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Being ambitious and being a dad

nicholascharriere.com

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Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#751

Post by somenameforme »

voidmain0001 wrote: post #320
somenameforme wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here in almost all ways, except the caffeine. What was the benefit there? My hot pots keep me going. Once my wife hits menopause I might also consider TRT. I'm almost certainly not low by the standards of the average American, let alone for my age, but it's gonna keep falling as I age and wouldn't mind that extra oomph.

Previously, when my head touched the pillow I was asleep. Two years ago I noticed that wasn’t happening and I would wake frequently through the night. I cut back my caffeine intake and my restored my sleep. Without knowing the physiological reason I assume my metabolism is slowing down and I had to alter my lifestyle to fit to it, hence my strict diet now. The calisthenics has been awesome for me. I love the progress…

Yip peri is also where we're at right now. Still trying and hoping for another kiddo. Glad to hear it can last for years at least there's a bit more chance.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#752

Post by bcantrill »

msteffen wrote: post #13

Preach! Bryan Cantrill (inventor of DTrace and cofounder of Oxide Computer) comes to mind as someone who seems to do both. It’s hard to know somebody’s parenting quality from the outside, but he talks about his kids a lot. In his case, I think he didn’t start his company until his kids were older. I’m not sure what the early childhood years were like for him.

Wow, thanks for that shout out! When we started Oxide in 2019[0], my kids were 15, 12, and 7, so out of those time-consuming younger years. But when we started Fishworks[1] inside of Sun in 2006, that 15-year-old (now nearly 22) was not yet 3 -- and his brother and sister were still in the future. Point being: I worked plenty hard with young kids.

More generally, I have always believed that the choice between work and parenting is broadly a false dichotomy (especially in our domain and age, which affords quite a bit of flexibility). In my role as a parent, I served on the board of the kids preschool (hello, SOMACC!); I was the president of the elementary school PTA (originally called the Mothers' Club!); I led the kids' Cub Scout Den (hardest parenting job no question); I coached baseball several times over; and I have been (and still am!) the scoutmaster of the kids' Scout troop.

These experiences were all time consuming (and truthfully, there were moments with each of them when I wondered what I had signed up for!) -- but they also made my life richer, and that very much includes my professional life. There are many dimensions of this, but to take one very concrete example: anyone who is familiar with scouting will see an echo in Oxide's values[2] -- but a subtler influence can be found in our hiring materials[3], the open-ended questions of which coming from an adult training that I did in 2017.

I won't profess to the quality of my parenting (it's... really hard), but it's something that I've certainly spent a lot of time on -- and it has paid surprising dividends to my professional life.

[0] https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2019/12/02/the-soul-of-a-new-co...

[1] https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2008/11/10/fishworks-now-it-can...

[2] https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0002

[3] https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0003

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#753

Post by Saline9515 »

spidercat wrote: post #653
afc wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? :-)

Yeah, speaking as a female-bodied person here - undoubtedly a minority on this site - I absolutely feel the pressure to have children in society, pretty much every day. Look at the "birth rate" discourse that's been going on. There's tremendous pressure on women to have more babies. There's also a lot of pendulum-swinging in the opposite direction with your edgy "antinatalists", in some sort of weird "overcorrection"…

It also depends on your social and professional background. If you are an orthodox jew, you will likely have the maximum pressure.

On the other hand, my wife, who was a lawyer, was fired from from a Big4 when they suspected that she was pregnant.

As a father in the tech/startup industry, it's sometimes quite hard to get people to understand what having children implies for instance, my ex-boss couldn't understand that I wasn't available at 21:30 everyday to answer his questions, as I was bedding the kids.

I mean, humans are made to comply to social pressure, so if they stop collectively having children, it more likely means that the social and economic pressure is overall rather against having them.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#754

Post by somenameforme »

kakacik wrote: post #314
somenameforme wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% on this. In my life I have 0 regrets except not having kids younger. I was never especially fond of kids, but it turns I out love my own more than I imagined possible, and have more fun with them I ever thought I would! I only wish we could have many more but given when we started, the odds of having more than 2 are very low. The amount of joy and life they bring to you and to your house is something you can't r…

I for a change am happy I had my kids in late 30s / 40. I am certainly wiser, way more experienced with world, humans, got to be successful and in much better financial position which also helped my parents to have better retirement. I wasn't a full adult in my 20s, too naive, too trusting, undefined for the lack of better words, not experienced with various types of women (laugh all you want, this was probably the m…

I think your example of e.g. being able to provide a better retirement harken back to what times were like in the past. My parents and theirs on back had children quite young. It gave me a life where I was able to know my great grandparents. I didn't really appreciate it, or anything, at the time - but I hold those memories dearly now, in hindsight. And it also created an environment where social security, so to speak, was never any concern - you have about 20 relatives who are mostly all working together to make a better life for themselves, and always there for each other. Everybody was dirt poor, but you would never know it from what we were able to have.

If people start having children in their 40s then statistically grandparents will simply no longer be a thing, let alone great grandparents. And people's family sizes will substantially decline. I think that's quite sad from all perspectives, and also significantly detrimental. For instance there is so much I want to pass onto my children about having children (and I'm sure much I've yet to learn myself) but none of it will really 'stick' until they themselves have children. If they wait until their 40s then I'll most likely be dead by then.

And what we do we get in exchange in this sort of world? Slightly greater liberty to pursue self indulgence? And I think "slightly" is correct because you're right that self indulgences do become more difficult with children, but far from impossible, and even less difficult with large families. Want to head off to the mountains on the weekend? Sure, that's what grandparents are for!

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#755

Post by stephbook »

socalgal2 wrote: post #744
stephbook wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those boarding schools make for some quality upbringing! "Winston Churchill would recall the floggings, done until pupils “bled freely” and screamed loudly. In “Such, Such Were The Joys”, George Orwell writes of being beaten so violently that his headmaster broke his riding crop and “reduced me to tears”." Sad little boys: the backlash against Britain’s boarding schools https://economist.com/britain/2023/05/28/sad-li…

Love your anecdata. Would you like me to list abusive parents as counter examples?

Sure, why not. But your reposte, as it is, is pretty weak.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#756

Post by sneak »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #502
sneak wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Other people’s choices have externalities that harm society. I don’t need validation for not doing something that benefits no one and harms everyone. It’s already obvious that abstaining from this selfish and self-indulgent activity is the only intelligent choice.

Furthermore I don’t need to shoot heroin to know that shooting heroin feels extremely good and that the people that do it really enjoy the feeling. I also don’t need to shoot heroin to see the harms it causes to the people that do it, and those around them.

You are trying to make a logical argument for the observed preferences of an evolved system that only evolved to perpetuate itself, not to benefit anyone or anything outside of a sequence of DNA. It’s a shame that so many people are blinded to that by instinct and emotion.

If I were developing nanotech grey goo in my basement, everyone would rightly point out that it’s a risk to society. Yet, humans doing the exact same thing (just more slowly) are praised.

People get unreasonably defensive when confronted with these facts, as you have demonstrated.

Can you name one thing that benefits from people creating more selfish and self-replicating creatures other than the emotional state of people who share some of their DNA?

PS: No mother “earns” the love of a one or two year old. It’s automatic and meritless. To assert otherwise to bolster your argument is obviously silly and should clue you in to how shaky the logical foundation for your claims is.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#757

Post by zingar »

seanc wrote: post #555
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…

Agree 100%. I often tell expecting parents "All the hard stuff they tell you about; the sleep loss, the stress, the cost... All that stuff is true. But there's also all this amazing stuff they don't tell you about, which is also true."

I think that people probably tried to tell me about the amazing stuff, but I couldn't take it in. This created a very pleasant surprise for me when I found out about the good feels after the dread of just expecting everything I know to be upended with no reward.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#758

Post by graemep »

spidercat wrote: post #711
graemep wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Birth control has been around for a long time now. The oral contraceptive pill was invented 70 years ago. Fear of pregnancy to the level of putting people off having kids is much newer. I think its very likely that social media plays apart. I think people glossing pregnancy over as wonderful are optimistic. I think a more honest take is "its hard but worth it". > What if it's nine months of constant nausea, being bed…

All valid responses/pushback to the anxiety! It's still a lot of unknowns and what-ifs; I was more trying to make the point that for some people, it's overwhelming, and some may conclude it's not worth the risk in finding out. Which brings me to another important point, which is that parenthood isn't for everybody. Some people really shouldn't be parents, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that. (Not saying…

Thank you.

I really appreciate how well you have explained a perspective very different from my own. Not only am I a man who has had children, my younger daughter turned 18 today, and will be off to university in less than two months so my children are no longer children and worries about parenting etc. are behind me.

Its interesting how much we agree about the social and political problems and the loss of the village.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#759

Post by laurentiurad »

tibbar wrote: post #728
laurentiurad wrote: post #458

A lot of juggling with words here: being ambitious, a builder, competing etc. It really boils down to the same thing: making more money + fame. The author should really stick to that and stop hiding behind big words. There's nothing noble about the recent slop-producing startups that YC funds. They do not make the world a better place.

I don't know, this feels kind of overly judgy. It's pretty healthy and normal to have some goals in life and even to try to do something impressive. The fact that he is trying hard to balance this with caring for his family seems pretty reasonable to me.

Nothing bad about chasing money and fame tbh. It's just the way it's phrased feels like the author believes he's curing cancer or world hunger.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#760

Post by ido »

siren2026 wrote: post #676
marliechiller wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have children? If no, then how can you make this assertion? If yes, what or who is filling the gap that children fill for you?

This is a fallacy. You don't need to live a situation to be able to comment about it. Especially if we try to rationalize the choice. If you talk about "feelings", then fine. But be aware that "feelings" could simply be your hormone levels changing after having kids.

The feelings are definitely influences by hormones. Doesn't make them any less real.
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