Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What nobody says about startup moms

femfosec.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 292 posts

Re: What nobody says about startup moms

#121

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchredbull wrote: post #112
ravenstine wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of that comes from parents often expressing all the negatives of parenthood rather than the positives. Even the ones who love spending time with their kids, in my experience, talk more about how much attention the kids need, taking them to school, the diaper changes, the crying, and so on. This isn't to say that all parents are like this; I've met some really passionate parents, and my parents relished…

I was visiting my wife's family in Fiji and it was amazing how much more attention my boy, a toddler got there than in North America. Females of all ages from like 12-100 would dote on him, ask to hold him and talk to him. In North America women treat him like he's diseased whereas my dog gets lots of attention. Weird. There really is a cultural bias against kids here.

[deleted]

Re: What nobody says about startup moms

#122

Post by notsureaboutpg »

skrebbel wrote: post #58

I think the author makes a great point. In fact, I think that your attitude to parenting even determines the kind of startup you're able to run. My experience matches closely to that of the author. Our second kid got born a few months into my startup and on average I think I've spent more time raising our kids than my wife has. I'm a man, but in terms of old-fashioned gender roles, I've become the mom. I think that t…

I don't understand. Why is the wife taking care of kids not space but the man working is space. Work is not easier than taking kids, so why are you offended by men whose wives are stay at home / take on childcare along with a less demanding job?

Re: What nobody says about startup moms

#123

Post by munk-a »

bena wrote: post #100
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In your early 20s, a couple years of hard work sounds like an eternity. >In your 30s and later, you realize a couple years is barely a blip on the radar. Another way to look at this is that when your youth is rapidly diminishing you really care about how you spend it but once that ship has sailed you rationalize whatever path you took.

Yet a third way is that the younger you are, the greater the percentage of your lived life is represented by a year. When you are 5, a year represents a full 20% of your life. (And even more of the amount of life you are capable of fully aware of). When you are 20, a year is 5% of your life. When you are 50, it's 2%. Imagine asking someone to commit to what is effectively seen as 25% of their life to a project. But t…

That's a good insight but I think you're underselling things - most folks don't really have experiences of any sort from their <3 years. I think it's also pretty common for teens to consider themselves five or so years prior to be different people due to how fast you're maturing. When you're making a decision to choose which college to go to I think it's fair to view that as deciding what to do with the next third of your life from a teenager's perspective.

Re: What nobody says about startup moms

#124

Post by bladegash »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #73
bladegash wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do not mean any offense by this - but how is a nearly one and a half year old requiring full-time attention from two people? I ask this as a single dad of two kids, one of them since they were < 1.

One parent serves as redundancy for the other. I don’t know how you did it, but when we had just one baby/toddler, and no other kids or relatives to watch them, one adult is constantly watching the kid, and the other is taking care of household tasks. The person watching the kid looks like they have spare time, but it’s garbage time because your attention is diverted to the kid every couple minutes or less.

That’s fair, but perhaps there are also some parents that pay far more attention to their children than they really require or is even healthy for them.

I found this especially true with our first born, where once you have a second, you quickly realize you probably gave them just a tad too much attention than was necessary.

Children have been raised in situations with single parents, ones where one or both parents work full time, etc. Day cares are somehow able to manage with one teacher to 10+ young children. Have we been failing at child rearing since, well, the beginning of time?

I’m also not sure what garbage time with a < 2 year old would really be…they honestly don’t do much nor can they learn to do much at that age. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of meaningful ways to spend time with a child that way, I just don’t really know how you spend 8-12 hours a day giving focused attention to a 1 1/2 year old. But to each their own and not my place to judge anyone else’s parenting style.

Re: What nobody says about startup moms

#125

Post by munk-a »

jstanley wrote: post #107
whatshisface wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once it's spent, it doesn't really matter how, except insofar as it's left you with something afterwards. Three people standing side by side, one of them partied their whole twenties, the other focused on career, the last had kids. They're all thirty, so that's the same, but one of them clearly is worse off.

Which one?

I assume the one who focused on their career since they likely didn't actually accumulate any significant wealth while missing out on all the fun due to the way we compensate workers.

Hiring and compensation is also quite ageist (this time not in the normal bad way!) where being thirty generally entitles you to a higher salary expectation than someone in their twenties.

However, I think there are just as valid arguments to be made for each of the people noted - some people would view the person with kids as having a burden to deal with through their thirties and other folks will consider the person who partied to have wasted their time possibly killing off brain cells and doing nothing "productive".

I think overall this is a really personal and opinionated question - I'd favor the career oriented individual as "failing" purely from a philosophy focused on enjoying and expanding the non-vocational portions of life, but we've all got different wants and needs - I hope the third paragraph helps explain the trade offs all three folks are making. The key thing is that nobody gets to live all lives - unless you're talking about The Egg[1].

1. http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

Re: What nobody says about startup moms

#126

Post by ryandrake »

garmaine wrote: post #63
ravenstine wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of that comes from parents often expressing all the negatives of parenthood rather than the positives. Even the ones who love spending time with their kids, in my experience, talk more about how much attention the kids need, taking them to school, the diaper changes, the crying, and so on. This isn't to say that all parents are like this; I've met some really passionate parents, and my parents relished…

I see this all the time and I really don't understand it. Like, if that's how you feel then why did you have kids? But if I ever say that to someone they'll take offense. I think they just want to vent. Which is why it doesn't make sense to me because I see complaining for the sake of complaining as a negative-utility activity.

Helpful to keep in mind it might not have been their preference to have a kid. Many pregnancies are unplanned. Delicate subject though for sure.

Re: What nobody says about startup moms

#127

Post by bladegash »

loxs wrote: post #120
bladegash wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do not mean any offense by this - but how is a nearly one and a half year old requiring full-time attention from two people? I ask this as a single dad of two kids, one of them since they were < 1.

I didn’t say it’s impossible. We can optimize our time better, we can hire a nanny, she can stop breastfeeding at several months of age etc. But do we want to? It’s a personal/family decision and it’s definitely based on circumstances and necessities. Historically people have raised children in dire conditions. Still would I rather do a startup or have a regular job while raising babies? I don’t think I would ever go…

Oh, by all means if you’re able to choose to do so via the means and desire, I think it’s a great opportunity for not only your child, but also for you and your spouse. I was more surprised at what seemed like was a suggestion that you can’t go back to work or else it would be markedly more difficult for your spouse.

I guess it’s to say, lots of people choose not to have additional children because of fears like that and while it is not always easy, people can work and raise children, and better, they still turn out just fine.

Kudos to you both for sacrificing your personal goals to spend time raising your child!

Re: What nobody says about startup moms

#128

Post by ZephyrBlu »

parineum wrote: post #86

It strikes me that there is some kind of cognitive dissonance that prevents people from recognizing their time as a commodity. I understand and support the push to normalize women in the workplace in leadership positions but there seems to be a failure to recognize the cost. I think the "traditional" family roles of mother stays home and father works are outdated but I think the train goes off the tracks when people…

I think it's because time just happens, so it's easy to not think about how you're spending it compared to spending money, for instance.

Re: What nobody says about startup moms

#129

Post by worik »

parineum wrote: post #86

It strikes me that there is some kind of cognitive dissonance that prevents people from recognizing their time as a commodity. I understand and support the push to normalize women in the workplace in leadership positions but there seems to be a failure to recognize the cost. I think the "traditional" family roles of mother stays home and father works are outdated but I think the train goes off the tracks when people…

I think the problem is different.

Nobody should work that hard.

Not just for the sake of our children, but yes for their sake. But for our sake, for the sake of everybody.

We all need to spend more time working on our relationships, smelling the flowers, tasting the tastes.

We have one life and one life only. Getting into a competition about how we waste it on commerce is tragic.

Some people feel a need to work work work obsessively. IMO that should be viewed as a mental illness and needing treatment.

Re: What nobody says about startup moms

#130

Post by loxs »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #73
bladegash wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do not mean any offense by this - but how is a nearly one and a half year old requiring full-time attention from two people? I ask this as a single dad of two kids, one of them since they were < 1.

One parent serves as redundancy for the other. I don’t know how you did it, but when we had just one baby/toddler, and no other kids or relatives to watch them, one adult is constantly watching the kid, and the other is taking care of household tasks. The person watching the kid looks like they have spare time, but it’s garbage time because your attention is diverted to the kid every couple minutes or less.

For us it’s me “mostly” working - supporting our existing clients, taking care of investments (sometimes trading a bit), shopping, cooking (taking turns in this one). She is mostly with the kid and when he is sleeping, she does cleaning and other chores. Also sometimes I look after him and she works for clients (when she is more suitable) The company is definitely not progressing. At best we are able to stand still. I don’t think when you are with the kid it’s spare time.
Post reply on HN