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Ask HN: How having children impacts your career choices?

9 points by eddd ↗ HN
I recently had to hire someone for the first time in my life. I was surprised, that candidates tried to find common ground in thinking about planing their carries in terms of parenthood. I have no children (other interviewer has) so it seemed really illusive to me, how they evaluate their career path in terms of being a parent. Does having children impacts you so much? If so, how? I get it, you think not only for yourself but also for a person who's life just begun. Is there something else? Why people still care about the job safety in IT when you can find a job basically in week now?

10 comments

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tbirrell
Having children impacts your career (assuming you make choices with them in mind) because suddenly, long hours are less appealing, you can't put all your energy and time into your job, and a job you can hang onto for 5-10 years is more appealing (moving a lot with young children is a royal PIA).

Regarding job safety when you can get another right away: Finding and getting another job is stressful. You have to acclimate to a new environment. You probably have to learn or relearn some skill. So while doing this once every 2-4 years is fine, every couple of months or even once a year is disruptive.

marenkay
Being a parent myself and also in IT: what changes is that you start looking for things that are actually decent and contribute to the quality of life as a parent.

Effectively that does a few things to selecting possible jobs:

- based on age you start to evaluate e.g. the next unicorn offering you a job instead of just accepting and working long hours again. Questions to e.g. consider: does this provide a personal perspective? Can I tell my kid where a work? The last one is especially interesting as kids will quite blandly tell you if what you do at work sounds ridiculous. - personally, being employed or freelancing does not matter for me. But having a kid gives you this feeling of being grown up, so the you start only doing work that is satisfying. I avoid work or contracts where I feel like "this is total BS".

If anything could be the most common thing about being a parent and working... I would stay you start being an adult questioning the sanity of your choices. You do not have to do that without kids because you are only responsible for your own life.

sharemywin
When you have children your career isn't your number one priority. Time becomes much more of a precious thing, because you have multiple demands on it. Some employers feel you can get the job done while respecting your time some don't.
richardknop
It will impact it a lot if imagine. As a single person without family I've done a lot of consulting work, worked for bunch of startups and travelled quite a lot for projects. If I decide to have a family I'd prioritise funding a long term no nonsense job in some boring corporation probably.
hluska
I have an 18 month old daughter and I'm currently looking for work, so this question has been incredibly important.

Essentially, I see three major areas where Lauren impacts my job search:

1.) My time is significantly more important.

2.) Equity is less important.

3.) Stability is more important.

My time is significantly more important because I will only have one child and frankly, I don't want to miss her entire youth while I chase my startup dreams.

Equity is still nice, but I want to make sure that if my daughter has the kind of brain and work ethic that could get her into MIT/Ivy League, she won't have to worry about money. Consequently, I invest heavily in her education...both in an education savings plan and via making sure that she is surrounded by intellectually stimulating activities. As an example, consider daycare. It's relatively easy and affordable to put her in a daycare where the kids sit and watch television all day. It's much more expensive to have her in an environment that will use her imagination and where she is cared for by people with an education in early childcare education. Unfortunately, RSUs or stock options don't pay many bills...

Finally, stability is important because finding a new job is stressful. It's significantly more stressful when you have a little person who can't eat your hopes and dreams!

I hope this helped!

marktangotango
> Why people still care about the job safety in IT when you can find a job basically in week now?

Those of us who remember 2002, and to a lesser extent 2008, don't take this for granted. You shouldn't either imo.

pfarnsworth
There is NOTHING more disruptive to your productivity than having children.

There is NOTHING more joyful in my life than having children. (YMMV.)

quickthrower2
I am not concerned about job safety as a parent as yes there are plenty of opportunities. And I'm not even in the US where it's even better from what I gather.

What is important is being paid well and in Sydney that requires being paid pretty much the top advertised rates. It's still not enough to support a family and live a middle class lifestyle, so partner needs to work.

Requiring good pay generally means taking more demanding jobs which then can be tiring when dealing with family life. This is something I'm trying to figure out how to solve or at least adjust to.