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That's a relief. Three kids mandate 9 to 5 work hours. There isn't much quality time or mental energy to dedicate after that. It's a relief because whatever en

That's a relief. Three kids mandate 9 to 5 work hours. There isn't much quality time or mental energy to dedicate after that. It's a relief because whatever energy I have left I spend on books, articles, papers. Those things have helped my 9 to 5 in a big way. I bring what I learn to the job. It doesn't beat hands on practice. I do itch to work on practice projects and I'm hoping when the kids are a little older, I'll have more time and energy for that. In any case, my kids are my number one. The day my first was born was the day my motivations and my reason for being shifted.

jdcskillet 9y ago
I couldn’t agree with you more. I wish I could do more than give you an upvote, so here is an internet cheers and just know there are a lot of people who feel the same way. I also love what I do, read when I can, but at the end of the day I work hours which allow me to be with my kids and wife as much as possible. I hope to keep getting better, to become a great engineer, but I will take the slower road if it means more family time.
- jwdunne 9y ago
  Exactly the same :) the guilt of not spending time with my kids and my wife is too much. There have been times where I've tried to sit down and work on something but it's no fun when there's a strong feeling of "I should be spending this time with my family". The other thing I've noticed is that the separation and challenge of raising children has made me more productive. You don't know stress until you've had a newborn. There are things at work that used to affect me and I look back now and think "how was that even a problem?"
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > There have been times where I've tried to sit down and work on something but it's no fun when there's a strong feeling of "I should be spending this time with my family". That doesn't sound like a recommendation for becoming a parent. In fact it sounds the opposite - "don't have children, or you'll guilt yourself out of every other thing you could be doing".
    - jwdunne 9y ago
      Well it's not for me to recommend. I don't recommend it if you don't feel you've got where you need to be and that matters very much. There's tonnes of reasons why I wouldn't recommend parenthood. I don't think I was ready by any margin. All I'm saying is that I don't regret it and I consider it the best decision of my life.
      - mcny 9y ago
        I'll say the selfish thing. There isn't (and rightly so) any law that requires us to have children. I say use it. Let the suckers who want children raise the children we need to take care of us when we are to old. My personal recommendation us when in doubt, err on the side of not having children. Don't make life harder on you than it has to be.
        jwdunne 9y ago
        Sensible advice if not coloured with the chalk of Ayn Rand! Hopefully I do a good job and it'll be my honour when my children look after the old when they grow up.
        shrimp_emoji 9y ago
        Ideally, they won't look after the old; their robots will.
    - pc86 9y ago
      Well life is about choices. People are free not to have children. But yes, when you do you bear a certain level of responsibility to them. I think a lot of people would characterize sitting in your office building CRUD apps every night so that you have a sweet green GitHub calendar while your kids sit alone on the couch watching TV as an abdication of that responsibility.
      - tellarin 9y ago
        Teach them to code and do it together! ;)
  - chrshawkes 9y ago
    You don't know stress until you've had a divorce due to all of these after hours spent studying the latest fad. That is real stress and that happens to a lot of programmers. I am dealing with that personally, I have had 2 kids and I have done the best I could. Newborn stress is nothing compared to a divorce from a long term marriage.
    - jwdunne 9y ago
      Well there is that. One other thing I've learned is that no matter how stresses I get, there's always someone going through worse and here we are. Sorry to hear that man, cannot imagine what you're going through - I've come close with my Mrs and it's not nice.
enraged_camel 9y ago
>>In any case, my kids are my number one. The day my first was born was the day my motivations and my reason for being shifted. Your kids should be your number one priority, absolutely. Make no mistake though: when you have kids you are trading off professional development outside of work for raising a family. Nothing wrong with that, but the trade off definitely is there. People who ambitiously work on personal projects in their spare time will, on average, advance faster than those who are 9-5'ers.
- jwdunne 9y ago
  Yep and I'd have it no other way. Before kids, I used to be like that. If I "ambitiously worked on side projects", I'd at best miss times I'll never get back and at worse be downright neglectful. That's a "trade off" I haven't thought twice about making. There is no mistake. As I said, my kids are number one. In fact, I'd argue it isn't much of a trade off at all. Time with my kids is infinitely more valuable than time spent on my career. Someday :)
  - mcny 9y ago
    I wish it was more socially acceptable to not have children. In many parts of the world, there is still so much stigma if you marry and don't have a child within a couple of years. I am hopeful things will change and we can swing down the total fertility rate to below one.
    - ido 9y ago
      I'm 34 and living in Berlin - I know a low of people within ±10 years of my age here and MANY have no kids and aren't planning on having any. The norms are changing in a lot of major urban areas.
      - jwdunne 9y ago
        I certainly felt no pressure to have children. In fact, up until the moment I decided to have children, I always said I didn't want them. What changed was my partner's boy, and now my boy for all intents and purposes. It made me rethink my stance and I decided to expand my family.
Aaargh20318 9y ago
> The day my first was born was the day my motivations and my reason for being shifted. One of the many reasons I remain childfree.
- jwdunne 9y ago
  Each to their own - I don't see it as a bad thing. Having children has made me happier and more fulfilled in ways that I could never have imagined. You cannot know the feeling of it until you do. You cannot really understand it until you do. It changes your world.
  - Aaargh20318 9y ago
    > Having children has made me happier and more fulfilled in ways that I could never have imagined. That's my main problem with it, it's super selfish to procreate. I don't feel I have the right to force new life (with all the pain and suffering that entails) onto this world for the sake of making me happy. I love my potential children too much to do that to them.
    - saltedmd5 9y ago
      I think this is probably the most self-indulgent thing I've ever read.
      - coisnepe 9y ago
        Is it just a coincidence that there was an article about this very thing a few days ago here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15869983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15869983
        Aaargh20318 9y ago
        In my case, yes. I've been an antinatalist for a long time.
      - msla 9y ago

jdcskillet 9y ago

I couldn’t agree with you more. I wish I could do more than give you an upvote, so here is an internet cheers and just know there are a lot of people who feel the same way. I also love what I do, read when I can, but at the end of the day I work hours which allow me to be with my kids and wife as much as possible. I hope to keep getting better, to become a great engineer, but I will take the slower road if it means more family time.

jwdunne 9y ago
Exactly the same :) the guilt of not spending time with my kids and my wife is too much. There have been times where I've tried to sit down and work on something but it's no fun when there's a strong feeling of "I should be spending this time with my family". The other thing I've noticed is that the separation and challenge of raising children has made me more productive. You don't know stress until you've had a newborn. There are things at work that used to affect me and I look back now and think "how was that even a problem?"
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > There have been times where I've tried to sit down and work on something but it's no fun when there's a strong feeling of "I should be spending this time with my family". That doesn't sound like a recommendation for becoming a parent. In fact it sounds the opposite - "don't have children, or you'll guilt yourself out of every other thing you could be doing".
  - jwdunne 9y ago
    Well it's not for me to recommend. I don't recommend it if you don't feel you've got where you need to be and that matters very much. There's tonnes of reasons why I wouldn't recommend parenthood. I don't think I was ready by any margin. All I'm saying is that I don't regret it and I consider it the best decision of my life.
    - mcny 9y ago
      I'll say the selfish thing. There isn't (and rightly so) any law that requires us to have children. I say use it. Let the suckers who want children raise the children we need to take care of us when we are to old. My personal recommendation us when in doubt, err on the side of not having children. Don't make life harder on you than it has to be.
      - jwdunne 9y ago
        Sensible advice if not coloured with the chalk of Ayn Rand! Hopefully I do a good job and it'll be my honour when my children look after the old when they grow up.
        shrimp_emoji 9y ago
        Ideally, they won't look after the old; their robots will.
  - pc86 9y ago
    Well life is about choices. People are free not to have children. But yes, when you do you bear a certain level of responsibility to them. I think a lot of people would characterize sitting in your office building CRUD apps every night so that you have a sweet green GitHub calendar while your kids sit alone on the couch watching TV as an abdication of that responsibility.
    - tellarin 9y ago
      Teach them to code and do it together! ;)
- chrshawkes 9y ago
  You don't know stress until you've had a divorce due to all of these after hours spent studying the latest fad. That is real stress and that happens to a lot of programmers. I am dealing with that personally, I have had 2 kids and I have done the best I could. Newborn stress is nothing compared to a divorce from a long term marriage.
  - jwdunne 9y ago
    Well there is that. One other thing I've learned is that no matter how stresses I get, there's always someone going through worse and here we are. Sorry to hear that man, cannot imagine what you're going through - I've come close with my Mrs and it's not nice.

enraged_camel 9y ago

>>In any case, my kids are my number one. The day my first was born was the day my motivations and my reason for being shifted. Your kids should be your number one priority, absolutely. Make no mistake though: when you have kids you are trading off professional development outside of work for raising a family. Nothing wrong with that, but the trade off definitely is there. People who ambitiously work on personal projects in their spare time will, on average, advance faster than those who are 9-5'ers.

jwdunne 9y ago
Yep and I'd have it no other way. Before kids, I used to be like that. If I "ambitiously worked on side projects", I'd at best miss times I'll never get back and at worse be downright neglectful. That's a "trade off" I haven't thought twice about making. There is no mistake. As I said, my kids are number one. In fact, I'd argue it isn't much of a trade off at all. Time with my kids is infinitely more valuable than time spent on my career. Someday :)
- mcny 9y ago
  I wish it was more socially acceptable to not have children. In many parts of the world, there is still so much stigma if you marry and don't have a child within a couple of years. I am hopeful things will change and we can swing down the total fertility rate to below one.
  - ido 9y ago
    I'm 34 and living in Berlin - I know a low of people within ±10 years of my age here and MANY have no kids and aren't planning on having any. The norms are changing in a lot of major urban areas.
    - jwdunne 9y ago
      I certainly felt no pressure to have children. In fact, up until the moment I decided to have children, I always said I didn't want them. What changed was my partner's boy, and now my boy for all intents and purposes. It made me rethink my stance and I decided to expand my family.

Aaargh20318 9y ago

> The day my first was born was the day my motivations and my reason for being shifted. One of the many reasons I remain childfree.

jwdunne 9y ago
Each to their own - I don't see it as a bad thing. Having children has made me happier and more fulfilled in ways that I could never have imagined. You cannot know the feeling of it until you do. You cannot really understand it until you do. It changes your world.
- Aaargh20318 9y ago
  > Having children has made me happier and more fulfilled in ways that I could never have imagined. That's my main problem with it, it's super selfish to procreate. I don't feel I have the right to force new life (with all the pain and suffering that entails) onto this world for the sake of making me happy. I love my potential children too much to do that to them.
  - saltedmd5 9y ago
    I think this is probably the most self-indulgent thing I've ever read.
    - coisnepe 9y ago
      Is it just a coincidence that there was an article about this very thing a few days ago here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15869983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15869983
      - Aaargh20318 9y ago
        In my case, yes. I've been an antinatalist for a long time.
    - msla 9y ago