Ask HN: How to balance ambition with a newborn child?

[productized]

I consider myself generally ambitious: I have a bootstrapped 20-person service business and I want to scale it further or reinvest some earnings into new products. However, I do also care a lot about being a present dad.

Based on your experience, what helped you balance kids and work?

[mrjn]

Been at my entrepreneur journey for 10 years now (Dgraph Labs, and now Struct Chat), and have had 2 kids.

My take on this: I work hard on weekdays, morning till evening, say 8 pm -- but, do help out with things like to-fro school, showers, some classes, depending upon how hard spouse is working.

But, always -- Keep the weekends off. And perhaps a bit of Friday evenings too.

[ssss11]

It’s tough. One of the toughest things to balance.

I’d suggest be a present dad for a few years at least and let work take a back seat. You can always focus on that more once the kid is in school. This is what I’ve done. I don’t feel guilty for my career and am working on that now.

Ultimately it’s up to you…

[Spooky23]

Prioritize your kids. Pressure yourself to take care of the real priorities and let the team carry the rest. It’s too easy to get lost in bullshit.

You’ll have a better business for it and avoid alienating your kids.

[throw03172019]

I struggle with this as well. I stopped working weekends and wake up at 4:30am on weekdays so I can end the day earlish at 4-5pm to spend time with family.