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Being ambitious and being a dad

nicholascharriere.com

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Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#501

Post by tedggh »

Aeolun wrote: post #179
sacul wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. As a father of nine children, I submit that the best time to have children is when you’re young. The next best time is now . Sure, you’ll be poor, and you’ll make lots of mistakes. But how do you know you’ll be able to have children later? And what’s so important now that makes it worth putting off children?

You’ll feel poor anyhow. More money just means you want more. I’ll say there’s benefits to having a single child, but not nearly as many as there are to have multiple.

In my experience having room in the house, not having to cook dinner, not having to go grocery shopping, never have to clean the house, travel comfortably and have a full time nanny, makes a lot of a difference. You save a lot of time that you can then invest in yourself, your partner and your kids.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#502

Post by Forgeties79 »

sneak wrote: post #454
jraby3 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about this and while I agree with you completely, I think the reason why is not just society at large. Externally what most people see is the time suck, money suck, and frustration with teaching behavior, fixing bad behavior etc. What's so easy to miss is the immense feeling of love, of being needed, of being loved, that words can't describe. I frequently tell people I feel like the grinch after he disco…

You don’t need children to have these sorts of feelings, unless you can only get them from some small people who don’t have any choice but to love you.

This is a very snarky, flippant, uninformed take that serves no purpose other than to tear others down in an effort to validate your decision.

Have kids or don’t, live your life the way you want. But taking unsolicited dumps on other people’s decisions is a pretty lame way to live.

And yes, you do have to have kids in order to understand what it feels like to have kids. You do not know what it’s like, as evidenced by your thinking having kids entitles a parent to their love. Let me tell you clearly and unequivocally: it does not. Love is earned. A family is a big lesson in that.

To use a less charged example: I can’t claim to know what strawberries taste like if I never try a strawberry.

TL;DR: I understand anti-natalism is in vogue right now, but some of y’all are really shitty about it.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#503

Post by ron_woods »

Sorry if this offends anyone but why must we choose between having a great career and being a great parent. Why is it a zero-sum game? Want to be great at something neglect your children to do so. Want to be a great parent, fine you have a mediocre career. From the article you are ambitious about building things. Well guess what children are, the ultimate piece of clay from which you get a front row seat to mold.

If you are trying to compete with people who are kidless and constantly comparing your output to them, then yes, you are going to feel you are falling behind. But you need to stop and ask yourself, “what am I doing all this work for”? What is your goal? For me, having children changed my perspective on life. I am lucky to make enough money to live a good first world lifestyle and the rest is enjoying the moments life brings. I still have the motivation I had 20 years ago but that motivation has shifted from “building things for the wealthy” to building peace and happiness for myself and my family.

I no longer work a ton of hours, but my day is still full of conversations, walks, work-outs, bike rides ect… These things when done with family and friends bring me level of accomplishment that no product launch ever did. Also, I openly avoid the hustle-grind culture that seems to run rampant these days.

You seem to be on the correct path, just don’t fall into that trap that says you must be grinding 60+ hours a week in-order to be successful or happy. It will find you if you let it.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#505

Post by dzonga »

what the author doesn't say - is being ambitious at what ? ambitious at making useless software ? useless hardware ?

in tech we like to overwork on nonsense problems ie working on problems that change or are non permanent. literally if 98% of the software went away today it won't be missed, just like shit that came before.

if people listened to Jeff Bezos - who said - focus on things that don't change - you will realize - you can live your life - without overworking. because guess what - if you don't do something today, the problem Will exist tomorrow & the day after.

certain problems never get fully solved, just tiny bits of progress.

but I guess zero sum thinking has taken over.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#506

Post by abc123abc123 »

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.

Would that be true if your child turned out to be a new Hitler or a burden on society?

Personally, I'm with the OP. Raising children, and to do a good job at it, is waaaay too much of a burden for me, and would seriously negatively affect most areas of my life.

I find it much more meaningful to focus on creating jobs, companies, products and services people need, than to raise a child with unknown outcome. I see way too many parents who try and appear as if they are happy and say they don't regret the decision, but deep down it is clear they do.

That is why, many of them, once the children are somewhat grown up, split up from their partner, and then try to re-live their lives and all that they missed.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#507

Post by orsenthil »

The problem with that article is, it defines greatness with people who are popular on the Internet or have had a popular success.

For great parents, if you can think on your own, don't look further than your own parents. Did they something right.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#508

Post by pizzathyme »

Strauss Zelnick the TakeTwo CEO has talked about how there’s two periods to go hard at your career ambitions: before kids and then after they are older and have their own lives. In between, my frame on this personally has always been that no matter how much money I make in the future, one day I would spend all of it to have another day with my kids at the age they are right now. And so for a period, that’s the focus. It won’t be forever but it is right now.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#509

Post by DangerousYams »

My solution is to involve my kids in all my projects. I am very lucky that I build games and often they are educational games where my kids are literally the target audience. No better education for the kids and you get a very natural organic quality time.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#510

Post by bluebarbet »

flkiwi wrote: post #389

First, I respect anyone’s choice not to be a parent. It’s constant, demanding work, far more intense than any job I’ve ever had as a baseline. Second, this is the third time in two days I’ve seen some variation on “I dreamed of doing something significant and never wanted kids.” That’s a wild construction. Having kids is incredibly significant, and more world-changing than most of us will ever do. Having kids didn’t…

>to pour life’s meaning into my kid and family

It's grammatically awkward but IMO this is the fundamental reason people have kids. We need a project and most of us don't have any better candidates.

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