[scald]

I can relate. My wife and 2 toddlers were 12 hours away for 4 months while I did an accelerator this Summer. I saw them about a week a month.

Guys like us are in the minority. A lot of people told me I'm nuts for putting my family on the back burner to chase this dream. I told myself I wasn't going to let work come ahead of them, but yeah, I put them on the back burner for 4 months. At times it felt nuts. My kids are growing up fast and I'm working 18 hours a day across the country. Some days, it took immense amounts of willpower to not jump on a plane and dip out.

I used the military analogy with my wife when she complained. Hell, how many guys went over to Afghanistan for months without seeing their families? A lot of them never came back. A ton more risk, for what? Priority boarding and discounts on oil changes? (I have a ton of respect for those guys, and no, they don't do it for perks or respect.) Compared to that, I'd say the upside of this opportunity is what they call once in a lifetime.

But in reality, a lot of those folks didn't really have better options. I could make a good living as a developer if I wanted to. If I'm honest, doing this startup thing with a family requires me to be pretty selfish most of the time. But selfish in a good, weird way - working 80 hours a week so someday I don't have to work 40, so I can take my wife and kids to Hawaii for the summer someday, or whatever.

Luckily for us, the experience of the accelerator was worth every pain point. It probably only gets harder from here. Now I'm back with the family, with a (soon to be) funded company, and will have to make those tough juggling decisions on a daily basis. It's all about finding boundaries and balance.

Off to pick my kids up from daycare...

[Snail_Commando]

> But selfish in a good, weird way - working 80 hours a week so someday I don't have to work 40, so I can take my wife and kids to Hawaii for the summer someday, or whatever.

Epochs are not fungible, especially when raising children. Missing a toddler play at the beach for the first time cannot be reclaimed by sharing their first scuba lesson.

[abfan1127]

I disagree with the "firsts" argument. Trying to be there for the firsts of everything is silly and clinging to them is even sillier. Its area under the curve, height and width matter.

[Snail_Commando]

I also disagree with the 'firsts' argument, to a certain extent. I didn't articulate my point well enough.

I was responding to the 'I'll trade this time now, for more time later' line of reasoning (which I believe is a false transaction). Not only should one recognize that each epoch is unique (in a child's life, in a relationship, in a career, etc.) and therefore not interchangeable with later epochs; but one should also recognize that "selfish" (OP's word choice) actions now are usually not offset by generous actions later.

I suppose one can recognize those tradeoffs and traverse "borrowing time" reasoning with a bit more self awareness, though not many do. Especially those that subscribe to the 'compress your 40 year career into a 4-10 year startup' meme without reading the fine print.

[comlonq]

Terrible analogy.. Your wife complains about you being away so you tell her to shut up becuase military families have it worse? Yeah... when my kids are hungry, I'll tell them to quit complaining because some kid in Africa is worse off....

[scald]

There is an obvious difference between things we can and the things we can't control. My example is clearly the former, and is much more analogous than yours.

Oh, and I learned a long time ago that "shut up" doesn't go over too well with my wife, unless I want to get smacked.

[prawn]

There is a politer way to phrase this.

[comlonq]

I not able to come up with politer wording yet I'm downvoted. Total discrimination.