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Comment by the_gipsy | Hacker News Reader

> I’m a husband who is 30. I also have 4 kids, ages 6 and under. I’m the sole-provider for the family (though my wife works harder). Between the job, the kids, and extrafamilial obligations, there’s not a lot of time for communication with my wife. We’re on the go from sun-up to sun-down, and at the end of the day we drop into bed exhausted to get just enough sleep for the next day. Very often in the past, a week or so would go by and I hadn’t even so much as checked in on my wife.

Sounds like hell; is this the American Dream?

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The author is the founder, owner, and operator of a company, and from a quick view, is quite successful at his work. Plus, he is in a relationship where his partner is supportive of his dreams and long hours. And he has kids at the same time.

That sounds like a great life to me. Not a lot of people get the opportunity, and not very many people can pull it off. I'm sure life will be more relaxed when the kids leave the home after become adults, too.

When there is no time for important things that does not sound like a great life (to me of course).

Is that company that important?

Did we loose the ability to get enough to live and we live to get enough instead?

> Is that company that important?

If he doesn’t want his children to starve then yeah working is important.

If you have ever had children, you know they become 100% of your life and 110% of your time for the first year or so, and with multiple children that could stretch to several years.

I guess if that interferes with your immediate hedonistic needs you would just get rid of the children? Maybe just dump them on someone else whose time is less self-importantly valuable?

It's the same with running a startup. You make the choice to commit, you follow through, and in the long run you reap the rewards and live a fuller, better life.

if it works you reap the benefits but the sad path is the same in both

miserable

> Plus, he is in a relationship where his partner is supportive of his dreams and long hours.

The fact that he needs a servant-wife to be able to support his career is a red flag. Having so many children and spending so much time working also means he can't have meaningful relationships with all of them.

When one half of a relationship of two people does work you don't respect, that doesn't make them a servant. These are two human beings that have divided the work they have to do to live their life in this way. There's nothing wrong with that.

The majority of stay-at-home partners happen to be women. There is something wrong with that.

lol at the hacker news crowed recoiling at a stay-at-home mother in 2022. Oh, the humanity!

Raising kids at home is now being servant? Should just drop the kids to daycare then where they grow up the most important years of their lives without any meaningful companionship of any of the parents.

Why do you think that this isn't what she wants also?

I never said that she doesn't want it. Perhaps if society gave women the same expectations and opportunities as man, then she would have wanted to swap roles. But we'll never know.

Why do you assume he "needs" her to support his career? Many founders are deliberately single and not in a relationship to focus on their startup, and do perfectly fine.

And how could you call someone a "servant-wife" just for choosing to be a stay-at-home mother? In what universe is that not completely disrespectful to people who choose to be stay-at-home mothers? You are calling a person a "servant" for being a mother and denying her agency by defining her only in relation to her spouse.

By this implication, the opposite of a "servant-wife" is a "working-wife," and it's shocking that you can't define a person independently of a spouse within this framework. The term "mother" doesn't do this, but better yet, it's best to skip negatively judging strangers entirely.

It's pure coincidence that it's the woman who stays at home, right?

The fact that you think she’s a servant says more about you than them.

As well say he’s the servant, working long hours while she gets to enjoy closer relationships with their children.

I have two kids under 6 and while it was very hard for about a year or so I realized that I am a lot happier than I was before I had kids, even though I do an order of magnitude more chores. Then I realized that this is the reason I am happier --- I work; and I don't mean I work for an employer, I work for my family, my children, my house. This is what makes me happy.

There is an ancient Greek saying: Not working is the root of all evil.

I'm very interested to read more about that Greek saying. Do you have a reference of it somewhere?

The Norwegian dictionary [1] suggests that the expression "lediggang er roten til alt ondt" stems from a merging of two older expressions: "Otium est pulvinar diaboli"/"idle hands are the devil's workshop" and 1 Tim 6,10 "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil"

Wiktionary [2] refers to St. Jerome

> Proverbs 16:27 may have inspired St. Jerome to write in the late 4th century: fac et aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat occupatum, or “engage in some occupation, so that the devil may always find you busy.” This was later repeated by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales, which was probably the source of its popularity.

[1] https://naob.no/ordbok/lediggang

[2] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/idle_hands_are_the_devil%27...

Ha. I can understand your pov for sure.

We (family with two kids under the age of 4) just moved to Texas, been in there ER once, urgent care twice, had stomach flu, ear infection, viral rash, a flat tire, water damage in the house we bought resulting in lots of money flying out the window and a scramble to find temp housing.

All in the past two weeks.

It’s pure hell to the point you laugh instead of cry.

For example, yesterday our kids got into daycare which meant the only thing my wife and I had to do was work. We could finally get a few hours of focus. Not thirty minutes into work the house cleaners I had forgotten about showed up to start cleaning.

Sometimes life seems nonstop.

But when my three year old gives me a kiss on the cheek or my one year old just wanted me to hold him, my world stops for just a moment and I realize how lucky we’ve been to even get to this point.

I guess I’m happy in hell.

It does sound hectic, but it's not hell, because he loves what he does, and clearly loves his wife and kids. That sacrifice (on the part of him and his wife) is for those they love.

I do think it's kinda weird to write his wife a daily note -- presumably it takes him 15-30 minutes to write the note. Why not spend that time talking face-to-face with her instead? For me and my wife (I'm in a similar stage of life) we cherish that ~30 minutes before bed to have a cup of tea, regroup, chat about the kind of things he writes in his note, and so on.

Though he did say that writing the notes has helped their relationship, and they now "talk more than ever (weird, right?)". So if it's working for him, keep it up!

depends on where both of them are when he has time to write the note. he could call her, but maybe it's at a time when she is not available. in any case it seems like one way to address one problem in their relationship (the problem of not having enough time to talk to each other) sure there are other ways to address the same, some better, some worse. this is what happens to work in this situation.

My interpretation of this is in the context of four kids and his wife still asleep when he's writing the notes. Experience tells me there's not much space for intimate conversation as soon as the kids are up and about.

Maybe he writes it on the train during his commute or some other time when they can’t physically talk?

> It does sound hectic, but it's not hell, because he loves what he does, and clearly loves his wife and kids. That sacrifice (on the part of him and his wife) is for those they love.

Well I love my kids but I still think in retrospect that it was a shitty decision to have kids. Things aren't mutually exclusive.

Having said that I am not saying anyone ought to regret having kids or that it is a shitty decision for everyone.

Getting what you want is often unpleasant. Accomplishing nothing is quite often very pleasant. The trick is to find a happy medium between those two.

Now imagine doing that with two minimum wage jobs. That is true hell.

That is impossible. Kids this small require childcare and minimum vage job does not pay for one. With such small salaries, one of them has to be home.

Yet there are single parents all over the United States working multiple jobs to get by. Childcare exists without paying some boutique daycare tens of thousands of dollars a year.

They dont have 4 kids under 6. Which is significant difference. Childcare for 1 or even 2 kids is much cheaper and easier to find then for 4 of various ages.

The single parents of toddlers working multiple jobs either pay for childcare or have whole network of familly members to help them. There is no way around the fact that toddler needs supervision incompatible with most of work.

I work in the restaurant industry and I can assure you it is not impossible because millions of Americans are doing it. Most of the time the child ends up with the grandparents while the parents work. That is if the grandparents are not working...

The grandparents are caring for 4 kids under 6 daily in millions of American families?

Also, most grandparents in fact are in working age when the grandkids are small. Some are sick, some never returned to work after kids grew, but quote a few always worked or returned to work. And even with those who are at home, asking them for daily babysitting of 4 kids is quite a lot.

Women almost never willingly birth 4 kids in the span of 6 years without very strong outside influence. My guess here would be religion based on age (first kid at ~24).

Either that or there's multiple multiple births.

If their religion demands they have so many kids so quickly it's unlikely he helps out with the childrearing activities and leaves it to his wife, I'm which case his life is probably not very different than a childless man.

Author here - Religion doesn't demand having lots of kids, though the Bible does say having lots of kids is a blessing.

4 kids 6 and younger is one child every two years. My youngest is 6 months. It's an aggressive pace but hardly unreasonable.

We wanted to have all of our kids together so they could be friends. And it makes the parenting window much shorter (25 years until they are all adults and moving out). Some people spread their kids out and have kids in the home for 30-35 years.

every two years doesn't feel that aggressive. my brothers and me are closer together. and most people i know are similar. my own kids are spread out by three years, and that's only because the doctors here said that after a c-section you have to wait 3 years before you can have another child. to me that feels quite spread out. the age difference between the oldest and the youngest is 6 years, and sometimes it's a challenge for them to get along because of that age difference.

Having kids close together is also a legitimate strategy for having closeness among siblings. Not a guarantee, but having them in a similar stage of development can help them play better together (older kids aren't always interesting in what younger kids are, also there are physical differences that can make sports no fun for older kids). There's a practical aspect here. Not for everyone and it also varies a lot based on the temperament of the children. The strong outside influence on my family to half multiple was that we were able to see a good number of examples of large (>=4 kids) families that were an example of what we wanted too.

Children require a lot of time. I only have a single one, and I am already struggling with no time to do anything. I admit I am not the best at time management.

With 4 children ... I can't even conceive how that would be. I would probably love them to death but would consider escaping into the wildness every night.

time overlaps, it doesn't accumulate. two kids takes maybe 20% more time than one kid, not 100% more. and as kids get older, more kids means they can occupy themselves more easily because they play together, and are not alone seeking your attention.

Thanks for the info, that ship has sailed for me now anyway.

I feel ya. It took me a couple years to get used to having kids, but there is a point where I realized (as a very selfish person) my life was no longer about me. The little amount of time I get to myself anymore I cherish, just as much as the time I cherish with my children.

I think it's the American Reality, if you're extremely fortunate. The American Dream was to be able to comfortably support a family on one income with a high school diploma.

Life with 4 kids under 6 is exhausting as hell but feels like heaven.

They have 4 kids under 6. Sounds like reality of families with manu small kids.

People who keep on having children are often the kind of people who like children. Under those circumstances I assure you that is not a hellish life.

I think the author thinks they have to have kids as instructed by the bible:

"As human beings, our primary mission in life is to be fruitful and multiply, and take dominion over the earth. If that sounds like Bible talk, it is. This is the creed God gave to Adam and Eve. Genesis 1:28.

That’s our responsibility as human beings."

https://jdnoc.com/guides/increasing-wealth-as-a-father

The linked article has quite a few cracks that show, but this is just straight up ramblings of a crazy person. Is this the sad outcome for people who don't know how to write but get addicted to "hustle" influencers and SEO scams?

Also none of this sounds at all Christian.

'Christian' covers an awful lot of ground, as an admittedly simplistic division - a lot of the Old Testament (which includes Genesis as quoted) might '[not sound] at all Christian' to many.

I've stopped reading at ".... 4 kids" :D

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