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Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

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Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#111

Post by thatwebdude »

ryandrake wrote: post #70
kemiller2002 wrote: post #18

Having kids taught me how to use every spare minute I have. I'm a single parent with 2 kids, so I have no back up to take care of them if I am busy with something else. Half of my free time is spent with my kids, so I have to make everything else count. My process looks a little chaotic, but I carefully plan out what I'm going to do, and when I need to do it by. My entire day is on a mental schedule. Unless I deliber…

Yes, it teaches you to manage your precious time to the second, but it also teaches you how to effectively get things done when you only have sparse 15-30 minute chunks rather than long stretches of time to concentrate. It used to take me 30 minutes just to "get in the zone." Keep that up and you'll never get anything done as a parent. You need to be able to snap yourself into the zone in 30 seconds, get something ac…

And applying parallel processes in your life when possibly also really helps. Especially in the morning.

Explaining the concept to my 4-year-old daughter was fun, and is trusted enough to execute these processes in a timely manner (without killing someone).

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#112

Post by thatwebdude »

DharmaSoldat wrote: post #109

I'm a newish dad and full stack dev. I've found that what's been most effective for me, aside from spending (admittedly, far too much) time coding in the evenings before sleep, is making a concerted effort to share whole-day responsibility of the kids on weekends. I'll take the kids on one day, my wife will take the kids on another day. We trade off during the week too so we can both have large stretches of uninterru…

Although I don't usually get full-days this has become really helpful for me. 4 or 6 hours of time to do something is incredibly productive for me now.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#113

Post by thatwebdude »

unfocused wrote: post #11

I'm like you - full time job, wife (who also works full time), 2 kids under age of 6. I too am tired some nights but some things have changed (for the better): 1. Changed jobs to a balanced work/life job. 2. No longer a developer, but still in IT. 3. 12 minute walking commute (no buses, cars, or bikes) 4. Moved downtown - smaller house than most people, but as noted in #3, walking commute to pretty much everything. 5…

Also working on home in free time. It's great to involve the kids to learn about trades and "learning to live" and fix things. They're having fun and helping, and I'm still completing large projects on time.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#114

Post by thatwebdude »

laythea wrote: post #85
achou wrote: post #51

I'm a founder looking for ways to make my next startup family-friendly. I'm a parent of two sons in SF so I know what it's like. A grab bag of ideas so far: - Allow parents to bring babies to work (0-6mo) - Locate in suburbs where parents live instead of in the city - Hire remote employees who work from home - Establish a culture of taking an office break around 4-5pm then resume at 8pm for a couple hours - Do social…

"bring babies to work" - are you serious? do you have children?

0-6 month, as they specified.

That's nice considering daycares have a minimum age requirement before you can start leaving a child to go back to work.

Most of the first few months are spent sleeping.

Perhaps they should have said "remote work while child is 0-6 months".

Honestly, a flexible remote schedule is just something I'd be willing to change jobs for right now. When kids get sick and I have the follow the same vacation/PTO policy as hourly people here; I begin to despise my HR department.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#115

Post by thatwebdude »

jshaqaw wrote: post #56
achou wrote: post #51

I'm a founder looking for ways to make my next startup family-friendly. I'm a parent of two sons in SF so I know what it's like. A grab bag of ideas so far: - Allow parents to bring babies to work (0-6mo) - Locate in suburbs where parents live instead of in the city - Hire remote employees who work from home - Establish a culture of taking an office break around 4-5pm then resume at 8pm for a couple hours - Do social…

Living in the city means no commute which means lots more quality time mornings and evenings

More parents are willing to raise kids in 'burbs than go with city schools.

Most suburban school districts far excel urban ones.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#116

Post by thatwebdude »

jarpschop wrote: post #88

Sorry for asking the pessimistic question, by no means do i intend to be a troll, but don't you think that it is irresponsible bringing children in to a world where you can't even take the free evenings after working 8+ hours and giving your best? (because you need to "stay competitive or something"). The developer culture of living to work (instead of the other way around) and being totally cool about it is somethin…

You kinda sound like you're not a parent.

Many developers don't live to work. Those who do may not be great parents; or aren't interested in it at all. It's not hard to do; and still stay relevant and current.

In fact, I could care less about it. I actively despise computers from 5pm - 8am.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#117

Post by thatwebdude »

__d wrote: post #7

I get up at 5:30am, shower, eat, and start at 6am. Work until 5pm, and then pick up my kid from daycare. Bath, cook dinner, kid's bedtime at 8pm. Do another 2-3 hours work. Work from home, so no commute. Work 6-8am Thursday, and then rest of the day off to look after the kid. Usually do a couple of hours on a weekend night, depending on what my partner's doing. I try to do side-projects, learn new stuff, etc, at nigh…

Although you're remote; someone's abusing those hours it sounds like.

You're working too much, of course you're exhausted!

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#118

Post by thatwebdude »

maccard wrote: post #58
godot wrote: post #42

Having gotten married recently, things have already changed quite a bit, before even having kids. I have a similar job and commute as you do. I also recently had the opportunity to change jobs and made it a point to join a place that doesn't believe in working long hours and staying late. (I used to work in an infamous place for long hours, then I left that to cofound my own startup which was again long hours even if…

Sorry if this is over personal, but how does getting married change things? Were there more changes than marriage at the same time? I'm not married, but have been living with my partner for 3 years, together for 8 and am about to buy a house with them, so I'm wondering what I've got ahead of me!

If you're already living together; it doesn't change much of anything.

Except if it doesn't work out she gets a lot of your shit.

Marriage was a walk in the park; but kids was where it started to get difficult.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#119

Post by thatwebdude »

Steeeve wrote: post #71

I keep reading about software developers who sleep every night and work 8 hour days. Both are completely foreign concepts to me.

8 hours days are possible when you get out of startups.

I never had trouble with sleep after I had kids.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#120

Post by thatwebdude »

billdueber wrote: post #34

A lot of parents really, really like having kids. The ROI on having children is, for them, so self-evident that they don't really think about it. But that's not true for everyone, esp. if you were old enough to be pretty fully-formed by the time you became a father. Kids come at a huge cost. You're exhausted from dealing with them, and in the meantime you're probably not exercising, and you're eating like crap, and,…

I bet the decision to have kids was your wife's.

I'm glad you're coming to terms with it.

Sorry, that was just a very passive-agressive read.

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