Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

> Anyway, my advice is to NOT get a kid or even married if you have some strong intellectual interests

I wholly disagree. All but a small number of the happy, successful people I know in highly challenging or intellectual positions have families and children in later life.

I do know several people who avoided dating altogether in pursuit of some other goal and, honestly, it hasn’t turned out the way any of them expected. One had a small startup exit but is now trying to play catchup on life with a lot of regrets, basically.

I think this advice is similar to the advice to young people to drop out of college so they can start companies or follow some passion: You don’t hear about the vast majority of students who drop out and regret it, you only imagine the Bill Gates of the world who drop out and achieve their dreams. For most people, the advice doesn’t get them closer to success or happiness like they imagine.

View on HN

I’d like to reiterate this one. Also, having a kid will reduce your “free” time; however, it will also force you to work more focussed.

This entirely depends on how present you want to be in your kids lives, especially early lives. If you want to be there frequently you need to get the time from some where.

If you're fine with them going off to daycare or having your partner raise them solo, then you don't need to sacrifice any of your time really.

Are these people you know rich and able to use money to deal with the hard problems of raising children?

If I had money for cleaning services, landscaping, laundry, day car, large suv etc it would be easier

Important to note he didn't mention success once despite you doing so twice. Rather he said children are a detriment if you have "strong intellectual interests". He also didn't make a value statement of being happiness/unhappiness or talk about "pursuing some larger goal". He said it's a different - not worse -lifestyle that isn't the most conducive to said hobbies/interests. Which anyone with a child would immediately resonate and agree with.

Being in highly challenging intellectual positions is not the same as actually producing highly valuable output. Are they effective in their positions after having kids? Do they have stay-at-home partners?

Also wholly disagree. I don't have a kid, but I am married, and nothing has helped me more. Best thing that ever happened to me.

Getting a partner and splitting many responsibilities with them at the "cost" of spending time with them is probably a net gain of free time. Kids are nothing like that.

At least, if you want to be present in your kids lives. If you want to have kids and just see them develop around you and attend a soccer game or recital every now and then, kids aren't a big time sink either.

Just another data point — anecdata, n=1.

I'm an academic in the humanities with kids, currently in my late 30s. While having children certainly reduces the time and mental bandwidth available for purely intellectual pursuits, I’ve found it forces me to focus more sharply on what truly matters—both in life and in research.

Paradoxically, I feel more intellectually alive now than before. The recent advances in AI are transformative, and they’ve opened up unprecedented possibilities even for resource-constrained researchers like myself. This moment in time feels uniquely energizing and urgent, especially for the humanities.

Of course, having kids is a major responsibility, and in academia—where short-term contracts and financial insecurity are common—it can be daunting. I feel incredibly privileged to be able to do both: raise a family and engage deeply with my field. But this is very personal terrain, and there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com