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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."
I used to work at startups and I currently work at the in-house development department for a major HMO (it's a big department, like 3500 people). The work itself hasn't changed a whole lot, but the expectations about hours certainly have -- at my current job, we're not relying on the next release to stay alive so there isn't a constant scramble to push product out the door. I've found, incidently, that this suits me much better than high-pressure 90 hour work weeks.
You might expect that sort of job to pay less, but it actually doesn't. Sure, I'm not going to become suddenly rich off stock options, but who does these days?
My advice would be to look for a job like mine -- someplace stable and with reasonable expectations when it comes to the hours you work. That's going to be someplace big and probably someplace in a industry where software/hardware isn't the big money-maker. Be sure they know your priorities; an interviewer at the sort of company you're looking for will respect a commitment to family. After all, these sorts of people are looking for *you* to be stable, too...
Aside from that: Kudos to the author for realizing that his kids are more important than the software release. Bringing home the bacon is important, but it ain't everything -- When I was with the startups, all of the parents just dumped their kids into daycare and with babysitters a week after they were born -- our sales VP probably spent a week total of waking time with his new daughter over the course of a year. Bet he felt really good about that when the place went under...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
... for the first 3 years:, but then my kid learned vb and started writing windows security patches.
I work for a large healthcare organization, writing custom software for the needs they have. There are occasional deadlines, but the pace is much more relaxed than for a for-profit organization. The work is interesting and meaningful.
In fact, I took off before lunch today to attend my son's preschool graduation. To put it in geek terms, my current job is so good, I turned down an offer from Bioware making games for a living.
Programming and families are quite compatible. Lots of folks work basic "9-to-5" jobs that have standard in and out times.
Sure there may well be crunch times, but they SHOULD be rare and not "normal".
It's all a matter of expectations by you, your employer and your family. Get them all set up straight up front.
Administrators typically have worse issues, because they tend to have to do things "off-hours".
Life is a series of choices, you have to choose your priorities.
I've been programming professionaly (i.e. not including school) for ten years now. My son is 5 and my daughter is 2.5, and I love them more than anything.
Sometimes I have to work late, but it's very infrequent. I go into work very early so that I can come home early and not miss evenings with them. Sometimes I telecommute so that I can take an hour and go to a program at one of my children's schools.
I do get called after hours and on weekends, but it's extremely rare.
If you've been working in a "slave labor" job where you constantly work late, on weekends, and have no free time, then see line one.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
This is 100% dead on and the thread can be closed now. My wife worked for Boeing and Lockheed Martin- and this was never a problem. I've been programming for about 3 years now, and the times I've been forced to put in a lot of hours have been few and far between.
I would think that changing employers would be easier than moving to a new profession.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I have 3 kids, and I'm 32. They take a lot of your time, but if you have basic planning skills, that is no problem at all. Just consider 16:00 - 20:00 to be a no-work zone. As long as you don't PLAN to do any work then, you'll be fine. However, if you plan to work all the time, then prepare to get frustrated. After 20:00, they sleep, and you can code since going out every evening is a big nono with kids at home (babysitters are damd expensive !)
If you can manage a wife for 5 years, you sure as hell can manage a kid : if you can not plan free time from work with your SO, then forget about kids.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
The two careers are completely compatible, you just need to set expectations ahead of time.
Tell your co-workers that you have a family and that they'll always come first. Let your boss know that you're willing to go the extra mile when you're needed, you're just counting on him/her to use really clear judgement about when to have you working late or weekends. You'd be surprised how reasonable someone can be if you actually talk about this with them.
Finally, offer to fill in occasional gaps by working at home. When I had my first kid and I started getting antsy, my boss suggested that I work from home occasional Fridays. It was a small thing, and I'm careful not to betray the trust inherent in it, but it definately helps.
Software development has occasional deathmarches, but it also has unprecedented flexibility other times of the year.
This disqualifies a certain sector of the development industry where the next release of X product will determine the ongoing fate of the company, and so everything else goes out the window as you try to meet some deadline.
Absent parents cause all sorts of problems -- kids with substance abuse issues, teen parents, low self-esteem... Trust me: I went to a private high school where a fair number of the kids were from rich up-and-coiming families, and a disproportionate number of them were burnouts or had serious problems.
No job and no amount of money is worth seeing your kids slide down the tubes. I'd rather be broke with well-adjusted successful kids than be a millionaire with my kid in rehab.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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.
Just because it's possible to have "unplanned death marches." in the software world doesn't meant that you should have too. In fact, if you do it'll probably mean that the software you write won't be adequately tested before it's deployed.
Anyway, you shouldn't have to stand for that crap. If you're team is slipping behind deadlines, it's the managers fault, not yours. Asking you to sacrifice your social/family life because of someone else's fuckups is ridiculous.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Family First.
If your employer can't handle your family obligations, then Family First says you get a new employer who can.
If you are on a project that suddenly requires a lot of work, but your child is sick, then Family First says you take care of your child first then do whatever you can to help out with the project second (if that means late nights, it means late nights, if it means burdening your coworkers then burden them).
Maybe I am fortunate, but I have always worked for companies and/or managers that understand the Family First rule, though that might be because all but one of them had kids, too (the only mgr I had who did not have kids was a complete jerk anyway, and he was soon fired for it).
I coded in C/C++ for about 5 years. Learned some perl, php, and python too. More recently, I've been a sysadmin for 8+ years, but I still do a lot of coding... and some DBA work... and I consultant on the side cause my wife doesn't work and my salary, even almost 12 years of experience later makes for a decent life, but not the best one. Plus I've been laid off enough that consulting is my little "what if" plan. My first kid came about 2 years into my coding career. I have three now... ages 12, 10, and 3. When it all comes down to it... its all about time. I work Mon-Fri from 9am to 6pm. Mon, Wed, & Thur nights, I code and other stuff from 9pm to midnight. Tues and Fri, I don't do anything unless emergency requires that I do. Then on Saturday from 7am to noon, I work more. So I get my fulltime salary, another 10 to 15 hours of side work a week, but I get to have dinner with my family every night. I get every evening with them and most of the weekend. Having tried different combinations, this is the only schedule that allowed everything to happen without sacrificing something... either the boy's hockey game, or the wife, etc. Plus, being salaried, I can take a morning or afternoon off when the wife has to take a kid to the doctor or dentist. And with three weeks of vacation a year, I enjoy two weeks off and with the family, and one week I spend consulting full time for a nice little check that gets saved until November when we go Xmas shopping with it. For me its all about priorities and schedules and knowing when to turn the cell phone off and when to leave the PDA at home.
I am a father of 5 children and have been a programmer for nine years. All of my programming career I have worked at a University. The pay is not great but the benefits are awesome for a family man. I get 6 weeks off when the baby is born, 4 weeks vacation a year from day 1. Great Medical and Dental for your family. No overtime or beepers. So I have the time to devote to my family. They even gave me a below rate mortgage to purchase my house.
Wow, depends on what High Paying is. If its work a few years and quit then its worth it. If its working 80 hours a week for 52 weeks a year, expect your wife to take the kids an leave.
Also expect to get burnt out.
We have the reverse problem, they moved us from hourly to salary to save money, then expected the same 80 hour weeks. Most people where working the 80 hours for OT, now that they left the company, the work load increased, and PHB want us to do the job with fewer people.
I said, I'm not working another 20 hour day. Stood my ground and they hired some contracters. Only thing they could do was fire me, and man I need a vacation.
Sometimes spending time with the wife is more important than being single and rich. (Or broke if you have kids and paying child support)
I've been programming for about 13 years now, the last three of them as a parent. This has been compounded by the fact that my wife is even less of a stay-at-home mom than I am a stay-at-home dad. The truth is that it's workable, if somewhat demanding. Here are a few suggestions:
1. Tagteam the kids. Take turns keeping them distracted while the other one gets stuff done. This gets much easier after they start to walk, although you REALLY have to childproof your home if you're going to get any programming done while they're keeping themselves busy.
2. If your boss would fire you over putting your family over your job, you need to find a different boss. As long as it isn't a continual parade of parental interruptions, most employers are entirely understanding when family life interrupts.
3. Encourage your employer to use a better management technique (for instance Scrum), which doesn't encourage forced death marches to make up for bad planning. Programming is a demanding field, but if your employer expects you to wreck your health over a deadline, then they're doing something wrong, not you.
4. Don't expect to be a perfect parent. Perfect parents don't really exist because parenting is always a tradeoff between overmanaging your children (in which case they don't learn) and letting them run too freely (in which case they get hurt). If you have ANYTHING to do besides parenting then you will have to juggle that priority in with that balancing act. If you don't have anything to do besides parenting, then it isn't likely that you'll have the perspective necessary to make healthy decisions.
On the other hand, programming trains you for parenting pretty well. The long sleepless nights, the time spent explaining very simple things to really stoopid people, and the ability to tune out the rest of the world all really help when dealing with children.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
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
What, do you think coding is different than any other job? How about all those 18th century factory workers at Bolton's button-polishing plants who worked 12 hours a day (or more) and had families of 8? Get over yourself.
Here's how you do it: you go home at five. Every day, period. Wave goodbye to the boss, and say "well I'm off to see the kid". When they say "crunch time", say "see you". When they say "death march" , say "see you".
I told the boss I wasn't coming in till noon twice a week so I could have the kid mornings. Moan, whine, bitch... ok, see you at noon.
You will not lose your job. You will not lose your bonus. You might get a raise, and maybe even a promotion. If you're so insecure at your job that going home at 5 loses it for you, you lost it already.
Face it, you work long hours because you want to. Don't tell me different, I was there too. With a kid you just won't want to any more, so you won't. That's all there is to it.
You're married... and the fact that you are having a kid proves you are getting laid with some regularity.
Oh geez, you are OBVIOUSLY single!
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Who said anything about mission critical work? Just because larger corparations don't have asinine deadlines and DO have realistic schedules that don't require 90 hour weeks doesn't mean the above people aren't supporting mission critical systems.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
That's just looking at the situation from one perspective and forgetting the original options.
Yes easier said than done- but easier than finding a whole new career? I think so. Especially if one accepts that this career must provide for a family and allow for a decent amount of time with the family. Switching careers and becoming entry level in almost any field tends to carry with it a drop in pay and less desirable hours.
Is switching employers 'simple' and gauranteed? No- but compared to dropping 5 years of experience and starting over- it just might be.
Finally- I don't work for a big company. I work for a small company. There are 2 developers- we are a financial business and I do internal stuff. Mission critical: yes. Crazy hours: rarely. I have 3 kids ages 4, 3, and 1. I spend a lot of time with them and my wife. It is more than doable. I do make a little less than those working for a large company. But enough for a house, food on the table and a car. (Not a big fancy SUV - but we get where we need to go).
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Dude, you just touched a nerve with that "discrimination" concept. I grok where you're coming from -- but please understand that the "discrimination" feeling cuts both ways.
It doesn't matter whether a team is pulling 80-hour weeks or 40-hour weeks: If Paul Parenthood starts leaving work undone so he can be with Paul Jr., you just suggested that Joe stack the workplace deck with kids who can also leave work unfinished, all for the noble purpose of enabling management to shovel all the work down on those of us who don't have kids. Nice to have you out of the closet.
I realize that's not what you meant, and it's certainly not what you (or Paul Parenthood) intends, but it's what happens.
The common line (usually from a manager with kids) is something like "Well, we're asking you because you don't have children, you don't understand how much harder it is now that Paul has kids now, and because you don't, well, you obviously have so much more spare time than he does, well, we'd like you to do Paul's work."
If asking Paul Parenthood to keep up his productivity is "discriminating against him because he has kids", then so is asking Sam Singleton to pick up Paul's slack when he says he can't.
If there's any advice to the new parent here, it's to be aware that your single, childless, and/or childfree co-workers may feel just as shafted by management as you do!
If there's a silver lining behind this cloud, it's that the friction between parents and single/childfrees is caused to lousy management, not some evilness inherent to breeders or kid-haters. The two camps don't have to hate each other -- nor should they.
I'm lucky to work at a place where I, as a childfree employee, can say "Dude, I need to take care of Geeky Stuff [LOTR comes out, supplies for a LAN party] this afternoon", and he'll say "Go for it, I'll hold down the fort while you're gone." Likewise, my co-workers can say "Dude, I need to take care of Parental Stuff this afternoon", and I'll say "Cool, I'll hold the fort while you're out." More importantly, we're just as comfortable asking those questions in front of -- and sometimes to -- our manager.
It's rare, but there do exist managers who are sufficiently clued to realize that as far as Sam Singleton is concerned, seeing LOTR or setting the weekend's LAN party is just as emotionally important to Sam, as setting up the kid's birthday party is to Paul Parenthood.
If you're in management: Go thou and do likewise. For the sake of all your employees.
Ah, what corporation are you working at? As a consultant, I have seen many, many organizations, both large and small, with asinine deadlines and unrealistic schedules.
My present client (Fortune 500 company) doesn't just have asinine deadlines, they change the criteria of success to meet the missed deadlines.
I travel for a living. I only see my 10 month-old son on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays. But, I see him all day long each of those days. I would suggest that the soon-to-be Dad not focus on the size of the company he works for, but he focus on what kind of benefits they offer and what kind of balance they have between work and life.
I'm a software engineer. The demands of the job vary- at times, I've been called upon to put in 60+ stressful hours every week. At times, ~40 non-stressful hours has been plenty.
Bear in mind that your employer does not necessarily have your best interests in mind. This isn't a knock at any current or past employer of mine, or of anyone else. It's simply a fact- they will always welcome you working more hours (salaried folks, you know what I'm talking about). It's up to you to set limits. Many employers will respect those limits. They may limit your career advancement (either in terms or raises, or promotions, or both) - keep that in mind, but set priorities. How important is your family versus your current (or potential future) rewards at work? If you don't think that this is a difficult question, you may not be thinking hard enough.
In December of 2002, I found myself stressing out that I was spending too much time at work (over the last ~2 years) and not enough time at home. I kept thinking, "I must do something about this soon!"
At that time, my step-daughter took her own life. She was going through a lot of troubles. The brutal truth of the matter is that I was spending so much time and energy at work that I was often not home, and when I was, I was not interacting much with my wife or step-daughter.
I believe that my inattention and lack of commitment to my family at that time was a primary contributor to that situation. I don't believe that it was the sole cause, but I do believe that it was a primary factor. I'll never know for sure. No one will.
Had I quit my job at that time, I would have sacrificed my family's primary source of income. We could not have paid our bills, including the mortgage on our house. We'dve lost our home, our car, and our livelihoods. Clearly, that would not have been a good situation.
I believe that I could have found a better balance than the one that I did.
All I can do for others is suggest that they seek a balance.
While I'm on the soapbox (I very rarely post on slashdot), I'll also mention that she was on Accutane. I have no evidence that this was a direct cause of what happened, but I firmly believe it to be true. If you have children, I strongly encourage you to learn more about accuatane before you allow them to consume it. Check the PDR, periodicals, the web, or whatever other resources that you feel comfortable with. Also, ask yourself the same question that I (implicitly) encourage you to ask above: Is this issue worth it? Is your child's life/well-being worth this risk?