'm never going to be able to go home and give my child a hug. Trade offs.
Ever since i have had a kid, I have started asking the reverse question; Is my career dragging my parenting down?So, you're not a utilitarian?
> far more valuable than a mere product like 2+ living beings continuing your bloodline and thus making the world better,safer and one step closer to the future
I'm not seeing how leaving more people in the world is necessarily making it a better place. Why should it be better that way? Why should OP's offsprings be making the world a safer place? What does "one step closer to the future" even mean in this context?
The concrete negative impact of producing more humans: more consumption (even if they're non-consumptionist), more global warming, more destabilized ecosystem.
> When you are old and sick who will be there to hand you a glass of water? [...] Who will defend you against bad people when you are too old?
People often worry about securing help for their old age. Can't raise a glass of water and can't defend against bad people? Perhaps one led a good life - what issue is there with just letting go? Alan Watts said the second half of life was all about preparing to die.
Fwiw, I'm planning to have children, for my own selfish reasons. The reasons you cited don't speak to me much.
But it was completely worth it.
My perspective on life completely changed.
I am not even sure i was more productive. I certainly had more me time, coding, reading, working out. But time with my kids is beyond rewarding. I still need an income, but my image, ego, and self worth is not attached to my job or validation from my peers....now its attached to my 2 year olds whims and my ability to change a dirty diaper in 30 seconds. Flat.
I don't know where you are in your career, or what your expectation is of a career, but there are lots of companies out there where you can do interesting things, be well paid, and have time to balance your work and family life. You just need to look for it just like you were looking for a higher salary, more responsibility, or even use of a particular technology.
Asking about it at an interview may get you an answer, or rather, anything but an emphatic "yes" with some examples may be a strong negative sign. But I think the key thing is to decide what you want out of both a career and a family, and to find the job that puts you on that path.
(I'd quit a previous job specifically because I wanted to be a stay at home parent, but then time passed and I had to make the decision to work again.)
Later I heard the way I'd treated him in the interview was a positive thing that helped me in the interview, though to this day I can't recall what I did with him except "Please be a little quiet now, Daddy needs to talk .."
I don't seek a high salary - just enough to live without fear and to someday retire. I hope to do interesting things, but I would be fine with boring tasks if I have a good work culture. It would be difficult to switch since my experience is in Neoxam and Filenet.
Thank you for your input.
That's awful. Whoever had a kid can tell you how hard is the first month. And if all goes well, the first month is hard. If you have even a little hiccup, the first month is SLEEPLESS.
I have a dim view of any "best place to work" rankings ever since I worked at one and realized that people generally pay to be on those and the numbers are juiced when HR sends emails out suggesting everyone give the company a glowing review.
And don't forget to enjoy parenthood. There are hard times, and there are great times (often concurrently). You've got a limited amount of time to enjoy the experience and to guide them to be the people this world needs. Good luck!
Also, it's very difficult at times, but incredibly rewarding, more so than even the best programming highs I've had, when you can see a new thing one of your kids learned, and realize you were part of that.
Their imagination also keeps my brain a bit more flexible, especially as I try to join in their own crazy fun. And being able to act more like a kid with them also keeps me loose and a little crazy, which helps me to be more positive and, maybe, 'chipper', in my interactions with workmates. At least I think so.
Again, there are very difficult times as a parent. But the highs are so much higher when they come, and I would not trade it for being back in the bachelor mentality and spending more of my live donating overtime to a corporation (though there are some very positive things from that part of my life too, and I have some friends who would probably not thrive as parents!).
Also if a company requires you to do 60 hours of coding instead of 40 and it's just JIRA tasks adding feature X Y Z then those extra 20 hours don't help your career at all, but if you did a 40 hour job and spent 10 hours learning carefully selected skills in your spare time that would help your career a lot over time.
For many, this may be viewed as a fairly privileged statement. Particularly with Great Depression-level unemployment, simply "moving on" isn't really an option for many (most?).
It certainly will depend on your individual situation. If your management is all childless workaholics, I can see how it would totally count against you.
I've seen this with people before they have kids and after the kids are a little older. They occasionally bend and work a bit extra, check emails after hours, etc, and then before you know the it the manager expects this person is available since they did it before.
Sadly, at one company where I worked the young single person had to lie and say they were heavily involved with educational activities at their church and they couldn't work extended hours because of that. I know they were not 100% honest about the hours required for that, but management needed some mental excuse to say it's okay for them to just work normal hours. It's stupid, but sometimes that's the only way to do it.
Ask any manager who's had to do a big layoff. They'll bend over backwards to shield those who have families to feed. Often time single people will be laid off first despite being much more competent than the father of four.
This creates a secondary emergent effect where family men build up more impressive resumes than singles who are viewed as disposable and less likely to weather downturns.
1. Ratings and promotions within a job/company are boss personality and politically dependent and typically very unfair. Lots of hard work goes unrewarded.
2. Even if you do get lucky and get a promotion, your prize is 5-10% salary bump (maybe) and more work, stress and meetings (I don’t much enjoy meetings myself). Look closely at most big company executives and think if you really want the job for more than the social prestige/ego. They travel a ton and are always in meetings, it gets old.
3. So if the executive jobs are undesirable, then climb the ladder for money? It takes allot of money to make a difference, I.e you need $500k in the bank to ek out approx $1500 a month in cash flow at 4%. If you making $100k annually or $150k annually, $200k, or even $250 its still going to take over a decade to save a decent amount of money. The 5-10% salary bump doesn’t make much difference.
So why a career? There are likely more efficient ways to make money if that’s your goal. Starting a business, blogging, consulting, etc may have more risk but the ceiling is uncapped unlike a ‘career’. So why sacrifice something wonderful like time with your child? Money? Ego? You want a great LinkedIn profile one day? If given the option tomorrow, I would max my parental leave unless it impacted teammates in a negative way.
I would genuinely be interested if this is a minority sentiment?
I haven't even experienced the unfairness mentioned in many comments, but I just don't see the need to focus on climbing a work ladder at the cost of things socially or personally. As long as I do my work and enjoy it, a promotion is nice (I'm not giving up or being complacent necessarily) but it's simply not a big motivating factor in my life. I would/will happily slow my career trajectory if it means getting more time with close friends, romantic considerations, etc.
I think I'm in this boat because my career and interests are pretty orthogonal, where I think the HN community self selects for people who define some or much of their personality from technological pursuits that can often tie back heavily to work. When your work is more than your work, I think this question almost rephrases itself to be self vs kid, which I can understand struggling with.
5% per year is practically nothing. There is no point in my life at which I would have ever even noticed the difference other than on a spreadsheet, all the way up from a corner shop minimum wage job.
I think the reason most people push is for those lateral changes when you break into a different "role" and double your salary, change your working hours/respect, etc, because that's a material difference.
Honestly can't say I'll ever enjoy a 'career' where one is plugged into a corporate tree. Been there, done that. I took a small business course a few years ago. The teachers there left a job they had been in for decades to start business, tried it and didn't like it. They then took a job (they call it a 'business') teaching others how to start small businesses. Found it very hard to take them seriously when they had little practical knowledge or experience, despite the reams of information they had collected from others. Some people just aren't wired to be separate from the great corporate tree.
I think too many people sign up to a career simply because it's safe and you don't have to think too much about long term goals. There are of course other virtues to those jobs, but people who are going to hate their job for the rest of their life and underachieve should probably move on out to the less-sheltered world.
I agree that the 7-10% bump is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But I have done jobs (and done them well) that were a level above me, such as tech lead, senior dev, and ASC (I'm a mid-level dev). It would be nice to be paid commensurate with the stress. Plus I would love to use that money, even though it wouldn't be much, to save for my kid's education.
I do have a business, but it's just for selling honey. I also try to make money trading the market, but that has only small payouts because I don't have much capital to risk.
Thank you for your input.
You need to change jobs. I work for a fortune 100 company that is extremely supportive of kids and families. They don’t just talk the talk, but they actually walk the walk.
But there's a ton wrong with that thinking.
First: Exercise takes time away from work. Vacations take time away from work. Sleeping takes time away from work. And yet, even the most die-hard workers realize that they have to exercise, take vacations, and sleep. And that doing so makes them better people, healthier and more well-adjusted. And even better able to do their jobs.
I can't speak for everyone, but I've found that my children -- now 19, 17, and 14 -- have not been distractions from work, but complements to it. They have helped me to find insights, to understand myself and the world, and to generally be a better person.
Second: It's possible to make lots of money and have a great career with children. It's also possible to do so without children. So it's not an either/or situation. Yes, you'll have to prioritize. Yes, you'll be frustrated sometimes that you can't finish a work project because the kids need you. But it also gives you some perspective, understanding that even if your project is delayed by a day, that's OK.
Third: There's no doubt that children can be maddening, frustrating, and time consuming. Especially when they're young, they demand lots of attention. But in my case, all of that frustration was easily counterbalanced by the joy, excitement, and fulfillment that comes from having children, speaking with them, and learning from them.
Finally: If your job means that you have to dedicate yourself to it, to the exclusion of everything else, is that really a job you want? If your company doesn't encourage you to take time with your family, or for yourself, what sorts of people are working there, and do you really want to be working there?
I don't know if I would be a worse consultant, trainer, and developer without my children. I would be a different one, though. And given how happy and successful I am now in my personal and work lives, I wouldn't want to be that other person.
>There's no doubt that children can be maddening, frustrating, and time consuming. Especially when they're young, they demand lots of attention. But in my case, all of that frustration was easily counterbalanced by the joy, excitement, and fulfillment that comes from having children, speaking with them, and learning from them.
All of the above!
One way I try to think about this is by looking at all the people I've worked with who are at the top of the ladder. CxO, EVPx, GM, etc. The vast majority of them work crazy hours, travel all the time, are constantly attached to their email, etc. They only way for them to do that is to sacrifice time with their families and have a partner who basically does all the family stuff.
If that's what you want AND you want to spend lots of time with your kids, then kids are going to be an impediment to that. If that's not what you want, then I think it's question of finding a balance between what you want out of your career and life. Most certainly if your kids are very young and you want to spend time with them, your career might move a little slower.
Looking at raw income numbers, I was making 85k in '06, 75k in '10 (had to find a job quickly after the startup failed - insurance needed for the child birth!) and around 95k in '13. I'm making around 280k right now, so I think I'm on track regardless of having kids or not. A key to my income is that once I stopped working in an office and got rid of my ~75 minute one way commute, I started a part time job, remote software development. That was project based, not raw hours, and since then my primary job has also changed to project based, not raw hours. I'm not killing myself each week like a lot of stories I hear. On a real busy week I'll do about 50 to 55 hours.
Now, another measure to consider, I have coached little league for about 5 years, travel softball for 2.5. My busiest season was fall '19 where I coached little league, ran the LL skill building clinic, head coached a travel team (10u) and assistant coached my older daughters 14u team.
I'm starting jiu-jitsu next week with my son. I've reduced the amount of coaching down to just two teams total. No head coaching.
My advice: prolab caffeine pills!
One way it's helped, is it's a really easy topic to bring up with clients or on sales calls. It makes me more relatable, and gives a good first impression since people assume I'm at least competent enough to provide basic care to a child.
This made me laugh. Impostor syndrome much?
I have two kids (3 and 1). I’ve experienced a bit of a leap in soft skills; empathy, mentorship, and patience, to name a few. This has corresponded with me taking on many more leadership responsibilities in my team, and being recognized as a go-to thought partner and interestingly as an authority on technical matters.
I took 6 months of parental leave for the second child (I know, incredibly generous). I came back and received an “exceeds expectations rating”.
I have colleagues who are also parents. Several of them are “staff engineers”, the highest level of recognition at our company.
On the other hand, I turned down a promotion as I felt I’m already giving all I have time for/didn’t have bandwidth for the extra responsibilities. I’m happy with my current compensation and responsibility set, especially as it allows me to spend time with my family.
Perhaps my POV is old-fashioned, but real honestly, the only reason I went to school, obtained a professional degree, and made fat stacks of Benjamins was to get a good wife (and then kids, etc.)
If that was not my plan, I would have lived in a shack on the beach and smoked dope all day.
I think too many people are obsessed with making "all of the money", when just "some of the money" leads to a better lifestyle.
That being said: People with kids get fired much more rarely, tend to get the promotions, have much more understanding around missing work, and parents tend to watch out for eachother.
I don't know how others perceive me but I know I'm not able to give nearly as much to work as I would without kids. When I last interviewed for jobs, I was asked about my side projects. I made the joke, "I have kids, they are my side project, haha," and I think he understood.
This is in the short-term though. I suspect that long-term my career will be better than it would've been without kids b/c I think I will be overall happier with kids than without, and I'll be forced to make better life choices like go to bed on time, etc. To be clear I didn't have children so my career would be better :D
This is by design. The structure was always the goal.
With everything that is involved in growing a kid (teaching, empathy, learn to talk in the most simple and direct way), I would be surprised if you are not actually improving. All those interpersonal skills are growing, they might not match directly to your job (e.g. Coding), but will make you a lot more valuable. I am father of a 2 years old and my mentoring skills increased dramatically since I got her.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/77b-fmla-protec...
"An employer is prohibited from discriminating or retaliating against an employee or prospective employee for having exercised or attempted to exercise any FMLA right. "
I know of a manager at my company dumb enough to put it in an annual review...needless to say, there's a lawsuit and said manager is no longer w/ the company.
In my belief system, these important, challenging, and joyful relationships can extend into eternity as well, if we choose to make the necessary commitments (specific covenants with God) and keep them, learning and improving throughout our lifetimes. Money is like nothing, in comparison.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/the-family-...
https://www.comeuntochrist.org/beliefs/family
(more at my own web site, linked from my profile, or http://lukecall.net )
My experience is the opposite. Since having kids, I have been ruthless about changing jobs as needed, standing up for what I need, and getting a lot more money on each career move. I was much more lax on these matters before, and would spend countless hours on pointless drivel. I still spend hours on drivel, but I count every hour! As others have noted, having kids makes you question the value of your time and forces you to be much more efficient.
Advice: Value yourself more than your managers value you, present yourself with confidence backed by experience and knowledge, and your career prospects are wide open.
Also, I mean this in all seriousness, read "Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In" by Roger Fisher and William Ury. Its advice contributed the most money directly to my bank account of any book I have ever read, followed by "The Richest Man in Babylon," another good book. (Getting to Yes to increase my income, Babylon to decrease my spending and increase my savings.)
I used to live in France (and my brother still lives there) and long hours are kind of expected. I now live in the Netherlands and we actually _almost_ got in trouble with the daycare for bringing our kid there 5 times a week because we were both working full time. Most people I know (agreed, as engineers we are privileged) work 4 days a week and won't do over time.
If you ask me, that makes a lot of sense. I get done in 8 hours what I used to do in 10. And next to that I have a life.
In any case, don't let anyone make you feel bad for having kids. They're much better than any career you can dream and don't let 'management' take that away from you.
In my case having children has made me more interested in my career. I need to provide for them and set a good example to an extent. Previously my focus was on whitewater kayaking, spending time with friends and travelling. I can't really do those things now anyway so it makes sense to spend more time on my career, but while the children are awake and I'm there I prioritize them.
You may want to think about the kind of companies you work for. If everyone else in your company has kids and family responsibility their priorities will be more aligned to yours. I found this out to my cost and would be unlikely to work with a small focused start up in the near future.
In the eyes of bad management, yes. In the eyes of good management, quite the opposite. If you are spending more time working then what's expected to get your job done, my concern is what happens when you 1) leave or 2) burn out. I'd rather have you spend your time doing what your job and then relaxing and not burning out then burning out or leaving. Reliability is key here.
This is also a problem if they leave, because it sets a false perception of what can be done in a normal work week.
Not to mention the actual quality of the work long term. Basically, everything I've ever seen of excessive hours per week results in long term losses.
It's worth it. It forces you to shift what you care about, and career path is one of those things you have to think differently about. That's also worthy of having kids.
To get where you want to go you often have to go where you don't want to go.
It can take a couple of years as a new parent to adjust. Every person and every family will have different needs and approach the transition in a different way.
If the management at your company doesn't value your family then the question is really whether or not you agree with them. Is your family worth it?
I have been promoted regularly since becoming a parent.
It feels like you are always falling behind. But overall, I have found myself doing okay relative to my peers, while cultivating a solid family schedule and focus. Everyone is different, but the times I have lost out in office politics are far outweighed by the other things in my life.
Doesn’t matter if your employer managed to get a bunch of your fellow employees to vote for them in one “great place to irk” survey or other.
Find out what the job you want is, work to get the skills and start looking.
Spend quality time with them, don't wait until they don't need you anymore.
Do kids drag your career down?
A lower rating probably indicates you should find a better job that fits your life realities better.
That being said, the engineers I know who have kids use it in one of two ways. They either try to use it as leverage for a better WLB to spend more time with their families (or, if they're not the world's best parent, to take a vacation under the guise of caring deeply for their kid), OR they go full on cut-throat sociopath career mode to enable the best life (financially) that they can for their family. Then there's the wildcard option: company doesn't care at all about your new priorities and nothing changes. That's when you brush up your resume and try to find somewhere with a management team made of human beings instead of lizard people (or the aforementioned career sociopaths).
- I've never felt this much purpose before. It's hard to remember what drive I had four years ago, or what motivated many aspects of my life. Now I live to be a dad and I go to work to provide for my family.
- I've learned heaps. Kids growing up is not a one-way street when it comes to education, you learn too. You learn how to communicate, deal with frustrations, be content and be patient. You learn how to do a lot more, too, but those are the main ones that come to mind.
- I understand what love is, to me. I love my wife - often I refer to it as 'love at first sight' over ten years ago, and nothing has changed. But the love I have for my kids is different, it feels entirely unconditional and raw. It's a feeling I never had before kids, and it sure is sweet.
- My kids are so much fun. Yeah, it's hard work, but there's not a day that goes by where I don't have lots of fun, and lots of smiles. I wake up next to my kids every day and it's an absolute joy.
- Getting context is easy. I look at my kids and i instantly know what life is. I have a hard choice, and kids make it easier, because I've learned what it is to be less selfish.
- Getting more out of life. Life was fun and filling before I had kids, sure - but now, daily, I get more out of my life. Often I'll give a mate a buzz at 7:30am on a Saturday morning and find out I've woken them up - not because I'm rude, but because I'm already 1 - 1.5hrs into my day and I forget what 'early' is. And then I get perspective, and think 'damn, I would have hated to sleep those hours away and not of experienced banana pancakes with the kids'.
That's entirely subjective and not exhaustive, but yeah, it's rad.
If I was a woman, yes, without a doubt. I've seen it in other women, I've seen it in my own wife. Shit is just not fair.