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Would you have been able to say the same if that focus started shifting in your late teens? The advice to work hard is aimed at 20 somethings. As you age, your

by Swizec 10y ago

Would you have been able to say the same if that focus started shifting in your late teens? The advice to work hard is aimed at 20 somethings. As you age, your focus should shift. That's the part we often seem to forget. My mum always said kids were her priority and that she focused on us and so on. As a result 3 of us lived in a tiny 2-bedroom apartment, she missed many promotions and was basically trapped in a just-above-foodstamps situation until I moved out. Her dream of publishing poetry and art in general never even had a chance to get started. 2 jobs, no time. Now she's in her 50's and has both more time and disposable income with me and my sister out of the picture. But the spark for poetry and art is gone, she didn't nurture it. Me, I don't want to repeat that.

tyingq 10y ago
Yes...That's correct. I chased money up to a point and did well enough that I could let off the throttle after the kids were on their way out the door. I do see many of my peers, though, sort of trapped in trying to maintain the same lifestyle. I traded down to a modest house, drive old cars, etc. Not saying I'm somehow smarter. I did struggle a bit with my pride at first...giving up the nice house, cars, job titles and so forth.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > I traded down to a modest house, drive old cars, etc. That's a key element right there. Way too many people that I know live well above their actual means without realizing it. They somehow seem to think that as long as the bank is willing to finance it they should take the lifestyle as belonging to their status. It's an easy trap to fall in to, especially because all their other colleagues and siblings do the exact same thing. Little do they realize that they are effectively taking a mortgage on their future and that when the final bill is presented it won't be pretty. The only situation in which that has a 'happy ending' is when you die young and leave a pile of debt behind which can't be collected on. But if you have any dependents or a significant other then this is a surefire way to leave them to clean up your mess. If you don't absolutely have to borrow then don't, you don't need the fancy house and you don't need the fancy car. They'll end up becoming millstones around your neck if you are not careful.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    Agree. However, my motivation for the lifestyle downgrade was so that I could afford the job downgrade, which requires less time and attention than the previous one. I didn't really improve my debt level or financial position any. Just made more time for "not work".
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      That's a very valid trade-off and another way to express the same thing. Effectively you put a value on your time rather than to reduce your debt or improve your financial position. The effect is hopefully the same: you're a happier person than you would have been otherwise.
  - trgn 10y ago
    fwiw, I think most people live pretty ordinary, non-flashy lives. It's hard to square that with the idea that Americans are debt ridden spendthrifts. You read about that so much, there must be some truth to it, but then I look around, and see mostly modest people, modest cars, modest homes, modest vacations. Where are all these crazy spenders? I'm sure there are some, but are they really a majority?
    - tyingq 10y ago
      It's harder to notice if you aren't doing it yourself. For me, though, it's fairly easy to see in the parking lot of a tech company. Don't see too many modest cars in the ones I've frequented. The workaholics typically get the closer spots, so you can kind of gauge how prevalent it is by how far back the expensive cars go in the lot.
    - dpark 10y ago
      What's a modest car and a modest home? I suspect if you looked at most people's banks and then at what they drive and where they live you'd think they're living beyond their means. It also depends a lot on your other expenses. If you have two kids and a mountain of student loan debt, "modest" might be pretty low even if your income is way above average.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  >I did struggle a bit with my pride at first... I appreciate you sharing this, since I too continue to experience this from time to time, and I feel that too many of us are held back by this private fear and self-consciousness. I think that the more we are exposed to the fact that this is a completely normal thing to feel, the more readily we may be able to make tradeoffs that make sense for us but may look peculiar from the eyes of the public.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    It can have the outward appearance that you were demoted. My personal situation is that I left a fairly lofty position to run a very small business, so it's more opaque. But, people do still ask things like "what happened?"
always_good 10y ago
I'd rather spend my 20s and 30s exploring the world, finding adventures, and meeting women. Working in tech gave me the opportunity to do that while minimizing time spent working. I think before we can share cautionary tales of other people, we have to acknowledge the freedom most of us have in this industry.
Arizhel 10y ago
Having kids, and following any passions in your young adult life, are mutually exclusive goals. You can't have both, unless maybe you're independently wealthy and even then the marriage and kids will constrain your time a lot. Our biological condition where we need to have kids in our 20s or at the latest 30s is simply incompatible with our other goals in modern society: building a prosperous career for a good nest egg, doing great work (science, research, art, etc.), working your way out of the lower classes into higher classes, etc. There just isn't enough time for it all. So as a result, we're seeing only really well-off people and really poor people having kids. The well-off people can afford nannies, while the poor people live on welfare and food stamps or have crappy jobs and struggle like you experienced. The poor breed more poor people who end up being a drain on society, plus a few who manage to break out of it, but then grow up scarred by the experience and don't have any kids themselves. This isn't a recipe for a healthy, stable society. What we really need to do is figure out how to greatly increase human lifespans so that people can wait until they're 50-100 before they have kids (and feel youthful enough at that age to do so).
- jmmcd 10y ago
  Is there any data showing a bimodal effect of wealth on number of children?
- imesh 10y ago
  It seems this is something people without kids tell themselves to justify not having kids, which is fine, we don't need more people, but I had kids young when I was in college and they have been with me as I have progressed my career up. These kind of things are influenced by where you live of course, but if you are developer and aren't living in the Bay area only one of the parents needs to work so that helps. I suppose I don't do "great work" but neither do most of the childless people I know, they just eat out more.
  - dpark 10y ago
    > only one of the parents needs to work so that helps. Yeah, it helps a ton if you have a spouse/partner without or willing to give up career goals. That fact is in support of Arizhel's claim. Someone opted out of career success completely in your scenario.

by Swizec 10y ago

tyingq 10y ago

Yes...That's correct. I chased money up to a point and did well enough that I could let off the throttle after the kids were on their way out the door. I do see many of my peers, though, sort of trapped in trying to maintain the same lifestyle. I traded down to a modest house, drive old cars, etc. Not saying I'm somehow smarter. I did struggle a bit with my pride at first...giving up the nice house, cars, job titles and so forth.

jacquesm 10y ago
> I traded down to a modest house, drive old cars, etc. That's a key element right there. Way too many people that I know live well above their actual means without realizing it. They somehow seem to think that as long as the bank is willing to finance it they should take the lifestyle as belonging to their status. It's an easy trap to fall in to, especially because all their other colleagues and siblings do the exact same thing. Little do they realize that they are effectively taking a mortgage on their future and that when the final bill is presented it won't be pretty. The only situation in which that has a 'happy ending' is when you die young and leave a pile of debt behind which can't be collected on. But if you have any dependents or a significant other then this is a surefire way to leave them to clean up your mess. If you don't absolutely have to borrow then don't, you don't need the fancy house and you don't need the fancy car. They'll end up becoming millstones around your neck if you are not careful.
- tyingq 10y ago
  Agree. However, my motivation for the lifestyle downgrade was so that I could afford the job downgrade, which requires less time and attention than the previous one. I didn't really improve my debt level or financial position any. Just made more time for "not work".
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    That's a very valid trade-off and another way to express the same thing. Effectively you put a value on your time rather than to reduce your debt or improve your financial position. The effect is hopefully the same: you're a happier person than you would have been otherwise.
- trgn 10y ago
  fwiw, I think most people live pretty ordinary, non-flashy lives. It's hard to square that with the idea that Americans are debt ridden spendthrifts. You read about that so much, there must be some truth to it, but then I look around, and see mostly modest people, modest cars, modest homes, modest vacations. Where are all these crazy spenders? I'm sure there are some, but are they really a majority?
  - tyingq 10y ago
    It's harder to notice if you aren't doing it yourself. For me, though, it's fairly easy to see in the parking lot of a tech company. Don't see too many modest cars in the ones I've frequented. The workaholics typically get the closer spots, so you can kind of gauge how prevalent it is by how far back the expensive cars go in the lot.
  - dpark 10y ago
    What's a modest car and a modest home? I suspect if you looked at most people's banks and then at what they drive and where they live you'd think they're living beyond their means. It also depends a lot on your other expenses. If you have two kids and a mountain of student loan debt, "modest" might be pretty low even if your income is way above average.
hkmurakami 10y ago
>I did struggle a bit with my pride at first... I appreciate you sharing this, since I too continue to experience this from time to time, and I feel that too many of us are held back by this private fear and self-consciousness. I think that the more we are exposed to the fact that this is a completely normal thing to feel, the more readily we may be able to make tradeoffs that make sense for us but may look peculiar from the eyes of the public.
- tyingq 10y ago
  It can have the outward appearance that you were demoted. My personal situation is that I left a fairly lofty position to run a very small business, so it's more opaque. But, people do still ask things like "what happened?"

always_good 10y ago

I'd rather spend my 20s and 30s exploring the world, finding adventures, and meeting women. Working in tech gave me the opportunity to do that while minimizing time spent working. I think before we can share cautionary tales of other people, we have to acknowledge the freedom most of us have in this industry.

Arizhel 10y ago

Having kids, and following any passions in your young adult life, are mutually exclusive goals. You can't have both, unless maybe you're independently wealthy and even then the marriage and kids will constrain your time a lot. Our biological condition where we need to have kids in our 20s or at the latest 30s is simply incompatible with our other goals in modern society: building a prosperous career for a good nest egg, doing great work (science, research, art, etc.), working your way out of the lower classes into higher classes, etc. There just isn't enough time for it all. So as a result, we're seeing only really well-off people and really poor people having kids. The well-off people can afford nannies, while the poor people live on welfare and food stamps or have crappy jobs and struggle like you experienced. The poor breed more poor people who end up being a drain on society, plus a few who manage to break out of it, but then grow up scarred by the experience and don't have any kids themselves. This isn't a recipe for a healthy, stable society. What we really need to do is figure out how to greatly increase human lifespans so that people can wait until they're 50-100 before they have kids (and feel youthful enough at that age to do so).

jmmcd 10y ago
Is there any data showing a bimodal effect of wealth on number of children?
imesh 10y ago
It seems this is something people without kids tell themselves to justify not having kids, which is fine, we don't need more people, but I had kids young when I was in college and they have been with me as I have progressed my career up. These kind of things are influenced by where you live of course, but if you are developer and aren't living in the Bay area only one of the parents needs to work so that helps. I suppose I don't do "great work" but neither do most of the childless people I know, they just eat out more.
- dpark 10y ago
  > only one of the parents needs to work so that helps. Yeah, it helps a ton if you have a spouse/partner without or willing to give up career goals. That fact is in support of Arizhel's claim. Someone opted out of career success completely in your scenario.