Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Parenting and a Career in Coding?

Posted by Cliff on from the how-well-do-they-mix dept.

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."

2 of 534 comments (clear)

  1. As the (15yr old) son of a programmer... by RyLaN · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My father used to commute 2-3 days out of the week, and work at home the remainder. Now, he works at home full time - the hope being that more time is available for my siblings and I.

    However, I think this is *not* the way to go. Ever since Dad has been able to walk 20 feet to his office, he has left it later and later. My advice would be to leave your work as far away from your kids as is possible.

    On a seperate note, you will do wonders for your childrens' egos if you "don't notice" them ARP sniffing on you... (Hi, Dad! :-))

    --
    At least the war on the environment is going well
  2. Re:It was tough by techsoldaten · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My daughter (who is 8) has her own blog. She was concerned about security, articulated to me a permissions system she would like to implement, and we wrote that system together.

    Surprisingly enough, I brought that system to work with me today and we are using an expanded version of it for an enterprise system.

    M