HN Parents Google Group

[x0t]

Inspired by the Ask HN thread "How does having a baby change your life". User grandalf brought up the idea of having a Google Group for parents on HN, so I pulled the trigger.

[nhebb]

I'm a father of three but I have no desire to join a parenting discussion group. I will pass on all my worldly wisdom here:

  * A thin coat of diaper ointment works better than a thick coat.
  * Breast feeding and early potty training combined will save you hundreds of dollars.
  * Never force pants onto a fussy, kicking child. Have them kick into the pant leg.
  * Never buy onesies or pants with inner-leg snaps - unless you like spending forever re-snapping them after each diaper change.
  * Lay out the supplies for diaper changes before removing the diaper. (Think of racing pit crews)
  * If your baby pees while changing a diaper, don't freak out. Just put your hand over it to block the stream. (and wash your hands afterward)
  * Placing scotch tape over the speakers of noisy electronic toys will save your sanity.
  * Most of the advice you hear will work for everyone else's kids, but not yours.

[sublemonic]

Curating HN content regarding parenting would be a worthwhile effort because of posts like this. I've been pleasantly surprised with HN's willingness to share thoughts on the subject. Here is a good start: http://www.google.com/search?q=parenting%20site:news.ycombin...

[philips]

> Placing scotch tape over the speakers of noisy electronic toys will save your sanity.

I have wondered why there isn't a mute option for all electronic toys. I would imagine that either a toggle under the battery holder or a standard wireless "mute all toys device" would be a feature parents would seek out if it was offered.

[cadr]

Along the lines of the baby peeing one - my mom told me the trick (at least with boys) is to open the diaper and then immediately close it. Something about the air hitting them does it.

I'll find out if that works in three months :)

[jsb]

For a second there, I thought this was a Google Group for parents whose kids are or have participated in Y Combinator (replaced HN with YC in my head). That would be an interesting group.

[sophacles]

I had a similar thought: "woah a support group for people whose kids we corrupted!". So I clicked expecting to see posts like:

Hi I'm Gary, my son reads HN. On day my son mentioned he wanted to start a business. I was skeptical, but proud. I mean he's young, why not start a business -- it's the American Dream right? So I asked him about it a bit, and he started talking some website mumbo-jumbo... you know widget scripts and railmarks and all that. It was also the first time I heard the term "Hacker News". Now I know (wipes eye) it was a turning point. If only I could go back (sob).

Anyway, he goes off to SF to do his biz thing. He worked alot, but times are tough, and I was just happy to know he was independent. So we didn't talk much, but when we did it was tech stuff I didn't understand, or HN. He would babble incessantly about startup this, or founder that. Then one day he mentions money, and that he is selling his company. He wants me to come out and meet some people, and pay off my mortgage.

At this point, I felt I was losing my son. I mean, he was all valley all the time. It went from healthy interest to 100 hour weeks, and I didn't like what it was doing to him. I didn't care about the money, I just wanted my kid to be OK. So I hopped a flight to the bay area. Palo Alto is cool, those stanford women are something else... but tommy had none of it. His room in a house was all coke cans and monitors. Half of them had browsers with the damned orange bar on the top. So I tried to talk to him, but he just said "you don't 'get it'".

We went to a party and he introduced me to Paul Graham, as PG. There was this obvious case of hero worship happening. I mean, all night it was "pg says this" or "pg wrote that" or "pg...". And not just tommy, but all the other kids with companies too. So now I got it. It's a cult.

I still haven't gotten my tommy out of there yet, and I still hear about how he got x karma for y post, or how he just doesn't like the reddity directions the site is headed. Sometimes, even tho I've forbidden it, he slips and drops a "did you hear about pg's latest...". I don't know if I'll ever get him back, but you people sure have helped me deal with it.

Followed by a bunch of "Hi Gary, thanks for sharing. It's tough, but we'll get through" type responses.

[Jun8]

Yes, YES! This was exactly what I needed. I won't join another group, but knowing that I'm not the only one on HN who's trying to juggle a kid (and even one is handful) and his entrepreneurial urges is great.

I know, statistically there is no chance that I could be the only one, but after reading the cool posts here about how people worked for N days straight to develop their ideas, how they meet in bars to discuss their ideas, etc., I was beginning to really lower my priors.

[Nogwater]

It's times like this when I wish Hacker News had something like subreddits (subhackers?).

[nkassis]

That's pure genius. Not yet ready for that but cool to know it's there.