This essay feels like the 2010s when feminists were debating if it were possible as a women to "have it all": successful/satisfying career, family, and personal life.
Being ambitious and being a dad
81–90 of 802 posts
Re: Being ambitious and being a dad
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a conversation that ambitious women have been having for decades. To the point where it's a cliche. Having it about men and women is valuable, having it be about them separately I think masks some of the structural problems- e.g. better childcare, more and better laid out parental leave(1), etc. Two things I've heard from different ambitious women: "To really achieve, you need a wife" is something I've heard…
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 your spouse. Before you had kids you could invest your time and energy in your spouse and your career, then the kids come along and your relationship with your spouse weakens, either all the way to divorce or to just a degraded state.
Re: Being ambitious and being a dad
#83If you can’t have a career and a family you may be in a death cult.
Re: Being ambitious and being a dad
#84YC 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…
Man good motivating schedule. Are you married as well? I notice this is missing the wife time. I feel like I really have to wreck my sleep to get worktime between wife and kids.
Re: Being ambitious and being a dad
#85The trade offs are real, but a suppressed desire to have kids can lead to dissatisfaction and with time that will be hard to ignore or fix. Also, let's just not ignore that Musk is wildly successful in having shown you an example that you don't have to choose one thing
He sure as heck failed at the family thing.
True, but try being a dad to 14 kids in today's world.
Re: Being ambitious and being a dad
#86The 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 got sort of lucky early in my career because I had a talent that was discovered in a national network. Which meant I found myself writing national strategies for IT in our public sector (Denmark) at my late 20ies. It felt great for a year, or maybe two. When it stopped being fun though, it sort of hit me hard. I did enjoy writing and working on the strategies with other people. All the "glamour" around it, advicing politicians, going to conferences, networking with all sorts of "important" people. That got to me on one of the many train rides I had to take. I know a 3 hour commute might not be a lot to Americans or people in larger countries in general, but here it's a life time. Eventually I didn't know why I was going on them, so I quit and went back to being a nerd in a basement. Having my first child was the kick I needed to push me to where I was already heading though. I would've likely ridden the career ladder for a lot longer if I hadn't become a dad.
I rarely speak about it but something about reading you accepting the failure of your ambitions made me want to do it. Are you sure it's a failure? For me family life turned out to be what I wanted and work is just a fun place which makes me money, but I totally get why people want to do it the opposite way. In some ways you could say that I did something significant, but it made me misserable. So I failed just as much as you, if not more.
I don't regret any of it either though. It's what made me who I am.
Re: Being ambitious and being a dad
#87I have a good friend who has a special needs kid and we've discussed his struggles at length - suffice it to say that it takes an order of magnitude more time and attention than what's described here.
The thing is, you of course don't get tipped off that you've been selected for that particular curse (and yes, I'd say it's a curse. It's not some inspiring after-school special thing, it's unfair as f*k to all involved).
The point of this is, I suppose, it's okay to choose not to have kids if you don't feel like gambling, because it turns out, you are. And I say this as someone who is very in favor of having kids and who worries about the looming population collapse in all developed countries.
Re: Being ambitious and being a dad
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is the point though right? The author is saying that he rejects this dichotomy and he's attempting to take on both even if others might perceive it as impossible.
Yes, he seems to be going in that direction, which I think is the fallacy. This is where I think humility should balance amibiton.
I don't think he is guaranteeing success, but stating his aim. Gotta have a goal to work towards if you claim to be ambitious.
Re: Being ambitious and being a dad
#89A lot of good stuff in this thread. The party I'll add and haven't seen yet is that I think being a dad has made me a better people manager at work. I think about humans more than ever and that has helped make me more efficient at work
I knew one lovely guy who was a young dad. He started in the server team and was team leader in 6 months.
Not because he knew about the tech, though he was learning fast, but because he knew how to wrangle and intermediate the man-children.
Re: Being ambitious and being a dad
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
He sure as heck failed at the family thing.
True, but try being a dad to 14 kids in today's world.
With the billions he has, not a problem if he actually tried.
When he dies, I while track the titles of news articles about the inheritance fight with mild amusement. I won't read the articles however...