Dear founders: Children are not a distraction, they are motivation
zaman.io
zaman.io
It is quite ironic that the vast wealth accumulated by the western world, which was built upon the nuclear family as its foundation, has now allowed the next generation such freedom that they can dally as singles for significant portions of their lives. That being said, singles are very productive in short bursts, but these are unstable and fuelled by emotional insecurity which, as mentioned in the article, inevitably lead to burnout.
Society will inevitably return to its nuclear family origins, as the fun loving singles will not provide offspring in quality and quantity to compete with these traditional families.
Moral of the story: don't be so quick to condemn the old ways of family life. They have survived for millenia, and will continue to do so long after we're gone.
I'm not aware of any civilization that "held the nuclear family as their most important asset" (whatever that means). Ancient Greek literature does not wax poetic about the paramount importance of the nuclear family, neither does Renaissance Florence. Confucian ancestor worship is the only system of ethics that comes close to that (and it's about the extended family) - but I doubt that's what you meant.
> simple evolutionary forces, which for K-selected species [...]
Anyone who threw even a cursory glance at the Lotka-Volterra equations [1] would not talk of evolutionary forces as being "simple".
> singles are very productive in short bursts, but these are unstable
And yet some of the most creative / productive people in history did not also create nuclear families (Michelangelo, Kant, Turing etc.).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%E2%80%93Volterra_equation
And as per some of the most 'creative'/'productive' people being single presumes that their accomplishments sprung out of their heads like Athena. None of them would have the very culture they played off of that enabled their greatness without the existence of nuclear families.
The whole point about the term 'nuclear family' is that is refers to the (generally WASP) family structure in the nuclear age. It is specific to the modern age. Trying to retrofit it to historical civilisations is only going to end up in trying to explain away why this one or that one doesn't fit.
Strangely, you dismiss Ancient Greek culture as not being up to the task, but then grant that Florentine success was only because they copied old Greek culture. It's also worth mentioning that the Renaissance wasn't just central Europeans rediscovering archaic artifacts, as there was a host of new ideas and technologies being founded at the time, eventually accelerating into the Enlightenment period.
That's not my understanding at all. It refers to the "nucleus" of parents and children, as opposed to extended family.
The nuclear family is the most basic form of family, and is certainly not opposed to an extended family. An extended family is a superset of a nuclear family. All families by definition must include the subset of the nuclear family, and thus it is the minimum requirement to fall into the set of "All possible families".
For the set of all families F, there exists an element N = "nuclear family" such that N is a subset of F.
If dad's abusive and mum can't cope, and the grandparents are taking care of the kids at their place, it's not a nuclear family - the supposed 'nucleus' is not there.
If there are no children, but adult siblings live together, they are a family, but not a nuclear one.
My old boss took in a couple of teenagers from up the road when their mother was caught cheating and fled, never to be seen again, and the father was a pilot, always away, and utterly useless with kids. So here you have a situation where there is a sort of stepmother (no formal adoption) taking care of two kids (who come to see her as mum), a separate father who's not really in their lives, and a biological mother who has never been seen since. It's hard to see how terming that fractured family as a 'nuclear family' allows the phrase to have any useful meaning whatsoever.
The only thing that is important in my assertion is whether the nuclear family unit is purposefully maintained by the parents, or not. The many reasons outside of the parents' control which may contribute to its dissolution are not part of this discussion (accidental death, dislocation, disease, etc.).
As with any problem, we must be careful in defining our variables and assumptions, and minimize both in order to reduce the complexity of the problem, but not so much that the problem being solved becomes trivial.
And, strictly speaking, an embryo is not always created at the time of intercourse. Even if your definition was correct, it is possible for the father and mother to be together, the father to leave, and then for the egg and sperm to meet. This can be be up to 3 to 5 days later.
In any case, what society considers a family has more impact on how humans treat each other than what genetics considers a family, so I don't see how you can so casually discard non-genetic definitions. If you go to a court that deals in family law, they certainly don't limit their definition of family to pure genetic strains.
evolutionary foundations of human mating systems
What exactly are you referring to here?
I'm not sure if that's true (considering just Hellenism and the descendants that Alexander the Great's people must have left between Thrace and India), but to address this more generally: of course if you don't have children you won't "genetically survive". The question was whether it would preclude you from great work. In this regard, Ancient Greece is an example of work that did survive - and even, for many centuries, served as a model.
Freedom? More like not being able to afford the expenses of having a family.
I'm 36 and make above the average income for a person in Los Angeles, but I can't afford a house and can't fathom trying to raise a family on my income. It would basically be a choice between having children or having a retirement. If this is freedom, I hope I don't get any more liberated than I already am.
Just my thoughts. Idk.
There's a certain level of elitism in this thinking, namely in the fact that educated, wealthier people tend to underestimate how happy poor people are. To a point, wealthier people are happier and worry less, but I don't think it's in practice so much more that say one wealthy, well-educated person has more total happiness than two poor people.
It circles back to kids. There are a lot of things in my life, in terms of education and career path that make me happy. I worked very hard in grad school for several years and got exactly the job I wanted, and that accomplishment makes me happy. But my daughter makes me much happier than that, and she was the product of five minutes and something it takes no education or intelligence to do...
In a vacuum, if a couple has only one child, that child had better grow up to support those two people in retirement. If four grandparents only have one grandchild, it's even worse.
The current answers to that problem are immigration (in which case someone else is still paying for benefits) or incredibly low take-home pay for workers (lots of withholding for personal or public retirement funds).
This was more of an opinion coming from my hometown, where we have an epidemic of twenty-somethings divorced with three kids because they took on too much too fast.
edit: also, when you're at a bar and the first questions are: - are you divorced? - how many kids do you have?
But I agree that people should be wiser about planning their lives out. I'm not sure that's a solvable problem, though.
Eh, I think Japan's problem is more that they have a very narrow idea (ethnically speaking) as to what they want Japanese people to look like. If they were willing to loosen up a bit on that, there are plenty of people who would be willing to come, become Japanese, and if it's anything like immigration here in the US, probably have a fair number of children.
In SF, applications developers, dental hygienists, and registered nurses all earn, on average, around 100k a year. Two of them together would together earn about $220k a year in SF. That's workable.
That's depressing. Sure, it might be workable too. But depressing. That's a little over a million dollars in FIVE YEARS. Ok ok, one or two more for final take-home pay.
And that's still merely "workable" rather than "Oh boy we've got it made!"
People tend to underestimate both the amount of stress that small children are and the gradual reduction of stress capacity that comes with age. You are good at pushing yourself to the limit? That's great. How do you cope with 24/7 low-level stress for months without _any_ break?
My wife and I decided to do the kids thing early in life (relative to other academics) and now are finished with our family planning while yet having to reach any sort of "steady career-path".
Best choice ever.
But I must add that I do this with the strong social safety net of Germany in my back. I'll never be homeless, I'll never go hungry and my children will get an excellent education, _no matter what_.
However, ensuring that you can still afford to pay all the bills for months --or years, preferably-- on end in the event that your source of income disappears... that seems to be the most important of the ducks. Whether it's a home you own or six months' mortgage/rent is just details.
Have you ever tried to put an infant car seat in the back of a 1994 Mazda MX-6 coupe? It might change your priority list.
>It would basically be a choice between having children or having a retirement.
Location, location, location. My dad moved his family to a place he could afford so he could take care of them.
I could make the same salary in San Francisco that I make in Austin, TX, but the same salary goes a /lot/ farther in Texas than it does in California.
I am sure I could live well in texas - but the companies and sector I want to work in, for me personally, only exists in SF.
From one dad to another: I'm trying to provide the same. You're inspiring.
Amazingly, rich people spend more than poorer people.
Move or learn to live frugally. Many people cannot afford a house/family until they get married and combine incomes.
The nuclear family is a massive undertaking of concentrated risk that few are properly equipped to deal with. As society continues to globalize, it provides fewer benefits over its alternatives. Visit any nursing home with its abandoned elders to see the fruits of the nuclear family. Is it truly a sustainable model for the future?
Humans existed for tens of thousands of years without doing anything interesting. Humans did lots of things then. Most of them haven't survived into modernity; if you want an idea of what humans used to do before agriculture, there are still some cultures existing now that exist at that stage.
The wealth of the West was maybe built on nuclear families; it was also built on colonialism, slavery, white supremacy, patriarchy, and corporatism. Plenty of things have existed in the brief infancy of humanity. Very few of them are worth taking with us into the future.
Starting a family is sometimes the right thing to do. Remaining free of children is also sometimes the right thing to do, just like it's sometimes right to stay single and sometimes right to have a partner, or more than one partner.
Whatever you do, be intentional and do it because it's the right thing for you to do in your life, not because of any societal diktat or because of pressure from other people.
I'm not going to morally judge someone for benign lifestyle decisions, but it's baldly not true that someone can just live whatever life one wants without affecting the people around them.
Keeping your kids out of school, verbal abuse, avoiding vaccinations, trapping people into relationships with pregnancies, running out on child support, substance abuse during pregnancy, unprotected sex with strangers ... there are clearly things that are intentional and (ignorantly) someone's right to do. And they are clearly the wrong thing to do, for the individuals involved and for society at large.
I realize that you probably didn't mean to include all those decisions as valid in your sweeping case for non-judgemental social norms, but the fact is that norms are incredibly important because, especially when it comes to family, decisions do affect other people. If we can agree that some norms are important, the only discussion is about which are important, why, and how much.
I'll go one further and defend social diktat since it's probably not something most people consider. Given that norms are important, I'd rather people enforce these norms outside of the laws. The norm used to be that gay sex was a bad idea. People were (and are) thrown into prison and legally executed because people decided to turn social norms into laws. Since norms are greatly affected by technology and culture, keeping enforcement confined to social pressure provides a level of protection to people who decide to try something outside-the-box.
Due to advances in human rights and standard of living, having or not having children is now decoupled from being or not being single. A reversal of this would be a major regression in society.
Relationships turning sour is a fact of life. If a relationship between two adults sours, I assert that it is almost always better for the child in the long run for the parents to realize this and separate. Of course if we could live in a utopia where every child gets two loving parents who get along with each other, that would be great, but that will never happen and it has never happened in the past. Increased separation rates are an improvement over the alternative.
Wishing that there were fewer single parents is like wishing that fewer people had to experience life-saving surgery when the alternative is needing that surgery but not getting it. Yeah, it would be great if nobody received life-saving surgery because nobody fell ill in the first place... but that's not happening anytime soon.
Edit: @ChuckMcM: I am aware of what he was alluding to. I believe that he has drawn the wrong conclusions from those statistics. Two parents being better than one does not imply that it is better for all of those children with one parent to have their parents still together. Many/most of those children are better off with one parent than with two parents in a shitty relationship.
Crudely:
1 parent < 2 parents (in general)
but more specifically I assert:
2 parents (in a bad relationship) < 1 parent < 2 parents (in a good relationship)
2 parents (in a bad relationship)
2 parents (in a good relationship)
1 parent
2 parents (in a good relationship)
Please don't advocate for moving from the first situation into the second.
Coming from someone who's lived it.
2 parents (in a bad relationship) > 1 parent
Very often however the situation is well beyond repair. Sometimes the relationships were built on a foundation of abuse in the first place, so there isn't even anything positive to restore. In those situations, we should provide all the encouragement and assistance to single parents as we can muster.
> "Coming from someone who's lived it. 2 parents (in a bad relationship) > 1 parent"
Your experience, while valuable, should be taken for what it is: your experience.
(In the interest of disclosure, I feel that I should mention that my parents have never been separated. I was lucky.)
Or you don't give your parents enough credit.
I'm not saying it should be applied to existing marriages.
'You can make decisions for yourself, DO NOT make them for others.'
Your statement makes no sense. Decisions are made for you by others by the congress, senate, and other government institutions everyday. And how do these congressmen get into office? By promoting their views on what everyone should be doing. You can try to avoid discussing ideas you don't like but it only means decisions will be made for you without your input.
Good luck.
Removing No-fault divorce doesn't mean you're not allowed to divorce if there is e.g. domestic violence / abuse. It just means you're not allowed to divorce for no reason. Removing it is hardly a death sentence.
Millions of people gamble on the stock market and lose, are you suggesting instead of punishing people who make mistakes on the stock market via economic losses, they should be compensated? Because it is a basic human right to make investments?
You're also saying that it is a basic human right for one to renege on a vow that is meant to last for life. Then what about the human right to have one's agreements with others respected? Does it not violate your human rights if your wife reneges on the vow she took to be with you until death?
If you aren't willing or aren't able to fulfill the terms of a contract, it is morally wrong for you to agree to it. And once agreed, even if it has become difficult to fulfill the attached obligations, it is morally right to fulfill it nonetheless.
What about you, where are your morals, and what are they?
I would suggest it is you who is evil. By removing consequences to actions you subvert the relationship of society where the virtuous are rewarded. The likes of you leads a society down a path of hedonism where only the self is worshipped, and morals are ignored and culture is destroyed.
I was even giving you the benefit of the doubt that your position wasn't based on religion. But now you've explicitly admitted that you want to inject your religion into law. Your evil knows no bounds.
Now they just won't register their relations.
Pushing on those ideas will make you reinvent GULAG.
1 bad parent < 2 parents in a bad relationship (such that it negatively affects the child) < 1 good parent < 2+ good parents/parental figures
So I think in general multiple adults putting real effort toward raising a child is the best scenario. You can say what you like about specific circumstances, but as a whole, multiple adults are clearly better.
At least for me, local statistics show that the majority of children are born to unmarried parents; and only ~65% of school-age children are raised by both parents. So it's not even a case for exceptions, but a socially accepted, very common phenomenon.
"Although unmarried couples are now more likely statistically to have children than married couples – a reflection of the fact that they tend to be younger overall – most children are still being brought up by married couples, as they tend to have larger families."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9953364/The-family-is...
But standard of living is not decoupled from being single or not, especially when kids are in the picture.
edit: I should have also mentioned that I firmly support the greater social freedom, such as the ability to choose the nature of one's family, afforded by our more integrated and (in my view) enlightened states.
A) People that don't have kids are single B) Being single for extended amounts of time leads to some sort of emotional insecurity and "inevitable" burn out
Are, frankly, far more insulting to me than the totally mathematically sound thesis that somebody with 4 kids may have less time in their life for other things, like work.
As for myself, I'm soon to be married, with no plans for kids in the future.
A separate couple rising their kids is not 'traditional family' - a traditional family would delegate significant parts of the childcare effort away from the young adults/parents, so they'd focus on their work; a nuclear family doesn't do that.
I can tell you for certain we are NOT heading back that way. Society will only become more acceptable to alternative families.
Followers of nuclear family as the center of society are called familialists, typically. Yes, they tend to be conservatives.
On two conditions only. Much of our false wealth must be shed (which will happen within the next 10-20 years) and we must stop enabling/encouraging non-nuclear family population growth. There has to be real consequences to fatherless children and women with 5 kids from 5 daddies. Now we just give unwed mothers money, free stuff and moral permission to do it again and again.
I moved interstate for 3 months to take part in an accelerator, and had to drag my son and pregnant wife with me. That was hard (mostly on them!)
When I was pitching for investment in the US (we're Aussies) and missed my sons 2nd birthday, it nearly broke me in two.
When I went to the US to participate in 500 Startups, 6 weeks after my wife had given birth to our daughter. That was incredibly hard...for everybody.
12 months ago when I didn't take a paycheck for a month, knowing I was failing my family, that was the hardest.
Right now I'm in Sydney, away from my wife and kids, I will miss my Son's karate grading... and I feel like a terrible father for doing so.
But here's the thing. All these things are hard, and I do them because they have to be done. Not because "it might be fun" or "just to see what happens", but because these things will lead us to success.
The bar for what constitutes a worthwhile activity is raised so much higher when you have a family to support. You learn to be more critical on evaluating opportunities, and you only jump when you need to jump. It doesn't cripple you, it forces you to focus on things that move the dial.
That should be sentence #1.
I get that putting everybody into cute little boxes with solid walls separating them from the other groups makes things easier on our brains, but we'd probably be a lot better off if we tried to imagine others complexly, because that's the reality.
I agree our work environment is hostile to people's personal lives, but when parents use their kids as an excuse to get out of doing their share, instead of advocating for better work life balance for everyone, the reaction of the childless should be completely unsurprising.
I'm all for promoting healthier work/life balances (4 weeks vacation, anyone?), but it's not like it's mutually exclusive. I'm also friends with a guy with 3 kids and I've seen the chaos that erupts when their routines get screwed with.
I am broadly OK with subsidizing families. It's hard enough as it is? Suck it up, someone's gotta raise the new generation.
If you choose to have kids, you too will get to dump shit work. If you don't choose to have kids you will have 2-3x the disposable income, so it's kind of win-win.
Do you have any sort of actual evidence to support this? (Actual evidence, not anecdotal stories about how somebody with a kid made you do more work on a project once)
So at my company there is a very strict policy about this, and it gets followed to a T.
I have worked at a place where I got the support pager on a holiday because I was single. I have also had to do support in the middle of the night because the person with children didn't answer because he set the volume low (so as not to disturb his wife) and didn't wake-up.
Anecdotally, they also seem to get sick more (kindergartens as vectors for spreading flu? sleep-deprivation lowered immunity? just guessing), but the first part is obviously true.
Either your business model requires the exploitation of cheap labour, or it doesn't and we're being crappy for no good reason.
Now, we can talk about say the specific ways in which we subsidize families that lead to bad urbanization patterns and that's acceptable - tho as a childless 20something I'm broadly OK with subsidizing families.
But I'm having a hard time imagining an alternate argument that doesn't end up being an apologia for abusive work relationships, but I'd be happy to hear another side to it.
The two polarized extremes I was referring to are the view cited by the article and the opposite it is attempting to dispute: "Being a parent makes you a more motivated founder" and "being a parent is a detriment to being a founder", respectively.
Code? What cod... wait, right, I'm a developer. Gosh, that problem I'm stuck at is really diffic... Wait, I got it! I know what way to go now and try to solve that.
Thanks, son!
Yes, you'll be inspired to provide for your family being in start-up mode. It probably will push you harder than if you weren't nested. But, convetionally, your partner will encourage you to engage in much more stable financial endeavours (ie, anything but start-ups).
As they should too. Why? Because, let's face it; most people's ideas are pretty shitty. That's not a secret around here ... so let's put that out there. As we know, even if you do have a super great idea, there is so much luck required to break through.
I don't mean to sound grinchy on a Ycombinator forum, but let's just address the reality here. The times we live in is where The Social Network has become like a founding myth of a 21st century goldrush. People are over educated and bored with job-jobs, so wishful thinking pushes them into developing their genius apps and half-baked Facebook killers.
I don't want to discourage people from being creative and innovative, but I think all of this has to be considered in this discussion of raising a family and doing something extremely financially risky like a startup.
It depends on your specific situation. Kids will generally make you more risk averse, but working partners will make you less risk averse. The founder at the startup where I worked (who had three kids at the time), was able to bootstrap because his wife's job was enough to pay the mortgage and health insurance.
I personally feel a lot more empowered to make risky career moves because my wife could support the family by herself if need be.
Ripped directly from a rejection letter I received:
"I think instead of making a more detailed offer, I should consider certain facts.
For starters, you have a family and that'll be the driving force behind all your decisions. Secondly, you will not be able to be here in the program with me. Ideally, I want someone who could be here though not necessary. More importantly, it's the family situation I consider. I've worked developers before with family and the company died largely because of that. I don't want to say that'll happen but I worry.
This other candidate is like me. No responsibilities except {COMPANY NAME}. That makes life less complicated. Based on this - nothing to do with skills - it's best that him and I work together. "
The program was one of the startup accelerators (not YC). He was right that my family would have been the driving force behind all my decisions. He was wrong in thinking that's a bad thing. I can't imagine a bigger motivator than my family. When you have kids, failure just isn't an option.
'Nuff said.
>>> No responsibilities except {COMPANY NAME}. That makes life less complicated. Based on this - nothing to do with skills - it's best that him and I work together.
Skills include management skills such as working with people who are not all alike.
You dodged a bullet.
Then it seems that startups are a pretty bad choice for parents, given their inherent riskiness?
What a crock of shit. Most companies fail, and you can blame the guy with a family as the main source of failure? I wonder what he will blame the next failure on.
As I get older I get wiser, and I'm not so stupidly entertained by the occasional trinkets thrown to me by my career. Everything works better when it's in it's proper place -- balanced. It took several years of imbalance, lots of misplaced ambition, and a severe burnout to realize this. I don't expect that I would have figured it out until I experienced it firsthand.
It's just a job. It doesn't define you, and you don't have to make a difference to be a worthwhile person.
I think a lot of this "always on" crap that people want to think they have to do stems from insecurity. Definitely do side projects/open source/other things as you want to, but it's not required in any form. The result is substantially better when you do it because you really want to, not because you're trying to level up your resume.
It's hard. I have tremendous respect for my wife, because - she's the one spending the most time with the kids. That said: I do work from home and this DOES influence my ability to work.
I wouldn't want to miss them. They are great. I agree with the OP that they help you in some ways (keeping a schedule, logistics, making sure that you're not slacking off during the day and getting into a frenzy mode at night).
But they have a (cough) cost. I'm looking left and right for a job that would make me happier. I usually don't even dare to send an application (because hey, could I actually take it? I mean.. probation time etc. even if they'd take me in) and if I do I usually know that I won't risk it either.
The big risk is not productivity. That can be avoided and a decent structure (support in your family, a good understanding with your SO) solves most of the standard "But aren't kids dragging you down?" issues.
But flexibility is truly lost, unless you have lots of savings or your SO earns enough money (BZZZZT). At this point in time I'm absolutely certain that I'll never start a company of my own (okay, okay, let's be honest: The kids are not to blame for most of the issues: I don't even have a decent idea. I'm saying: I wouldn't, even with the perfect pitch) and I'm even reasonably sure that I'll stick with my current company for a loooong time.
For safety, family. I just cannot experiment anymore.
I have a kid, however we also have no mortgage, no cars(live in a centre of a city) and can save quite a bit per month.
I think stable is dangerous, being dependent on employment from someone is terrible. Basically I live with assumption that I might need to look for a new gig next week. So keep my network maintained, my skill continuously sharpened etc. Do not fear losing job embrace it!
I don't fear losing my job. Without bragging: I'm reasonably sure that I'm among the best developers the company has, easily. My life's even quite relaxed, due to my (earned) status. It's just boring. And sometimes annoying.
So I'm not afraid of losing my job. That is totally possible, but imo quite unlikely at this point. I'm just afraid of actively looking for a 'fun job'.
Do not be afraid to look for fun job. Worst case happens you go there people hate you and fire you during probation. You are good you will find something else. Best part part you are not going to feel what if.. I am not saying put all your savings into building and AI startup or new Facebook lol. Love your life and you and your kid will be happier for it
I'm not denigrating families of three, I'm criticizing the way current costs and benefits of Western governments make it too expensive for responsible people to have decent-sized families.
I don't think I could muster the courage to do just that. Maybe your situation is different (here, we got just one income: Mine. No savings account or any property) or maybe you're just braver than me.
Again, I wish you all the best with your change of career, I just cannot imagine doing that myself.
Because from my own experience, taking care of a newborn with the two spouses both working demanding jobs is extremely, extremely hard. It's just about the hardest thing I've ever done, and my wife agrees. We are both exhausted every day, weekends are even harder than the weekdays, and time to ourselves is the most precious commodity we have and the thing we have the least of.
If you can't have your parents take care of the kid during the day, or if you can't afford a nanny, then the issues related to day care compound the situation a great deal.
If one of the spouses agrees to completely take care of the kid, it makes it a lot easier to spend the extra energy, because it gives you the flexibility required to do things that startups need. The thing that is the most limiting is time and schedule flexibility, and energy. Without that flexibility, the ability to go beyond what is expected is extremely hard, in my own experience.
Looking after them, hauling them around, catering to their needs. If you don't do that you are suspicious and may even become a criminal: How dare you leave your 10yo kid alone and let her use internets unsupervised?
I'm not sure I want that. It wasn't like that when I was a kid, I came from school on foot, boiled some food, made homework while parents were busy making money, even helped them with that a bit. Now it's supposed to be one way street.
If society want everybody to have children they should whoa whoa take it easy.
Society doesn't force you to spend an "unrealistic amount of time on children", if anything, it's the opposite, forcing you to spend too much time away from them.
There's nothing wrong with making sure your children are independent and can do things on their own, and by the age of 10 I'd expect them to be capable of quite a bit of independence. However, even at that age, they're still aggregating enormous of new information about the world, daily. You should around to help guide them, teach them, or just be a sounding board for them to bounce ideas off of.
You seem to be confusing normal child rearing with the "helicopter parent" meme.
You should especially re-read your own sentence: "Looking after them, hauling them around, catering to their needs. If you don't do that you are suspicious and may even become a criminal"
catering to their needs. Well I certainly hope if you have children you'd be willing to meet their needs!
Children require you to feed, them have roof over their head, have clothing and teach them stuff by example. They do not require you to follow them around 24/7 making sure they don't get hurt or come into contact with outside world.
When we had our kid I was really afraid that somehow I will turn into one of those crazy friends I have. It did not happen.. keeping wife from going there is taking some effort though.
Of course people who don't have children yet are prone to confusion and I'm not the only person alienated by this.
And yes, if you don't have kids of your own, the time spent on them seems kind of insane. After you have them, it still seems like a lot of time, but most people would tell you it's worth it.
Having a family and shifting into an "it's not about me anymore" frame of mind probably sounds worse than death to them. I know it would have at one point in my life.
Having a supportive spouse is an amazing boon, too, and one that should not be overlooked in this discussion.
When it really comes down to it starting something is really about the passion to do it. If you want to succeed the thing you want to succeed at needs to be an idea that you can't get out of your head. So that when you are playing with your kids or managing your bowling league your subconscious brain continues to work away at the idea of moving your business forward.
I have known people who tried to start businesses with kids and succeeded I have also known people who start businesses with kids and fail miserably.
In the end it is because having kids or not having kids is going to have nothing to do with your success or failure. Being dedicated and inspired to succeed will.
Maybe you get your inspiration from your kids as the OP does, or maybe you just really want to see the world with another web framework. Either way, if you truly want it to happen then you will make a version of it work.
However, having children has increased my motivation and productivity. It's as if limiting available time increases the quantity of available focus. I am also significantly more disciplined than I was as a childless bachelor. I taught myself to code after having my first child.
A tip for new parents: if you can, get up early rather than staying up late to work on your personal projects. This has two advantages: 1) your best effort will be given to your own projects; and 2) you won't be looking forward to getting away from your family to do work after hours.
I'm not making the argument that any person will be more productive with kids. Just retelling my experience.
Some anecdata: I had a very comfortable engineering job when my first kid was born, but it was pretty much dead-end in terms of salary. I re-evaluated my career, and applied for a higher paying job that is widely regarded as being difficult, boring, political, and stressful.
All of the applicants, and from what I can tell, virtually all of the people who hold those crappy but higher paying jobs, have kids. I asked a bachelor why he didn't apply for the job, and he said: "Are you kidding me, I want to enjoy my evenings and weekends, and I have no reason to make more money."
> This is sent merely to inform you that a short time ago I received a letter from you from which I learnt that you have had an heir, which circumstance I understand has afforded you a great deal of pleasure. Now in so far as I had judged you to be possessed of prudence I am now entirely convinced that I am as far removed from having an accurate judgment as you are from prudence; seeing that you have been congratulating yourself in having created a watchful enemy, who will strive with all his energies after liberty, which can only come into being at your death.
http://archive.org/stream/notebooksofleona027479mbp/notebook...
Harsh stuff.
In this world I would say, the more exposure to different worlds and points of views the better.
One important rule that I have is minimize the time away from home. I have to travel a lot and I've found that for kids, time perception is different than for adults. A week seems short time for a 35 year old, but it's an eternity for a toddler. For that reason I try to stay away from home only the necessary time and not a single hour more. Thats a limitation that I try to balance offering experience and profesionality.
And also, I always try to come back with a lot of gifts :)
There's an overpowering tendency to solve for a perfect "steady state" solution to optimizing one's behavior. You see this tendency in nutrition, psychology, everywhere in relation to biological things.
It's dead wrong.
Sometimes "cycling" between states is the optimal approach, not steady-state do one thing, eat one thing, etc. Variety can help you more consistently reach your goals. Forcing yourself to totally unwind can allow you to focus more intensely for much longer without burning out. I quite dislike this myth that you have to be boring to be successful.
Children would be a distraction to me right now. I know myself better than anybody else knows me, and I'm the only one that can rationally judge this for me.
Over the prior 15 years, I couldn't have lived the way I chose to, or made the business/life decisions I did, while being responsible, if I had had children. That included being so strapped I could barely feed myself, much less children. It would have been wildly ignorant to have had a child at that point.
If your family can afford the income hit during a failed company without the kids suffering - that's great. But if it can't, but you simply believe that it will be successful - then that's just lying to them and yourself.
The intent of startups is to make it big. To make it big, 100% effort is a requirement. I am not discounting people who can do 200% (two jobs) but if you want to do a fulltime job plus a startup plus give time to your family, and do all three adequately, you'd have to be superman who needs no sleep. For the rest of us mortals with families that we want to live with and not merely exist with, two full time jobs, one of which is a startup is not possible. We might do it transitionally, but not more than a few months.
I did find one quote in the article particularly interesting: "Immediately one of the more prominent HN members pointed out that I'm somehow at a disatvantage since there's a version of me out there without being burdened by having to support a family and thus has a bigger chance of success."
I would say that all else being equal, you are more likely to be successful in launching a startup if you don't have kids. That said, everything is rarely equal. I don't know too many people in my age group who devote themselves 100% to work. Even if they're a miserable person with no hobbies, they at the very least spend a lot of time trying to find relationships. If they don't, it has a really negative effect on their emotional state. They spend a lot more time with friends to get all the necessary social interaction. In other words, unless you're extremely introverted, having a family isn't purely a cost on your time--it satisfies certain emotional and social needs that would otherwise take time to meet.
Children are startups. They are practices for startups. They entail commitment, chaos, emotional chaos, growth and faith and all that effort and sweat and tears and you don't have a clue as to how they are going to turn out until many many years and tears into the project. And even then it's still a guess as to where things will go.
And, at the end of the day, every innovator and humanity builder was a kid. Even if my startup doesn't go where I hope it will, I've got eggs in more than one basket. :)
And, frankly, screw the anti-intellectualism that considers that remark of mine a 'high-brow' response.
Children's interests is a very tired and aggravating rhetorical tool, certainly, but putting a reductio ad Hitlerum into everything isn't doing anything but showing your lack of imagination or your ideological stubbornness.
Most of the product shippers I know have kids, you also have to put up with less single person life troubles at work (you think hearing about people's kids is annoying...).
When you have a kid the focus is immediately off yourself and on the work to make that kid smile as much as possible and have a happy life. I have also found that married programmers seem to stick around longer and are less flaky because they have to be.
People that think kids are a distraction probably don't have them.
Raising decent kids requires proper planning and you need time to observe them and change those plans accordingly if required. Only when you have decided to chill down on work and consider yourself ready for another interesting venture should you go ahead and have kids. Think about your priorities, period.