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Ask HN: How many kids do you have?
Do you feel having kids makes starting a company that much harder? Or do you think it's motivating?
Personally, I find I have more focus and discipline after having kids.
- stuff4ben 17y agoI have two year old twins. After working 8 hours during the day, I come home to play with the kids and help my wife out since she's a SAHM. When the kids go to bed around 7:30-8, I drink a beer or two and veg on my laptop or TV until 11. If I repurpose those three hours between 8 and 11, I could probably start a company. I've tried, and I'm just too tired/lazy to do it. It might have something to do with the beer...
- tjake 17y agoYeah, I know what you mean. I'm in about the same situation. But I save the beer for the weekends and code :)
- joel_feather 17y agoWhy don't you outsource your project? Then you can drink beer and yell at the coders for not understanding what you meant...
- cpher 17y agoYeah, beer + coding worked okay pre-kids, but with 2- and 1-year olds now my brain starts shutting down around 9pm.
- jreposa 17y ago1 child on the way, 1 startup doing ok. i selected 0 though
- stuff4ben 17y agoThis really doesn't have anything to do with the topic, but when you said you selected 0 when you have one kid on the way, I feel I had to comment. My wife was pregnant with our twins over Mother's Day. DO NOT, under any circumstances tell your 7 months pregnant wife that since she "isn't a mother yet" she doesn't get a Mother's Day gift. I was in the dog house for a while after that.
- rgrieselhuber 17y agoOuch.
- wglb 17y agoMay I suggest flowers every week?
- kirubakaran 17y agoShe was 14 person-months pregnant. Of course she must have been considered mom.
- TheSOB88 17y agoSigh. Why do men allow women to emotionize them out of their own property? I mean, I'm assuming she just made you sleep on the couch, but personally, I think that's a bit dehumanizing. Why do we, as a culture, accept that? Yes, I realize she was hopped up on hormones. There are plenty of other examples, though, where women get some kind of "right" to kick men out of their own place when they feel emotionally sidelined. Are women really so emotionally fragile that this needs to happen?
- jonsen 17y agoThere are always (at least) two ends of a relationship. You can never put the blame at one end only.
- midnightmonster 17y agoI've rarely heard "in the doghouse" to mean literally sleeping in the doghouse, or even sleeping on the couch. IME, it just means "in trouble", i.e., she was upset with him for a while. I agree that "making" a man sleep on the couch is not acceptable in the sorts of cases that folklore usually reports for it, but (and maybe I just know more reasonable couples?) I don't often see it happen in real life.
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y agoNo, it's because the men acquiesce. The few times my wife has been angry enough to tell me to sleep on the couch, I've just said no. What happens then is she sleeps on the couch then wakes up a few hours later because it's too uncomfortable and comes into bed next to me. Our "unspoken rule" now is that neither of us has the right to kick the other out of bed. If one of us is that upset, then it's up to him/her to sleep somewhere else.
- spitfire 17y agoNone that I know of.
- jimbokun 17y agoI'm guessing that you're a man.
- nostrademons 17y agoMaybe he's a dead praying mantis...
- tjic 17y agoI've heard a fair number of people say this, as a ha-ha throw-away line. ...but it alway galls me. Raising and providing for your kids is the most important thing in life ... and yet some guys think it's amusing to note that they might very well have created kids, but (a) they don't keep track of who they've slept with and thus with whom they might have procreated; (b) they don't give enough of a shit to find out. Apalling.
- nostrademons 17y agoWhen you think about it, dead baby jokes are horribly offensive too... ...which is a good reason not to think about it. ;-) I completely agree that if you think through the joke, logically, it's really not all that funny and kinda offensive. But there are lots of jokes that are pretty offensive when you think through them. Dead-baby jokes. Microsoft Bing jokes. Various ethnic jokes. Holocaust jokes. The reason why we find them funny is because they stretch the bounds of social propriety. I find it's better to draw a line between lets-be-serious-this-is-a-bad-thing mode and okay-we're-joking-now-say-whatever-you-want mode. Because things get awful dreary if you never joke about stuff that's morbid, depressing, and generally a bad thing. It's like humor is the natural human coping mechanism...
- jonsen 17y agoand a reference mechanism. Providing contrast. You can't appreciate good if you don't know bad. Morbid jokes are also a subtle way of reminding us of the unthinkable.
- papa 17y ago2 kids. 7 year old and 3 year old. Started my current company when kid #2 was born (maybe not the recommended course of action for everyone, but I survived). People ask me what my hobbies are these days it's pretty much (1) the kids and (2) the website. In fact, I'd say the website is almost like a 3rd kid. Once that thing went public it was 24/7 just like a kid! And it even wakes you up at the least opportune times like a kid. But I do find that with kids I'm forced to be resourceful and disciplined. I sleep less and make do with what little "me" time I have to get things done. I also find that I'm forced to prioritize things more (triage becomes really important when faced with greater time constraints).
- noonespecial 17y agoI quit my job and started on my own the day my first child was born. I ran back and forth from the hospital to one of our first demos. I figured it'd be better for my kid to be the son of a poor man who tried than a slightly less poor and much more ordinary man who was too afraid to.
- ekanes 17y agoThe responsibility makes starting a company ... more cautious. Not so much harder but you have to be more careful. As for motivating, absolutely. You will get more done in less time, when that's all you have. ;)
- hikari17 17y agoMy two are 25 and 20, respectively. They're directly supportive, but they're also indirectly motivating, since I'm eager to transmit to them the potential upside of the entrepreneurial mindset (along with the downsides, of course.)
- kapitti 17y agoPersonally, having my family to take care of as well as house/car payments makes me think about revenue much earlier in the game, and that's helped tremendously.
- windslider12 17y agokool game
- windslider12 17y agokool
- mustaphamond 17y ago1 kid (2.5) and, maybe, one on the way. I work full time and launched a new company about a month ago. I agree that it does give you focus. You want to provide something better for your kids.
- papa 17y agoLol, I first read that as kid v2.5 Sometimes I do feel that kids deserve their own version numbers. After potty training you jump from like v.95 to v5.0 ...or so I felt :-)
- chewbranca 17y agoYou need a 'one on the way' option.
- maurycy 17y ago"two on the way", too.
- PStamatiou 17y agoI have a 3 month old black lab puppy. Not a kid by any means but for a 22 year old it's a big change in responsibility for me. she gets me up at 6am and i end up staying up to work so i guess that's a plus.
- chunkyslink 17y agogreat, 14 years of cleaning up dog shit enjoy
- swombat 17y agoI never saw getting a dog as a way to replace an alarm clock... that's an interesting view. That said, I have never had trouble sleeping late in the morning, whether or not the dogs claim attention, so perhaps it doesn't work for me.
- SwellJoe 17y agoMy old girl doesn't wake me up. She's on roughly the same schedule I am (whatever that happens to be). Though she's astonishingly quick out of the gate when we wake each day. Before I even finish putting on my glasses, she's already jumped out of her bed, stretched and waiting by the bed for me to get up. I suspect your puppy will grow out of waking you up. Dogs are generally pretty eager to please, and it should only take subtle hints for her to learn that waking you at 6AM isn't generally pleasing.
- truebosko 17y agoAwesome! I have 2 cats, a hamster, and fish. The cats are primarily in charge of waking me up as they begin meowing or playing by the bedroom door at 6:30am. My job then, is to wake the GF up. It's a good team effort imo :-)
- chunkyslink 17y agooh my god, a puppy - how awesome ! You must be so happy ! My alarm goat is set to go off at 5.45 each morning. I'm so glad I bought one. I feel like my life is so much more organised and I'm just so motivated to get up and go, go, go! I'm so wrapped up in my goat world that I don't care that it stinks and makes a mess of my house. I let it sleep with me even though it has traces of shit all over its fur and legs. They are so just so adorable.
- dmillar 17y agoi still am one.
- ilikebeer 17y ago4 and (maybe) more to come down the line. In the end, family is everything. Sacrificing anything to another end is foolish in the long run. 100 years from now, what will become of any of your companies? What of Google itself? What else is there?
- pxlpshr 17y agono offense, but if you have more than 2 then you're likely living vicariously through HN. if you're giving up founder-time, then it's at the expense of your child's development in relation to personal influence. IMO. I'm 27 (i think), i seriously have no idea how someone with 2+ kids could do it. i really don't. whatever i'm missing, please teach me the ways to better time/life management.
- callmeed 17y agoNo way. I've got 4 kids (1, 3, 4.5, & 14) My main business is 5 years old but we work like a startup, keep innovating and I have all sorts of startup-esque side projects. Some things take longer but it can be done.
- tptacek 17y agoA cofounder of Arbor, and one of the heaviest travelers there, had 4 very-well-adjusted, very-happy kids. It's extremely hard to avoid giving offense when your message is "what you're doing is hurting your children", so it's probably best just to keep that sentiment to yourself.
- pxlpshr 17y agoI apologize for an offensive remark, puts foot in mouth. I wasn't very clear in that first post. I know it can be done by some but I don't think most people can do it, and I still think it comes at a cost. The question is, how do children (more importantly: teenagers) handle a father's long hours and absence? There's a reason wealthy private schools often have big drug problems.
- tptacek 17y agoYou didn't offend me; mine was an anthropological comment. =)
- menloparkbum 17y agoMy dad was a physician back when doctors were still crazy workaholics. He worked at least 80 hours a week, easy. He still had time to go to most of my sports games, music events and help me with my homework. I also have 3 siblings. His schedule didn't have much of an adverse effect on me, but it probably was hard on my mom. I would think that the financial instability of a startup is a bigger issue for a family than the hours.
- ranparas 17y agoI think having kids make starting a company harder. You simply have that much less time to focus on your startup.
- raintrees 17y agoNo kids. I'm only 44 and still not old enough yet. My mother will have to rely on my siblings for grandkids... I'm still having too much fun.
- justin_vanw 17y agoMaybe you should think of the fun you won't be having when you're 80. I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but seriously, some day you will regret not having kids. On the other hand, I guess it is never too late for a dude.
- pbhj 17y agoQuality of sperm produced degrades quickly. I suspect few men are fertile enough to father children in old-age though your chances are probably better with a young woman(!). http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/02/030210080435.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/02/030210080435.ht... is quite a good review based on a small sample size of men between 20 and 80 years.
- raintrees 17y agoDoesn't that fall into the "proving a negative" category? As I do not and will not have kids, how will I have any idea? I seem to remember Hazlitt invoking this re: the cost of the broken window... My sister has already taken care of my share, so maybe I have the best of both worlds: Someone else's kids to play with, and someone else to send then back to when I have had enough! :)
- tptacek 17y ago9 year old son, 7 year old daughter. They're both way into Scratch.
- mookie 17y agoI find it a motivating factor, but I find I am at a disadvantage to other younger entrepreneurs because 1) I have less time, 2) I am more risk averse, and 3) I have more responsibilities and bills to pay at home so I can't just live on ramen and focus on building something on my own time
- known 17y agoI've a kid and have no plans for more. And I feel motivated just by looking at him. I don't know why.
- phugoid 17y agoOne two-year-old, and another one on the way for November. Losing sleep, changing diapers and cleaning throw-up seems to have injected a dose of realism in my life. I also feel like I'm doing reasonably well with a really big project, and developing skills that I really didn't have before. Somehow I feel more rooted in the world, if it makes any sense. I feel _more_ motivated to start my own thing now. I can't see myself taking the risk of quitting my job and working on a startup full-time, but I'm open to consulting on the side and trying to grow that.
- rman666 17y agon!
- midnightmonster 17y agoI have three kids, ages 5, 3, and 1. I focus better now than I did 5 years ago, but I don't know that you could separate the effects of having kids from the affects of being 5 years older and more experienced. Gotta say that the 5 year old arranging keyboards and a broken DVD player on his desk so he can do work like daddy does is pretty cool, though.
- bmickler 17y ago3 kids. I agree, having children increased my focus and discipline immensely. However, as time goes by I'm realizing that it's going to be extremely difficult (nearly impossible) to spend the time I need to spend between my normal job and family requirements to getting my web app and associated business up and running. I'm keeping at it, though.
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y agoIt makes it a bit harder, but not that much. I have less free time, but even if I didn't have a son, I probably wouldn't do much work between the time I get home (about 6pm) and when he goes to bed (8:30) anyway.
- mdoar 17y ago3, and that's why I just rented an office instead of working at home.