51–60 of 802 posts
The passionate hunger to do something significant and meaningful with my life was a major reason I took care never to have any children. Having grown up in a large family within a religious subculture full of other large families, the amount of time and attention children consume was crystal clear from a young age, and I knew that I was going to need every scrap of energy I could spare for the work I wanted to do. Ye…
The author seems self-aware and I think there's a lot of good observations in this post. At the same time, I think ambition needs to be paired with humility and acceptance of you can't have it all . There's no perfect life. You can't optimize everything such that you achieve a hypothesized balance between all the things that are competing for your time and energy. In the final analysis, most people, if given the chan…
I think this is the point though right? The author is saying that he rejects this dichotomy and he's attempting to take on both even if others might perceive it as impossible.
"Be ambitious enough to be an ambitious dad." - agreed! Being an ambitious dad IS exhausting. And the successful people telling you that you can't be a present, ambitious dad and be successful -- that you have to trade successful fatherhood for professional success -- are weak. They are not heroes. The real heroes are the ones ambitiously raising the next generation while changing the world right now. That's what I a…
I would also add that, at least in my experience, those who are professionally ambitious and maximizing professional success, while being highly confident they are also succeeding at home, often have an inaccurate view of their home life. It's not until the kids are grown and openly fighting their demons that they realize the bargain that they made. It's that old adage of, anyone who thinks they're a great parent, pr…
https://www.fairplaylife.com/the-book
The central idea is a set of 100 cards representing various tasks that are necessary for running a household, that you split up between the two partners. Supposedly women tend to hold ~80 of the cards in most relationships.
The online discourse around this book can be kinda vitriolic (lots of examples of it starting arguments) but I do think that it’s a good starting point if you want to genuinely try to contribute equally.
> having kids may make one less ambitious Can't say this resonates with me. Though being a dad has wildly changed what I'm ambitious about.
The passionate hunger to do something significant and meaningful with my life was a major reason I took care never to have any children. Having grown up in a large family within a religious subculture full of other large families, the amount of time and attention children consume was crystal clear from a young age, and I knew that I was going to need every scrap of energy I could spare for the work I wanted to do. Ye…
Thanks for sharing! I remember thinking pre-kids mostly about how much work they would be but not really considering the joy they bring too. Like I knew they would, but vastly underestimated what effect that would have on my life. I don't particularly regret any of my choices either, but knowing what I do now, would have chosen to have kids earlier in my life.
I do feel that 30 year old me would definitely be in better shape to chase kids around.
Maybe ambitious is not the right word. It's more like, at some point you have to go home. Before my kids, I started at sunrise, and coming home was optional. Then I got married and divided my attention. Then I got twins, so I divided it even more. But it doesn't make me any less ambitious, in fact, I have more fire behind me to ensure I give them a bright future. It's just that, I come home on time now. Edit: and tha…
"Be ambitious enough to be an ambitious dad." - agreed! Being an ambitious dad IS exhausting. And the successful people telling you that you can't be a present, ambitious dad and be successful -- that you have to trade successful fatherhood for professional success -- are weak. They are not heroes. The real heroes are the ones ambitiously raising the next generation while changing the world right now. That's what I a…
I would also add that, at least in my experience, those who are professionally ambitious and maximizing professional success, while being highly confident they are also succeeding at home, often have an inaccurate view of their home life. It's not until the kids are grown and openly fighting their demons that they realize the bargain that they made. It's that old adage of, anyone who thinks they're a great parent, pr…
Two things I've heard from different ambitious women: "To really achieve, you need a wife" is something I've heard a lot- that it takes one parent sacrificing some of their career priority; traditionally that was the woman but it in theory could be the man (2), it just rarely is.
The other thing an ambitious woman told me once is that her mom told her "husband, career, kids, pick two." Basically, there is just only enough energy for a given person per day to invest in two of them. I've seen some women who managed, from the outside, to at least look successful at all three, but it's rare indeed.
1: When my kid was born the software company I worked for (I'm an American at an American company, but this was an area of competition for software devs at the time) offered a 14 week paid parental leave, even for men. Most men took a four week ("secondary caregiver" leave) and overlapped it with their wives 12 week unpaid FMLA. I took mine (14 week "primary caregiver") after my wife's leave expired, such that our kid had one of us caring for him every moment of his first six months. I remain convinced that was absolutely vital as the basis for both my relationship with my son and with my wife- she had to rely on me, trust me to care for the kid, and I couldn't hand him off, it was all on me every day. And so we both developed the parental muscles, could trust that the other one understood the reality of the situation, in a way that many father's don't get a chance. And that experience convinced me that the US needs maternal leave, obviously, but it also needs paternity leave- and the policies need to be designed such that the woman has to be back at work for at least some of the paternity leave, it can't all be used concurrently.
2: In a recent survey of American households https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/04/13/in-a-gr... about 55% of American heterosexual marriages the man makes 60% or more of the household income, about 30% both halves of the couple were between 40-60%, and just 16% saw the woman make more than 60% of the household income. In the majority of the 16% the woman still spent more time on unpaid household chores and carework than the man they were out-earning. Only in the 6% of heterosexual marriages where the woman earned 100% of the income did the number of hours per week in unpaid labor of men even equal that of their female partner.
In fact, writing this while sitting on the couch with the kids watching Muppet Treasure Island while my kids are wearing pirate hats and waving foam swords.
I’m still extremely productive and prolific. Probably less compared with before. But before, I had friends and TV shows subtracting from my time.
Today, my life priorities are kids, work and sleep.
There is no Netflix. There are no hobbies. No downtime. No friends unless I happen to like my kids friends parents.
I’m up at 5:30/6 and get 90 mins of focused work in. Skip breakfast. Then workout and walk/bike with the kids. Then ready for work at 10 - and thankfully my office is two blocks away. Skip lunch. Home at 5/5:30. Dinner with kids and play. Work from 8-10. Every single day.
I love my kids, work and learning is fun, and I value sleep. Everything else is a nice to have.
The way I see it, when I’m 100 years old I won’t regret drag on my ambitions because I had kids. In fact I’ll probably think the ambitions were nice but kind of pointless in the end anyway. I will see the kids as important and meaningful, and will write a life story where I was the best dad I could be and still hustled like hell.