[hobo_mark]

You say this in jest, but I also don't understand how people chose to have a full-time job (even worse, a startup) AND kids (not judging anyone, I just do not understand it). There clearly aren't enough hours in a day to manage both as well as they deserve and not live a stressful life. Before you reach for that downvote button, this is what I am personally doing:

- try to become financially independent (with the sweat and all-nighters that go along with it, when needed)

- if (and only IF) I ever manage to do so, start a family with the good conscience that I will have the means to be there as a father

- if not, rinse and repeat until I do

Does it make any sense?

[nate_meurer]

Here's how I fucked up: I dicked around throughout college and years after (and high school, really), paying little attention to career, finance, direction, and organization in general. I got more serious just as my two daughters were born, which means that the years of their young childhoods have seen me distracted by goals and demands that I should have addressed years ago.

If you like your children (not everyone does), their youngest years can be absolutely fucking magical. Nothing else in my life compares, and here's the real bummer: it's short. I love the people my kids become as they grow through the stages of their young lives, but they turn into different people, and jesus christ I miss my babies.

So yes, absolutely, get your shit together while you're a young woman or a young man. Make it your goal to be able to relax in the presence of your children. You only get one shot.

[wonderzombie]

I don't think you're intending to flaunt the fact that these are realistic goals for you but not for others. But it is very easy to read this as such. Some of that turns on what you mean by "financial independence" — if you mean something other than a full-time or multiple part-time jobs, it entails a whole other set of preferences and priorities which are relatively narrow.

A key piece here is that there is a hard deadline, at least for women, and if you have a partner & intend to someday have kids, that needs to be on your radar. A bunch of probabilities re: outcomes of pregnancy start to change as a woman OR man gets older.

There's also relative age of parents to children. Like it or not, your energy level and resilience will change as you progress past your 20s and into your 30s. You could make a decent case that young people are in some dimensions well-suited to raising kids.

And don't forget about your own age relative to your child as an adult— there's a relatively large delta between 60 years old and 70 in terms of mobility, health, etc.

Human beings are also incredibly resilient. It's not something to be proud of, that people who're struggling can somehow make things work, but the reality is that what may seem completely infeasible to you can still work. There's a vast range of outcomes which could arguably constitute "success" or "failure," to the extent those terms have any meaning.

Finally, remember the adage that happiness equals reality divided by expectations. Just as expectations can be too low, they can be too high. You can try to control for every possible outcome, setting up an optimal parenting situation, but it's all a gamble. Shit happens, incl. kids themselves. And while it may look to you like other people made suboptimal choices, maybe try to remember the foregoing.

[slurry]

No, it doesn't make sense. Your comment is naive and/or jerkish. You should feel bad about yourself for posting it.

[c7b0rg]

This must be facetious. If not, please explain. OP's thoughts seem rational to me.

[ollysb]

It's rational but as a goal it's completely out of reach for most people (probably less so for the audience here).

[slurry]

Face-rational moralizing about people's lives and especially reproductive choices is, as a general principle, nearly always jerkish.

"Only have kids once you're independently wealthy" qualifies as rational only on HN or Reddit.

[hobo_mark]

How is it different from something like "I don't buy a house I can't afford"?

[slurry]

There are contexts (say, the comments section of a story on foreclosure) where "I don't buy a house I can't afford" would be a full-on raging asshole thing to say. But you went further than that:

"I also don't understand how people chose to have a full-time job...AND kids"

You clearly implied that holding any full time job and having kids was irresponsible. Because "I don't understand how [something about mores]" is a construction that American English speakers use to point out things they consider irrational, dumb or otherwise undesirable. You even anticipated that your comment would make people mad ("before you reach for the downvote button", "not judging anyone"). Because you went a good sight further than "I don't buy a house I can't afford." I think my initial judgment of "naive and/or jerkish" stands.

[hobo_mark]

Except I'm not an American English speaker.

Anyhow, no "jerkishness" intended, this was mostly an observation after yesterday's thread "Where do you find the time for side projects?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7117131 where many parents chimed in on how they squeeze family time here and there between working and juggling side gigs, great for them, but I could not do it without burning out, and I would owe it to my family not to risk that.

So long as I want to work long hours and risk my livelihood building things on the side and use my free time hacking, fine, I'll be on my own. The day I'll be able to afford a family (money-wise but particularly time-wise), I'll do so.

[westiseast]

the part which resonates with me is your first one - financial independence. Starting a business isn't for everyone, and it can be hugely risky, but before money came 2nd or 3rd behind career development and maybe challenges. Now stability of income is probably no.1, and it's changed the way I run my business.