I (try to) teach them how to code...
Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
431–440 of 530 posts
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#432All the responses here indicate the same "la dee da having kids is so wonderful that you don't even miss the other stuff." Fuck that. I have kids and I totally miss being able to stay up all night working on stuff and exploring new technologies, feeling like the world is going on without me. Don't get me wrong, I'm a passable dad, spend as much time with kids as possible, take them out to libraries and parks and try…
I think a lot of people can sympathize, but as you said, it's kinda taboo to say you wish you didn't have kids! I think you get the same feeling, a loss of freedoms, from any significant evolution in life. Leaving college: "I wish I could still go out drinking every other day and perform the best in my peer-circle" Getting to a more serious romantic stage in your relationship: "I wish I could still play video games a…
Simple fact is, having kids is gonna change your life, should you choose to have them. It seems like a lot of people in this thread are trying to hammer down a reality where this isn't a fact, but that won't change that every aspect of how your time is managed will revolve around a new focal point for 20 years or more.
>And then having kids
I take issue with the prevailing attitude that having kids should be a mandatory evolution in life. My partner and I are quite happy spending the better part of some weekends playing videogames, and we're especially happy never sharing a minute of either of our time with anyone's children, especially our own. So many people in this thread and in general will just regurgitate "but you can't imagine it!" and "your whole perspective changes!" but that's the point. We've concretely determined we do not want that shift in perspective, and I want child-rearing life to remain firmly outside the grasp of my imagination forever.
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#433All the responses here indicate the same "la dee da having kids is so wonderful that you don't even miss the other stuff." Fuck that. I have kids and I totally miss being able to stay up all night working on stuff and exploring new technologies, feeling like the world is going on without me. Don't get me wrong, I'm a passable dad, spend as much time with kids as possible, take them out to libraries and parks and try…
Expecting our first kid and I already feel this feeling coming.
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#434All the responses here indicate the same "la dee da having kids is so wonderful that you don't even miss the other stuff." Fuck that. I have kids and I totally miss being able to stay up all night working on stuff and exploring new technologies, feeling like the world is going on without me. Don't get me wrong, I'm a passable dad, spend as much time with kids as possible, take them out to libraries and parks and try…
Definitely not the only one. I think it depends on what stage your kids are at. Are they old enough to have their own hobbies? Our first arrived recently, I've resigned myself to the fact that working toward any sort of mastery again will elude me until he finds his own obsessions. So about 6 years or so if my childhood is any indicator. But I think having a relationship cuts into that as well. There are times when he's sleeping and we're both trying to work on projects and my wife wants to talk or "needs a hug" or something. At times it's frustrating, then I try and remember what things were like before they came along. Obviously this would all be different if I had means or money and was single at the same time...
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#435Just to note, I'm 23 and have no kids. I've heard comments like this in every possible form before---"Once you get out of college and get a job, you won't have time to...", "Once you're at a startup, you won't have time to...", "Once you start volunteering after work, you won't have time for...". It's nonsense, you make time for what you think is important. I wake up at 5:30 am to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I read wh…
Although I happen to agree with you, please understand this logic does not apply to children. You are monkeying around with t in the s domain here. It's just a different ballgame. Everything else you do has a certain limit (you can only train for so long, each episode you binge is 44 mins, you can only reasonably eat your fill, etc.) but kids (especially early on) are like air for the vessel of time - their needs and wants will expand to use every last second and then some. They will cost you mindshare when you are not remotely near them. They will change the way you allocate present and future resources including time. They will never let you completely sleep. Please note that none of these are complaints (except maybe that last one) - these are merely the constraints of this domain.
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#436Just to note, I'm 23 and have no kids. I've heard comments like this in every possible form before---"Once you get out of college and get a job, you won't have time to...", "Once you're at a startup, you won't have time to...", "Once you start volunteering after work, you won't have time for...". It's nonsense, you make time for what you think is important. I wake up at 5:30 am to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I read wh…
For what it's worth, planning when you have kids is much harder than without. You plan on going to bed at 10pm and getting up at 5:30 to train? Cool, but are you going to be in any shape to train when you're back awake at 11:30, 1:30, 2:00, 2:15, 4:30, and 5:15? Are you going to be in any shape to study and retain that knowledge when you spent four hours of your night walking around so your kid could sleep? That gets…
preach!
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#437This thread is slowly filling up with stories of enthusiastic workaholic parents who are disciplined and fit enough to take every single 15 minute break to sit down and get some code out. If you're able to code up a blog engine with one hand while holding your baby in the other, I envy you. I wish I could muster up the energy and discipline to do something like that. But to other readers: for many people this is not…
> this usual HN moral Please don't make up generalizations about HN for rhetorical purposes. There's no "usual HN moral". It's a large community. The thread doesn't seem to me to fit your description, but even if it did, the OP asked specifically for helping about keeping his skills up. That's a perfectly legitimate question, and no one deserves to be slurred as a "workaholic" for caring about it or sharing their app…
Hey, thanks for the feedback.
I agree with your comments about "workaholic" and the "usual HN moral". I'll be better.
I disagree with your implication that my comment does not try to help the OP with keeping his skills up. I think it's a very legitimate question and my advice is to try and find a challenging job. I don't understand how my comment can be read as a dismissal of the OP's question. It's a great question that I relate to.
Also, I realize now that you read "workaholic" as a slur and probably most people did. For anyone who felt attacked/offended by that: it was not meant that way and I think I mistranslated the term. I did not mean it as a slur and I wrote nearby that I envy the people with that kind of energy / work ethic. I miss the time when I was a workaholic (it was before I became a parent).
I do feel that there is a growing culture of "work over everything" in startup land and I believe that this is a bad thing. When I wrote my comment, most top comments were indeed examples of ways to squeeze every single ounce out of the day (they are again as I write this). I don't understand why you imply that proposing an alterative ("skill-up on the job") is not a legitimate response in that context.
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#438My daughter turns 20 this year. I learned Perl as a young, soon to be single, mother. I had no computer science background, I just wanted to learn to do more than the basic HTML I had already taught myself. That learning gave me a career. I've only ever done this with a child to take care of, and I've done it by simply working every possible moment I could, and being organised and focused with my time. However being…
Inspiring.
wow !
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#439Having a kid kicked my ass in high gear as far as learning and monetizing that learning. I've been fortunate enough to have good jobs and arguable didn't "need" to do more but when I found out we were going to have a child every part of my body shifted into provider overdrive.
I started consulting, hustling, and expanding my knowledge and skillset as rapidly as I could. I started a consultancy on the side and nearly doubled my income over the course of a few months. Between that and my boy not being a very good sleeper I probably ran on an average of 4.5 hours rest a night for between 3-4 years (with once a week crashes of a long night of sleep on Fridays and Saturday afternoon nap).
It was tough, damn tough, but I made sure to spend quality time with him every night and most mornings, gave him nearly every bath during the first 2 years of his life, and got up with him every time he needed me in the night from midnight to 7am as that was my shift so the wife could sleep. During the same time I achieved an extremely high proficiency with ruby and later rails, learned to sell myself, came on as first engineer at a startup and dug deep into Elixir right around the time it hit 1.0, eventually launching a product written in it and learning a ridiculous amount about the BEAM in the process.
Theres less time to fart around with video games, and I don't have much in the way of hobbies, but little fulfillment was going to come from those areas anyway.
Its doable, and I'm alive and sane on the other side with a load of accomplishments to point to, a great relationship with my wife/son and reasonable assurance that my child(ren) will have everything they need to be successful.
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#440Just to note, I'm 23 and have no kids. I've heard comments like this in every possible form before---"Once you get out of college and get a job, you won't have time to...", "Once you're at a startup, you won't have time to...", "Once you start volunteering after work, you won't have time for...". It's nonsense, you make time for what you think is important. I wake up at 5:30 am to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I read wh…
For what it's worth, planning when you have kids is much harder than without. You plan on going to bed at 10pm and getting up at 5:30 to train? Cool, but are you going to be in any shape to train when you're back awake at 11:30, 1:30, 2:00, 2:15, 4:30, and 5:15? Are you going to be in any shape to study and retain that knowledge when you spent four hours of your night walking around so your kid could sleep? That gets…
This is my life. I have the best intentions but when my kids wake me up in the night, or won't go to bed easily, or any number of things that don't go according to "plan" all bets are off.