Second this comment... My wife and I recently had our first, and so far this is the perspective I've been trying to adopt, which has helped. It's not like you

Second this comment... My wife and I recently had our first, and so far this is the perspective I've been trying to adopt, which has helped. It's not like you lose your ambitions completely, but there are new constraints. You no longer get to indulge in the excesses of youth, but it's OK, because taking care of a new life is simply a significantly higher priority. It's a liberating feeling. I was worried before having a kid that I would be so bogged down with childcare that it would be impossible for me to get anything done at work. But I heard from a number of people that after having kids they were forced to develop better time-management skills. This has definitely been happening for me. I find it much easier to stay on task when I'm working on something, since I know the time available is so limited. After a while, the impulse to experiment and be free-wheeling has diminished a bit, and I've had fun purposefully moving through things. The impulse "stay up all night and play" is definitely a youthful one. People want to stay young forever, which is certainly one way to go, but it's important to understand that there are real reasons many people are happy to move on to the next phase of life where they give those things up.