How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

This has always been my quandary. What in an ideal life should a human do? Dedicate his time to his professional dreams or to his family. Doing excess of any induces a longing for the other.

No one's tombstone says "Devoted Employee". I realized when my daughter was born that I don't have to achieve anything in this world other than to make her life wonderful. Me being there is part of that. I have also realized as I've grown older that we are all just going to die. I had focused for a long time on establishing myself, on building something, on achieving some financial or personal goal, and then it all hit me that it really won't matter. The thing I really need to focus on is enjoying every moment of my life before it is over. And being with my family is the most enjoyment I ever feel. Now, obviously everyone doesn't feel the same way or have the same priorities and I'm not telling anyone how they need to feel, but personally this realization has lifted a weight off of my shoulders and caused me to enjoy life more and more every day.

Edit: That being said...I usually make sure to leave work at 5, and if I still feel like I need to do some more, I wait until I put my daughter to bed to fire up the laptop.

Founders with kids: http://priceonomics.com/founders-with-kids/

I've worked in two early stage start-ups since I became a dad a few years ago, as employee 1 and 2. I do a few things to help me stay involved as a father:

1. Unless there's a real emergency, which is rare, I leave the office around 6-7, even if I still have work planned for today. It's not really early but it leaves me a couple of hours with my kids (I live really close to work, like a 10 minute motorcycle ride).

2. If I still have urgent work to complete, I just continue work from home after they are in bed and I've spent some time with my wife. If you have to work late, this makes for more productive midnight-crunching, because you're at home with your family, you've eaten a proper dinner and not some pizza, had a shower, etc.

3. Once a week I leave work early (around 4pm) and pick my kids up from day care, and I dedicate my entire afternoon to having fun with them. Of course not every early stage start-up would agree to that, but luckily both my last employers were start-ups founded by young dads as well, and they were understanding, and do this themselves as well.

"Being the “professional” in a startup world, pushing last hopes of entrepreneurial youth"

If you feel that "being professional" includes the need to push yourself and miss events you can't recapture, it's not being "professional" -- especially if you are an employee. Startups that push the "we are a family -- we work hard, play hard, stay late together" are in a sense delusional -- yes the thrill of building a company is compelling, but unless it is your own company - you are sacrificing yourself unnecessarily for someone else's benefit. There will always be another startup, but early months of a child's life where changes are there daily, hourly.