Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Being ambitious and being a dad

nicholascharriere.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 802 posts

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#301

Post by kakacik »

afc wrote: post #292
Gareth321 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood. Which frustrates me immensely, because I feel that society at large did everything it could to convince me that parenthood is terrible. Movies and TV shows portrayed only the bad. Teachers told me that becoming a parent was the worst thing in the whole world. A w…

Interesting perspective. Your first paragraph also describes my experience, perfectly. However, even though I also think nothing comes even close to parenthood for me, my perspective is that society strongly encourages —I'd even say strongly pressures— people to have kids, to feel that if you don't, it's almost like something is wrong with you. Maybe we're just different generations? :-)

No modern western society does that, for quite some time. Maybe specific people around you behave so, but society as a whole? Nah

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#302

Post by sundarurfriend »

alphabeta3r56 wrote: post #270
Derbasti wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The passionate hunger to do something significant and meaningful with my life was a major reason I took care never to have any children. Raising kids is probably the most meaningful and significant thing I have done with my life.

Why? Noy disputing you but I am childless yet primarily I cannot think why bringing up a kid would be significant or meaningful. Like once I have a kid, then that kid has to be the most significant part of my life. But before that, why?

Because it's evolutionarily favourable - the same reason sex feels good. One is instantaneous pleasure, and the other is sustained doses of feelings of satisfaction, because they optimise for different things; but ultimately you can understand them easily if you think about how core they are to what evolution favours.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#303

Post by Arodex »

nullorempty wrote: post #85
mym1990 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He sure as heck failed at the family thing.

True, but try being a dad to 14 kids in today's world.

He's having kids only to satisfy his eugenist, white supremacist kink. He doesn't care about them and even hate them if they stray out of his worldview - just ask Vivian.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#304

Post by SunlightEdge »

So this piece really resonates with me. I have a five month old child who I really like/love - but I am filled with a passionate software idea and everytime I get a tiny bit of time to work on it, it is heaven. A while back I was able to do one hour in the morning before work on it - but have lost that hur recently. At night, I occassionally look wistfully at my computer sometimes and wish I could build - but I am just trying to be patient and I am hopefully I will soon get back 'one hour' a day in my evenings. One day...

My partner and I are considering paying for a weekend nanny to look after the boy when he turns one on Sunday- so again we have free time to work on our passion projects. Its great to be a dad but it is so time consuming with young children.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#305

Post by Gareth321 »

close04 wrote: post #300
Gareth321 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood. Which frustrates me immensely, because I feel that society at large did everything it could to convince me that parenthood is terrible. Movies and TV shows portrayed only the bad. Teachers told me that becoming a parent was the worst thing in the whole world. A w…

> Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood. I completely agree with you. But I can't say around me, people, movies, society ever sent the message that parenthood is terrible. The way I interpret the message was always "this was hard, this was grueling, but I wouldn't change it for the world". I didn't ge…

That's great insight. My sister missed some of these milestones and I hear echoes of what you describe in some of our conversations.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#307

Post by Ntrails »

afc wrote: post #295
russelldjimmy wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with the sibling comment. As a new father, nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - can describe the love, adoration and reverence that parents feel for their children. To be understood, it must be experienced. There is simply no other way.

+1. I also felt this huge gap between knowing (intellectually) what parenting is and actually experiencing it. It really changes you, to the point that now, when I talk to childless people my age, I feel like we're fundamentally differently. I think I can perceive fairly accurately whether someone my age is a parent after just a few minutes of general conversation (obviously, without having to visit adjacent topics).…

> It really changes you, to the point that now, when I talk to childless people my age, I feel like we're fundamentally differently.

As a childless person, the inverse is equally true. I have wildly different levels of obligation and constraint - and that difference typically becomes obvious very very quickly. I don't say that as a better/worse, just different.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#310

Post by farfatched »

SunlightEdge wrote: post #304

So this piece really resonates with me. I have a five month old child who I really like/love - but I am filled with a passionate software idea and everytime I get a tiny bit of time to work on it, it is heaven. A while back I was able to do one hour in the morning before work on it - but have lost that hur recently. At night, I occassionally look wistfully at my computer sometimes and wish I could build - but I am ju…

Free time will return!

Not much, but some evenings will soon be available!

Post reply on HN