Slashdot Mirror
Parenting and a Career in Coding?
el topher asks: "After 5+ years of being married, my wife and I have been blessed by her becoming pregnant. I've professionally been a programmer for a while now and am now concerned that commercial software development is not a good job for a dad to have. Thinking back on all the software development groups I've been in, it seems most of the coders were not parents, and the coders that were parents seemed to have trouble with things like dealing with unplanned death marches and not being there for their family. So my question to the programmers with kids out there: How does a programming career jive with family life? I'd especially like to hear about parents who have been coding for a while and the situations in this area they've faced."
Is it me or is "Ask Slashdot" really "Help I fucked up my family/social life because I'm not suited to it and my hobby/job".
Simplest way to work out YOUR life if to LIVE YOUR LIFE. We're faceless user names on a geek website, not people who follow you twenty five hours a day noting every little thing you do.
--- [Insert intresting Sig here]
This is what "Ask Slashdot" has been reduced to?
Since when did a programmer becoming a parent pose any greater a challenge than anyone else becoming a parent?
Newsflash for you, people: becoming a parent is challenging. It doesn't become more or less challenging based on your chosen career path, especially if you're not the one who's actually had the baby.
Regardless of what you do for a living, you're life becomes less care-free and less flexible because you have, shock, horror, new responsibilities. If you work in a bar that means you can't hang around with everyone else for hours after closing time because you have a family to look after. Similarly, if you're a coder you can't casually decide to wave your evening goodbye by staying on for another four hours to finish the portion of code that you were working on because there are other more personal demands for your attention.
Whether you work in a bar or code in an office the bottom line is the same: work isn't the be-all and end-all of life when you have little mouths to feed. Start working to live and not living to work.
Now, is there any chance that we could see some "Ask Slashdot" questions that aren't remotely stupid?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I had an employee's wife get pregnant about a year into him working for me. At that point, he basically became useless. He no longer had the passion for the job he once had. He slacked off and spent half his time researching things and creating goofy personal home pages chronicling the development of his child. I think having children is one of those fundamental things in life that creates a paradigm shift in peoples' motivation. As a result, I would always prefer an employee that doesn't have children over one that does, especially in a case where the family is about to have their first baby. I guess it depends upon the industry you're in, but I do agree, programming takes quite a lot of concentration and commitment and I'm not of the belief that one can maintain a high level of productivity when other areas of their lives are radically changing. This isn't any indictment of the value of having a family; it's just my opinion based on my own experience, and it just seems to make a lot of sense. Certain types of jobs require high levels of commitment that often cut into other social and interpersonal worlds.
You gotta lead the guy, show him there's an end at the end of the tunnel, give him what to do and track the progress. Most important of all, show him that you DO care about his family and his newborn and are willing to sometimes forgive him taking off in the middle of the day for a family emergency.
Instead you've chosen to convince yourself the guy "was useless" and no doubt pointed this out to him numerous times. That's what I can being an asshole, and no one likes to work for assholes.
Believe it or not, most people have children sooner or later. And by ignoring the people who are 25-35 years old (which is what you do), you're ignoring the creme of the crop of what you can find on the market in terms of experience, passion and skill.