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I think the most important part of being a father who works is keeping strict boundaries between work and home. When I am at home, I am at home. When I am at work, I am at work. The kids know that M-F, dad's gone at 7am and home at 4:15. They know that when daddy's home, he's all theirs. We play legos, we play blocks, we build trains, we color pictures, wrestle, laugh, read books. It's all about them.

This strict boundary means I rarely if ever work from home. It confuses them. Daddy's present, but can't play with me. It breaks my heart to hear "Wanna snuggle with me, Dad?" and I've got visual studio open on the computer. Fk code. I want snuggle time with my baby-girl. So I leave if I have to and head in to the office. But I'm back before the kids go to sleep to read a story.

"Success" can be defined a lot of ways. My Dad reached his success by working very hard to gain enough money at the end of life to live playing golf daily in sunny Florida. He sees the kids maybe two times a year. My success will be living a full life now, surrounded by snuggling grandkids and hopefully great-grandkids when I'm old, still shoveling snow in Wisconsin winters if that's where they are.

I think this point of view is due to your definition of success. You have a very "Protestant Work Ethic" angle (not that that's a bad thing in any way).

To play Devil's Advocate, I would say the best example you could set to your kids is show them that what counts in life isn't money or a career, that to be happy you shouldn't sacrifice your family life or work yourself to the ground. That what is important is spending as much of the little time we have on this planet with the people we love. Even if that means not having the corner office or the biggest house or the newest car on the block.

I understand your point. Here are two more points:

1. We should remember that young kids have no idea that, while we are absent, we are sacrificing, providing and succeeding. To them, we are just absent.

2. Reading Dr. Suess and playing Lego with our kids is an expression of sacrifice, provision and success, albeit with different currency and goals.

I came to this same conclusion recently. It's great to spend time with the kids but there's a lot to be said for setting an example. I changed jobs to be closer to home after my second child was born. It's been over a year now and I'm realizing that being a good father is not just about spending quality time with your kids. It's also about teaching our kids to follow their dreams and find work that they truly enjoy. What better way to teach them this? This is why I'm making an effort to change my situation ASAP.

Jonathan Coulton comes to mind. He left his boring job as a programmer to pursue music as a way to make a living. He does not sacrifice family time for his "dream", but provides an example of a dad doing something he enjoys to make money for the family while having fun with the family.

My situation is a little different. I actually enjoy programming. What I miss is the satisfaction of building solutions to real problems and working with other developers who are as passionate and dedicated their work as I am. We put a lot of effort into becoming the best we can. It's nice to have the opportunity to put those skills to good use.

You should probably ask some people late in life if they wished they had spent more time in the office.

I was hoping you could clarify what you consider to be a reasonable amount of time.

i have to assume you don't have any children yet... remember, you can love your job, but your job will never love you.

I think it would be very difficult to find many people who would say "My life would have been better if my father/mother worked more.".

The "principle of sacrifice" is a coping method fathers use to deal with their guilt for not spending time with their families.

As a father, on my death bed I am sure my biggest regrets are going to be:

1. That I did not work 78 extra weekends 2. Did not squeeze an extra 3 hours into each of my 8 hour workdays 3. Had more days where I had a vacant look in my eyes, while interacting with people I love, cause a work problem was bothering me.

There is a product to ship, damn it, and Family should never be a priority.

You're showing a disproportionate emotional response to a point he didn't even make.

The idea is that as parents, we send subtle signals to our young children about how adult life should be. A father spending 6h a day at work and the rest with their child is preparing a personality potentially lacking a builtin discipline derived subconsciously from observing the parental example.

This has nothing to do with your worries about your death bed regrets. They're valid too, but besides the point the PP was making.

What's undisciplined about working 6hrs a day, which was about standard for most of human history? Parents (especially immigrants) make incredible sacrifices so that their kids don't have to kill themselves with work, not to be an example.

And some parents just don't like their kids and use "sacrifice" as an excuse to have fun at the office.

I disagree with the premise that discipline is taught primarily by absence. If anything the 6h a day father has more bandwidth to work on discipline and hard work with their kids. I learned hard work from working on stuff with my dad, not by playing nintendo while he was at work.

Right, but let's be honest with ourselves here. These aren't fathers out fighting fires, these aren't fathers out fighting wars, these aren't fathers healing.

These are fathers who "sacrifice" their family years so that they can "increase stakeholder value" to the tune of 60+ hours a week. I don't want my kids to grow up thinking that their job in life is to increase the value of their VCs' portfolio by a couple of points prior to being liquidated.

Get stuffed.

You make some valid points, but you do yourself a disservice by adding the unnecessary insult "Get stuffed." Please keep the discussion here at HN civil and respectful.

Thank you for your input--I'm just a bit hardline on this topic as there seems (to me) to be far too much of an exploitative undercurrent to a lot of the public rhetoric about working in the tech world.

There is only so much respect to be accorded to someone advocating the waste of prime years.

(and all that said, again, point taken.)