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

351–360 of 802 posts

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#351

Post by leoedin »

entech wrote: post #63
luqtas wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real heroes are the ones ambitiously raising the next generation while changing the world right now. so pedagogy and psychology researchers? giving that having biological children is the worst ecological offense someone can do in an ever increasing worldwide population? [0] how about adopting and getting into voluntary programs or even do pro-social things with your money? giving birth on the current societal s…

Things are considered important in the context of humanity. Environmental concerns only exist because of its impacts on humanity. The planet does not care. Calling having children an ecological offence is like saying that best way to reduce emissions is for all people to die.

Yeah, sometimes I think people lose track of why they support environmental movements. I've had people question my choice to have kids along these lines before. I just don't understand it - surely we only care about all this stuff because it is observed by humans? For humanity to continue, someone has to have children.

I can sympathise more with the idea that humans are destroying everything and life won't be worth living for my descendants. But that feels like giving up on the possibility of humans. I don't want to do that.

In any case, it turns out that global fertility rates are in freefall and we're facing population decline faster than anyone predicted.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#352

Post by nchmy »

marssaxman wrote: post #32

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…

May I ask you what significant and meaningful thing you tried to do, and why you think you failed at it?

I've spent my 30s doing something similar and it's still unclear whether it will work out or not. And I've foregone essentially all else, including family.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#353

Post by coffeebeqn »

Derbasti wrote: post #252
marssaxman wrote: post #32

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 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.

Absolutely. What happened to the old “no one ever wishes they’d worked more on their deathbed”?

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#354

Post by coffeebeqn »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #329
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…

As much as I sometimes wonder what life would have been like as DINKs, the feeling of my 7 year old girl sneaking up behind me to give me a cuddle outweighs all of the fast cars and long walks on the beach I personally could ever have.

Kids love beaches!

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#355

Post by megalomanu »

On my end, becoming a dad didn’t make me less ambitious, just more focused.

I was vp of engineering at a Series A startup when my kid was born. It was a challenging job, but one that felt increasingly devoid of any meaning for me (maybe also because I'd been there for 5 years). I was compensating by working on side-projects at night and on weekends. I even wrote a novel that took me 4 years to finish.

Then my son was born, and nights and weekends disappeared! Suddenly, all my non-father activity was dedicated to a job that was boring me more and more. So what did i do? I started a company, so I could decide what to work on during the day!. Basically, I took a side project and put it at the center of my working life. Now my days feel rewarding enough that when I disconnect, I can completely devote myself to my son and my wife and ignore everything else.

Of course, I don’t have side projects anymore. I barely even have hobbies: I completely stopped watching movies, which used to be the love of my life. I read books before bed and on the subway, and work out occasionally to stay sane. My life = my startup, my son, my wife. That’s pretty much it.

But I feel much more balanced than before, when I was always chasing something.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#356

Post by leoedin »

ColdStream wrote: post #175
jongjong wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Before I became a dad, I didn't realize how physically and financially constrained people are with regards to number of kids that they have. For me and my wife, our first child took all our time, resources and energy. This was a shock to me because my parents had 4 children and never seemed to struggle. Also, they were much better off than me financially and could afford to hire help. My biggest achievement as a…

I appreciate the intention you and others are bringing. Not to be defeatist, but I do wonder how much of trying to set it straight sticks long term? People have been trying to straighten things out for millennia and we are still in this predicament. That isn't to say, don't try. It is to say, don't cling to an out come.

The old "I won't raise my kids like my parents raised me" problem, which inevitably seems to lead to raising kids with a different set of grievances and unresolved issues.

I realised it was a lost cause when I realised that literally everyone I knew had some sort of "my parents are imperfect and it's broken me somehow" story. I think it might just be part of the human condition to grow up and realise your parents were flawed humans who made mistakes raising you.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#357

Post by coffeebeqn »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #345
close04 wrote: post #300

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. 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…

I feel a lot of regret having had children. Not 100%, but it's always going to be more than 0%. I adore my kids but it's too much for my brain and it makes me miserable a lot of the time. I don't bring it up except to counsellors (or anonymous internet bros, apparently) because (a) it's not actionable - there is no going back (b) it's a bummer and no one has anything to say about it.

How old are they? I honestly felt like that sometimes for the first few years but no longer now that they are somewhat capable of not dying without constant supervision and are becoming their own new persons

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#358

Post by avdlinde »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #345
close04 wrote: post #300

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. 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…

I feel a lot of regret having had children. Not 100%, but it's always going to be more than 0%. I adore my kids but it's too much for my brain and it makes me miserable a lot of the time. I don't bring it up except to counsellors (or anonymous internet bros, apparently) because (a) it's not actionable - there is no going back (b) it's a bummer and no one has anything to say about it.

This is one of the things I think about when considering kids++, when does the regret start (if at all)? Or as posted in other comments, will the health lottery have me regret having +1? Time will tell.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#359

Post by ronbenton »

Hits hard. I know this is wrong, but I often find myself resentful when I see colleagues burning the midnight oil (or otherwise putting in time that I no longer have) in service of career progression.

I think the author is spot on about ruthlessly optimizing the time you do have, though. That seems to be the only way to keep up.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#360

Post by thenoblesunfish »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #357
thenoblesunfish wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel a lot of regret having had children. Not 100%, but it's always going to be more than 0%. I adore my kids but it's too much for my brain and it makes me miserable a lot of the time. I don't bring it up except to counsellors (or anonymous internet bros, apparently) because (a) it's not actionable - there is no going back (b) it's a bummer and no one has anything to say about it.

How old are they? I honestly felt like that sometimes for the first few years but no longer now that they are somewhat capable of not dying without constant supervision and are becoming their own new persons

One is 6 years, the other is 6 months.
Post reply on HN