The first two years of having a child have been 70% crap, 20% sleep, 10% rewarding moments.
There are a couple of up-sides:
- The rewarding moments are pretty cool, and there are more all the time.
- You don't appreciate free time until you have none. I no longer procrastinate and overall I think I get more things done than I did with unlimited free time.
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.
Completely agree. After my second child was born I focused my efforts into earning and saving and took a long period of unpaid time to spend with my baby. I had to keep my monthly burn rate super low and learn a lot about budgeting but it was one of the most rewarding periods of my life.
There’s always more work (it honestly never ends if your skills are valuable). But time with your kids is very precious - and that becomes very clear in retrospect.
I’ve noticed my relationship with my three year old has become closer as I’ve put more time and effort in engaging with her. There is really no replacement for quality time with your kids - no amount of toys or treats makes up for it.
My experience hasn't been the same, I have two kids age 4 and 6, and my experience has been more laid back. Most of the time I spend with this kids is fun. Sure, there can be bad times that are stressful and/or exhausting but it's mostly been very rewarding.
My kids are asleep by 830 or 9pm, I'm not sure why this person feels they don't have free time until 11pm, that seems like an exaggeration to me.
Even when they are awake, they rarely occupy both my wife and I full time, unless we're choosing to spend quality time with them. Sometimes just one of us watches them while the other one had time to relax or catch up on work.
It's not like my wife and I were globetrotting before kids anyway. Having kids is far more interesting than the same old, same old routine. I don't really feel like I'm missing out on things I would have been doing before kids.
I just had a little boy on 05 OCT 2010. The biggest thing I've noticed is I no longer have much time for my side projects (freelancing) outside of my day job (network administrator). I have to cram fits of coding into little hour blocks of time when the kid is asleep, it's not very productive.
I'm not terribly exhausted, but I am tired. I'm still interested in all the things I was previously interested in, but I have to focus on the kid now and put those things aside until he's old enough to communicate better and isn't near as helpless.
Lastly, I don't know that he gives me inspiration so much as motivation. Previously I worked to pay the bills so my wife would be comfortable, now it's for my son and wife. If I was single, my living requirements would be far less. I'd likely have a small shack in the middle of nowhere and far fewer possessions. That being said, I love my family and my life as it stands. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I have 2 kids under 2. The first one was a shock in terms of the amount of work and sleep deprivation involved. The second wasn't as much of a shock just because we new what to expect. I'm not going to sugar coat this--it more or less destroyed my productivity for quite a while (1st 9 months per child) and this is because of lost sleep, mostly. My children are not great sleepers. Also, my first child had some medical issues that we had to deal with that tied us up at first. I don't see my friends as much, and they are still in the single life which puts some distance between us.
The effect that having this amount, and type, of love in my life was not something I could have understood before I did it. It is truly wonderful, and awesome. As someone who sometimes found the love and loyalty of friends to be less than I would hope, having kids who love me this much is stunning.
Granted, not every dad is as attached as I am, or as involved, so ymmv. Having kids is one of those decisions that I think is hard to make in the sense of, you really don't know how you'll feel when you do it, and your imagination of what it is like is not representative of how you really feel once you have them.
I have a 3.5 year old and another on the way. Some observations:
* It was about 8 weeks before I could have an hour to myself in the evenings to watch TV. Before that I was in a constant state of rushing to get everything done. Fortunately I rode the train to work so that gave me 30mins to chill.
* It made me way more efficient with my time, I can't believe how much time I used to waste. I'm now ruthless with time management - having 30 minutes to myself is a luxury and will quickly be allocated to fixing bugs or catch up on reading.
* The financial pressure focuses you on what's really important. I've learned to live on a lot less personally - shame I now have higher costs overall.
* The way you plan things changes, you have to allocate at least 30mins to "getting ready to go out".
* It'll make you a better communicator, depending on how your career's gone so far, having a child may be your first exposure to really asserting yourself with someone, simplifying technical concepts on a regular basis (the other day I had "Why can't I see my eyes?") and "hacking people" (I'm thinking of things like using distraction or turning going to bed into a race).
* I think it makes you more pragmatic and less idealistic. You know that the way the school admissions system works is supposed to be fair but you will shamelessly game the system when it comes to your kids.
I learnt that having a kid would not be the end of my freedom, but rather the end of procrastination: changed jobs, bought a home and I can't count how many great and little things I eventually dared and took time to do.
Having kids (3 so far, 3, 5, and 7) helps me prioritize my time better. Before getting married and having kids, I was all over the place, had poor routines and probably some unhealthy habits in terms of diet and sleep. Having other people depend on you changes your priorities quickly.
Also, it's very difficult at times, but incredibly rewarding, more so than even the best programming highs I've had, when you can see a new thing one of your kids learned, and realize you were part of that.
Their imagination also keeps my brain a bit more flexible, especially as I try to join in their own crazy fun. And being able to act more like a kid with them also keeps me loose and a little crazy, which helps me to be more positive and, maybe, 'chipper', in my interactions with workmates. At least I think so.
Again, there are very difficult times as a parent. But the highs are so much higher when they come, and I would not trade it for being back in the bachelor mentality and spending more of my live donating overtime to a corporation (though there are some very positive things from that part of my life too, and I have some friends who would probably not thrive as parents!).
Honestly, everything is more difficult when you have kids - showering every day, for example - but the flip side is that it's a total procrastination killer. There are no more wasted days, or lost hours. I work harder and more efficiently than I ever have in my life, and while I certainly get frustrated that I don't have as much time as I'd like, I don't resent my daughter in the least. I doubt you will either.
Congrats! The first thing I usually tell friends is YOB.
Year Of Baby.
Don’t worry about what else is going on. Accept that you have different priorities right now. After the first year, you’ll be in the swing of it and parenting will be easier to integrate into your life.
I was a recording engineer for years before I had kids. I had no plans for kids, I was living lean while building up my career.
I got a new acquaintance pregnant. We became a family, I lined up a 3-year recording contract with a celebrity. Of course that was too good to be true and fell apart after 3 months.
I found myself working 3 jobs. Full time clerk by day, janitor by night, and a bootstrapped recording studio on weekends.
Of course, working 3 jobs and being a Father sucks. So I started learning software development.
My first programming/office job I drove 75 minutes each way, for less than a third of my current salary.
Let me get to the point though. After kids, I had an incredible awareness of how precious time is. It’s unbelievable how much I can get done now compared to before. And it’s because you start to see all this little slivers of opportunity. A minute here, 10 minutes there.
I definitely find time to keep my professional skills sharp. And because I’m all about balance, I’m finally in a low-stress job with a manager that stays out of the way, with hours that I choose.
I have health care because of my kids. I have paid time off because of my kids. I own a house in a nice neighborhood because of my kids. I am a more patient, empathetic person because of my kids.
Does it get frustrating? Of course it does. But we grow together. Sometimes I feel like having the family that I never planned saved me.
It will be exhausting at first. But you will adapt.
My children are now over the age of ten. I find myself in a great place to start doing other things. I can do much more in the evenings, as long as I'm available for their taxi service. And me being out of the house has little to no impact on my wife.
The thing about having kids is that it's increased my drive. I had a few years where I failed to do things in the little time I had, so learned to push myself to do them. That's still there, in addition to having more free time.
So it's great! It only took...ooh...fifteen years?
In my experience, kids do make you 2x-3x more efficient, at least. You can only do so much real work in a day and you're forced to move that work into a smaller time interval. However, your mileage may vary.
I think the positive outlook given my parents simply stems from the fact that they wouldn't make a different decision if they had to do it all over again, even if it was a giant pain in the ass. It's less of an unconcious aversion to admitting mistakes and more that, after all is said and done, they would rather have their child (and the memories of them) than to spend 18 more years being childless. Childlessness is fun but it does lose novelty, and some things are worth it even though they can be hard.
I like to say that, in being a parent, I'm less happy on an "instantaneous" basis, but more happy overall; more fulfilled. I expect, to some extent, it has something in common with volunteering at a charity. It's not the actual act of doing the work that makes you happy, it's the fact that you're doing the work for a reason.
Would I love to sit around and play video games in the large amounts of free time I would have if I didn't have a family? Sure. But that instantaneous gratification does not compare to the more "overall" happiness of having a family. For me. Clearly, it's different for everyone.
My kids are 1 and 3 and I feel like I get plenty of work done still. That was my biggest fear as I’m running a startup but don’t feel a significant difference on that front from before. My spouse is very supportive otherwise that would be much harder.
Oh and one of the biggest surprises for me was how much free time there was immediately post baby. I actually got a lot of work done because there was nothing else to do and I was bored out of my mind (both of our kids slept a ton in the weeks after being born)
As for personal activities? Definitely impacted, but only ones that took me out of the house on my own. Otherwise my gaming habits haven’t changed and I fit cycling in by taking my oldest kid to school on bike. Trying to just find new hobbies I can do with my kids instead.
It all goes by in the blink of an eye. I've had my ~1,000 weekends with my oldest, and now she's at school and living on campus.
My youngest is in high school and spends so much time in activities that I only get to see her for a few hours each day and a lot of that time is while she is doing homework.
I'm now at a point in my life where I'm 100% debt free and I'm seriously considering cutting back and finding a low stress job which still offers decent benefits so that I can spend more time with her and give myself more time to spend on hobbies and with my wife.
We had kids in our early and mid 20s, so I'll have an empty nest before I'm 50 and I don't regret it one bit.
Hah, wait until you have a baby! You'll love the free time you have currently.
Now, seriously, I don't have large blocks of free time anymore. So I had to change tactics. In the morning, I wake up first, so I start boiling water for the coffe, turn on the PC and check emails/facebook on my phone. My wife wakes up, we eat, dress up our baby, and she leaves with him. Every other day I have 20 minutes of free time, that I use to code or play games. Then I read books on my commute, when she's breastfeeding I read documentation, new technologies, my rss, and late at night while she is taking a bath, I have 30 minutes of coding or gaming.
And that's it. The New Reality. 30, 50 minutes, interwoven with 5 minutes throught the day. But no worries... the life of a husband and a father is what I want. It's a matter of priorities.
I've got twin 3 year olds. Took a while to accept the fact that I have no time to do "things" anymore. And like another commenter, I measure free time in minutes. First time I got 30 minutes to myself (9 months into parenthood) I nearly wept.
I'm at a point now that I'm happy to spend time with them and, after numerous false starts (that were crushed by repeat month long illness moving from person to person, random sleep problems/night terrors lasting weeks, etc) have abandoned all outside aspirations. And I'm ok with that.
I do suspect things will lighten up in time. Perhaps I'll entertain side projects one day in the future.
The first two years of having a child have been 70% crap, 20% sleep, 10% rewarding moments.
There are a couple of up-sides:
- The rewarding moments are pretty cool, and there are more all the time.
- You don't appreciate free time until you have none. I no longer procrastinate and overall I think I get more things done than I did with unlimited free time.
reply