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Being ambitious and being a dad

nicholascharriere.com

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Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#101

Post by ip26 »

mholt wrote: post #5

"Be ambitious enough to be an ambitious dad." - agreed! Being an ambitious dad IS exhausting. And the successful people telling you that you can't be a present, ambitious dad and be successful -- that you have to trade successful fatherhood for professional success -- are weak. They are not heroes. The real heroes are the ones ambitiously raising the next generation while changing the world right now. That's what I a…

I've started peering behind the curtains when I get the chance, and I've not yet found someone wildly successful who is also a model parent. Time after time, their spouse is quietly shouldering an enormous load, or their children spin their wheels and wind up rudderless, etc.

You can certainly be successful and be a good parent, but one of the first steps is recognizing and picking out the false prophets. You can't hold yourself to a superhuman standard, which is what a parent maximizing career while letting family malinger will present. They will say, Look at me, a captain of industry with vaults of gold, who has the physique of a twenty-five year old and is also an all-star parent. And you have to figure out that it's a lie.

One little clue - start to notice: of your professional idols who are good parents and seem to have it all, how many have a spouse working a demanding full time job as well? I realized for me it was zero.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#102

Post by davmar »

daggerdrone wrote: post #64
katzgrau wrote: post #59

YC reject so I bootstrapped and was thankfully able to hit profitability before my first kid showed up. I’ve now got two. I also have dreams bigger than ever. In fact, writing this while sitting on the couch with the kids watching Muppet Treasure Island while my kids are wearing pirate hats and waving foam swords. I’m still extremely productive and prolific. Probably less compared with before. But before, I had frien…

Isn’t it unhealthy to skip both breakfast and lunch? How are you getting the energy to do stuff without eating?

hey hey don't interrupt the hustleporn

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#103

Post by nichochar »

qooiii2 wrote: post #98

"Behind every great man there's a great woman." I thought I was killing it at work and as a dad when I was answering emails about complex bugs while hiking with my first kid riding in a backpack. But then I quit working to be a full-time dad for kid #2 and found out how much work my partner had been doing that I didn't know about. I suddenly understood why so many of the men at my former workplace had been divorced.…

(original author)

this is true for me, wouldn't be remotely possible without my wife.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#105

Post by brightball »

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…

I think one of the reasons that a lot of successful founders are in their mid-40s is because they combine 20ish years of experience with an empty nest after kids are out on their own.

Nothing to back it up, but it makes sense to me.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#106

Post by tayo42 »

michaelt wrote: post #27
digitallogic wrote: post #3

> having kids may make one less ambitious Can't say this resonates with me. Though being a dad has wildly changed what I'm ambitious about.

'Ambitious' often means doing optional things that take time. A single person who cuts back on time spent doom scrolling / tv watching / beer drinking to teach themselves enterprise Kubernetes sysadmin best practices is ambitious. A new parent who cuts back on time with their kids to teach themselves enterprise Kubernetes sysadmin best practices needs their head checked.

Unless you need a job to keep that kid housed because you made the unfortunate decisions of taking jobs at companies that didn't use kubernetes...

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#107

Post by akchin »

This resonates a lot with how I felt while building our company. My kids were born during the early days of our startup and it was pretty much what he described- work and being a dad. Thankfully the startup was pretty successful and I made a good amount of money that’s allowed me the luxury of not having to work when the older one was 10. I am really enjoying not working and being a full time dad :-)

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#108

Post by tmn »

mandevil wrote: post #82
tmn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpick comment. But is kids and career really a valid pick two choice

I think the point that my friend's mom was making to her was that for a woman (with significantly higher social expectations for the amount of care work and housework) you can only be good at two of the three, because you are a human being with a finite amount of time and energy. As for how you end up with just those two, I think the answer is divorce: you don't spend the energy to maintain your relationship with you…

Yeah I can accept that point of view. I think this is highlighting a certain relationship expectation delta between men (or at least myself) and women (or some women). If my wife is doing well in her career and we are doing well with the kids, I could easily see this being considered ‘good’, but my wife may view the relationship as being neglected. I see the core functions working and consider the relationship doing well.

This situation is in development for me so we will see. 0 and 3 year old

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#109

Post by hahahaa »

brightball wrote: post #105
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…

I think one of the reasons that a lot of successful founders are in their mid-40s is because they combine 20ish years of experience with an empty nest after kids are out on their own. Nothing to back it up, but it makes sense to me.

Add in personal networks too.

Re: Being ambitious and being a dad

#110

Post by hahahaa »

daggerdrone wrote: post #64
katzgrau wrote: post #59

YC reject so I bootstrapped and was thankfully able to hit profitability before my first kid showed up. I’ve now got two. I also have dreams bigger than ever. In fact, writing this while sitting on the couch with the kids watching Muppet Treasure Island while my kids are wearing pirate hats and waving foam swords. I’m still extremely productive and prolific. Probably less compared with before. But before, I had frien…

Isn’t it unhealthy to skip both breakfast and lunch? How are you getting the energy to do stuff without eating?

Oh no you see this is now called intermittent fasting not "lunch is for wimps".
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