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.
My wife and I both work, and we have kids. It's not because of any relative importance of career versus kids, it's simply because we couldn't afford to live here in the SF Bay Area otherwise. It would be wonderful if one of us could stay home, but there's more to it than that as well.
Have you ever spent all day with toddlers? It's enough to make you go mad sometimes, and it also starves you of adult interaction. Chasing little wild humans and occasionally commanding, "No! Spit that out!" isn't really interaction.
You need a support system when raising kids. Traditionally, this has been family, but people move around for work so much in the US, that many of us don't have that support system, and we outsource that to professionals - day care, nannies, co-ops. All that stuff costs money, and so, we both have to work.
Agreed. I'm in my early 30s and don't have kids because I don't think I can provide for them unless I spend all my income and free time/ambitions on them. I make a good income as a programmer but I still live paycheck to paycheck because of cost of living in the Bay Area.
> Obviously week long 'retreats' are out of the question for those with very young children/etc, but that's a tiny minority amongst tech workers.
Maybe true in expensive cities that aren't family-friendly (Bay Area, I'm looking at you), but once you leave those bubbles it's actually really common for people in tech to have children.
This isn't really a tech thing. It's more of an age thing. Some tech bubbles, especially startup bubbles in places like the Bay Area, end up selecting for young, childless people. Once you age out of the bubble or your company grows up and starts collecting employees from a broader range of ages and locations, you'll be surrounded by parents.
Until a couple weeks ago, I worked at a large Bay Area tech company with very generous parental leave. I noticed that a lot of people there were having kids.
I think it makes sense from a conpany perspective, because having kids (and a marriage) seems to make people much more risk-averse, so they're more likely to stay at the nice, stable company.
Which is helpful for the company when attrition is one of your big problems.
From having worked in a different industry before tech, I would say the tech industry is a lot more accommodating than most industries when it comes to whatever employees care about in their personal lives, including parenting.
It's totally fine to not want kids, and nobody should be having kids because they feel pressured to or anything like that.
But most people do want to have kids, and if that is the case, deciding not to have them so you can focus on your career alone is probably not a wise choice. Raising children is a deeply rewarding experience that (assuming good health) lasts your entire lifetime, much longer than your career.
In general, in the west in particular, we often let ourselves be too focused on the short-term material world (how much stuff can I buy, how can I keep my costs low), and not enough on the important immaterial things like relationships and experiences that are more than just numbers in a bank account. Long-term that's a recipe for unhappiness.
Seriously, speaking as a parent, I can tell you that life gets a lot more complicated when a child is in the picture. I want to be a good parent to my child, and because my spouse also works this sometimes requires that I occasionaly attend functions at my kid's school or take my kid to a doctor's appointment.
From the point of view of a young twentysomething single programmer I probably seem less committed. It's certainly true that I now have additional commitments that I did not have before. Yet I want to keep working, both because I enjoy it and because I want to provide for my family.
Do you want to deny me that? Do you want to deny yourself a job if you decide to have kids down the road? As a child, would you have wanted your parents to have to change careers and start over when they had you because they "weren't committed enough"? Or would you have wanted your parents to be so committed to their job that they had no time for you? If that was your situation, take a deep look inside and ask yourself how you really feel about that.
If you're a young programmer, do you want to benefit from the experience and perspective of older colleagues, or do you want to spend your career figuring everything out for yourself? If you're a responsible business owner, do you want to lose the benefit of your workers' experience just because they start families? To widen the perspective, do you want to live in a Logan's Run future where nobody can hold a programming job after the age of thirty and twentysomething brogrammers have to support a large pool of out-of-work seniors?
All of this is the basis for the assertion that "a flexible environment that reflects the needs of parents will help create a better workplace culture for everyone, kids or no kids".
> I've sometimes thought that it might be nice in an abstract sense to have kids. I'm sure there are some nice moments. But in practice whenever I see my friends with kids, they look so beleaguered and complain about never having time. I just think: Who needs it?
Well, not everyone necessarily needs or enjoys having kids. Then again, if you catch many startup founders while they're building a company, they'll similarly complain about never having free time and will look similarly beleaguered. That doesn't mean it's not worth starting a startup - just that there are downsides as well as upsides. And obviously it's not for everyone.
You might only be seeing the downsides of people with kids, and missing the upsides; Partially because the upsides come at a later age (just from my read on things, not personal experience yet); Partially because a lot of the upsides are less visible in public (tender moments with loved ones tend to be in private).
Some of us are 9-5 types without kids. I strongly believe that the work yourself to death model isn't healthy, and in my experience doesn't lead to the best code long term either. I see it all the time from college hires though.
The focus on kids drives me nuts. I worked in a web dev shop that billed itself as "family friendly." Flexible hours, work from home, etc.
The reality was that the childless developers never got to use the flexible benefits. Your child has a soccer game? Is sick? Sure take the afternoon off, the childless devs will cover for you. We wouldn't want you to not be there for your child. Oh you want to take a two hour lunch to go out with your girlfriend. Too bad, so-and-so needs to pick their kid up from school so we need you to sit here and babysit the server while he's out.
If your first priority is your kids, your first priority is not your work. That's fine, it's a choice, but there is a frequent claim that the massive incremental time demand of kids makes one so much more time efficient at work that it more-than-compensates. Insofar as one is the same human being, with the same energy reservoirs and time management skills as before your child was born, this is unlikely.
I understand the reason this fiction is maintained: people with kids need the job even more than people without, and have an interest in denouncing people who claim kids make you less productive. There's also the second order effect in which "with kids" is correlated with "older".
The net of it though is that devs with kids tend to assign work a lower priority, to take fewer risks, to need more money, and to be older and hence less familiar with new technologies (and too busy to learn in their free time).
Society doesn't have a good answer for this situation yet. In times past, technology didn't move so fast that experience was mostly obsolete (and hence useless) in a decade's time. A 40 year old farmer with kids in 1713 would probably have much to teach a young whippersnapper. The same isn't true for a 40 year old programmer with kids in 2013.
Out of curiosity, how many of your coworkers have kids?
I have 3, and I've always found it a bit ominous that even when I'm on large teams (8+) I'm typically still the only person with kids. So far:
1. job 1, team of 8, only 1 other IC had kids
2. job 2, team of 10, nobody else had kids
3. current job, team of 8, nobody else has kids. If you expand it to the suborganization we're in, you get ~16 people and only one other person has kids.
And it's not like these teams are mostly college new grads or anything, it's usually people like me in their 30's.
I always wonder how much of a disadvantage it is that other people get to clock out of work, enjoy an evening, sleep through the night, and then wake up and go to work. Whereas a parent is going to clock out of work and clock in to parenting, and then when it's kid bedtime, you finally get 2-3 hours to fit in personal time that's usually still not "you" time but is you spending time with your partner.
I'd never trade my kids for my career, and I find the time I spend with them incredibly fulfilling, but it's definitely extra load. And I do depend on being good at my job to help feed them and stuff. And I did opt into this, so it's hard to say it's "unfair". But I feel like our society doesn't need more reasons not to have kids given fertility is already below replacement rate.
I have heard from people without kids that they wouldn't hire people with kids sometimes based on them being busy.
I have heard married with children people say that they like to hire married with kids for more dedication.
What I have found is that single or married, some people just manage time better and have a knack for contributing in a way that makes a product better or not. Personally, I feel that parenting and being married with a kid has not only made me a better efficient programmer but it has made me a better product person somehow. I care more about a larger set of the target market. I want my things to work for kids, core and adult to old age if possible.
In the end it is all bias, it comes down to good and bad and who can deliver in ample time with the best product. It isn't easy either way. I know I would tire of chasing girls and finding time to code/build/make products, with my wife and kid and home it is very much like a lab or study kind of setup. Lots of support and lots of motivation but also great time for focus.
I've noticed a strong negative reaction from some people who have kids. There's a weird kind of expectation from some that because they don't have time to work on side projects (which is fair; kids suck up time like nothing else), that others who don't have kids and do have the time shouldn't be able to derive any kind of professional advantage over them from it.
Having kids takes a lot of time and money. If you work till 5 you need to pay for childcare, which isn't cheap at all and might even be akin to doubling your rent. Mom is also working so you can't just unload domestic work and childcare to someone else to worry about. If you are entry level chances are you need to get there before the boss and stay there after if you ever want to not be entry level, and work weekends during busy season, so even that 40hr week can go up to 50-60. If you are a woman asking for maternity leave in an entry level job could jeopardize your entire career trajectory. Even in superficially liberal SF, VC firms have been known to discriminate against women entrepreneurs just from the possibility that they might be pregnant one day. People can scarcely keep housing costs below 30% of their net income.
People are waiting until they have more money and a job that actually gives them time to raise a family. The real reason why people are putting off having kids is that it's not 1950 anymore.
Most of people have kids at some stage, but some choose to bring it up in every conversation. There are many different occupations out there, no need to choose dev.
That's weird. I find people with kids care more about personal and professional development, and are more diligent in their work.
This might have to do with the environment I'm in (7,5 hour days with almost no overtime; recruiting motivated people).
I also personally feel I've become more responsible in all areas of my life after having kids.
Edit: I'm mid thirties too. I find the least responsible people to be those in their 50s with no kids. But I've only met a few who remained developers; most either have kids or switched to management.
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