Hacking Kids - Part 1

http://www.eytanlevit.com/post/32391027251/hacking-kids-part-1

by eytanlevit • 14 years ago

41 22 14 years ago

plehoux• 14 years ago

I'm a new father (4 weeks). From the pregnancy, to the delivery, to the first smile, to the every morning warmly feeling of having created life with my love one, it is all about love and sincerity. We are already thinking about a second one...

pstuart• 14 years ago

Go for Irish twins! :-)

codex3• 14 years ago

I hate to say this, but the first month or so is a honeymoon period when the baby is unusually quiet, sleepy, and peaceful. Maximum sleep deprivation probably kicks in at around three months. Also, any smiles you see at this age are involuntary and not social. Mark my words: it will get much harder.

purephase• 14 years ago

We're just at the one-month mark today and your three-month mark describes our current life to a tee.

She is a wonderful, and I love her to pieces, but goddamn this is a trying experience.

sv123• 14 years ago

Just about to hit 3 months, I thought it was supposed to get better by now!

joelhooks2• 14 years ago

I've got 4 kids, from 14 to 5, and have always treated it as a "grand experiment". We've made some decisions that are a bit "outside the norm" - mostly the choice to home educate. It's been scary, but seeing the results as the oldest enters adulthood is fascinating, awesome, and rewarding.

biafra• 14 years ago

Why did you decide to home educate, and who is doing it?

circlefavshape• 14 years ago

To anyone who is not a parent reading this, please note that not everyone's experience of parenthood is blissful. The first few years of fatherhood were, for me, the unhappiest of my life.

Don't get me wrong - I've always loved my kids, but the physical and emotional demands they put on you, and the relentlessness of those demands, are impossible to understand from the outside. My youngest was almost two before she slept through a full night, and the constant exhaustion had a profound effect on my relationship with my wife, on our sex life, on my health, on my whole outlook on life.

Children are not experiments, they are actual really real people who will live in your house with you for 18 years or more. You will love them, yes, and hopefully they'll love you, but if you think love circumvents everyday practical difficulties then you've never experienced it.

New parents - please PLEASE don't only listen to stories of how amazing parenthood is, or you may get the shock of your life (as I did)

(FWIW my youngest is 4 now, and I'm probably the happiest I've ever been - but who knows what teenage years will bring)

joelhooks2• 14 years ago

Raising kids can definitely fit the definition of "experiment." Their status as real live people isn't mutually exclusive with that.

And yes, infants/toddlers are a serious PITA.

paigalhaes• 14 years ago

New parents - please PLEASE don't only listen to stories of how amazing parenthood is, or you may get the shock of your life (as I did)

that depends on the way your try to see/address the issues - and I believe also the level of stress parents put in. Of course it hard and has many downsides, but I think as it's shown in the article, depends on the way we see things and think about it can produce better results in our personal lifes as parents.

I'm a new father (my son has ~3m) and I started to educate myself and my wife to the times coming, because there are things we can control (not much, but there are some) in ourselfs because it will impact the children the way we act, and we know there will be different stages that we'll need to discover day after day, and many things we cannot predict, but we can prepare: mentally and logistically.

I believe that the main challenge of educate and learn with our children is rich in the ways the article also describe, but very demanding specially because there are lessons that we know as right ones, but that need to be adapted to the "new reality" due to the generation gap.

tomjen3• 14 years ago

That you. I am constantly annoyed that most parents aren't honest about how much babies suck.

Even after they have admitted that they basically killed their own children by beating them to death they will still claim that they are good parents and absolutely love their children.

Please don't get kids and treat them as an experiment. Don't get children, at all, unless you have spend significant time with kids and are completely sure about that you want children and have been so for years (not as in eventually, but as in right now).

And don't get them to "save the marriage". That you can even consider that as an idea shows that you are unfit to be a parent.

cafard• 14 years ago

Babies are exhausting--except as regards nourishment I wouldn't use the expression "suck".

'And don't get them to "save the marriage". That you can even consider that as an idea shows that you are unfit to be a parent.'

There I agree with you--it seems a splendid way to start with 2 unhappy people and end up with more.

eytanlevit3• 14 years ago

Just updated the post to make my point clear.

Thanks for the feedback.

michelleclsun• 14 years ago

Thanks for sharing!

I'm curious about your experience running your own early stage startup and raising kids at the same time. (I was also inspired after meeting with Joel to start blogging!)

When did you start YouSites, was it before or after having kids? What was the reason behind that decision? As an entrepreneur and a new parent, what experiences have been most rewarding, and what would you have done differently?

fjaved2• 14 years ago

Great post! As a father of a 2.7 yo and a 1.3 yo, I agree with your points and would add the following (among others):

- Having kids makes you a better communicator generally. It's easy to get frustrated with kids and adults when they don't do what you say. Having kids makes you realize that you need to look at yourself first. Repetition matters. Consistency matters. Being the best example of what you want them to be matters. Having high expectations and then doing your part in helping them get there matters. And so on. The maturity that comes with these realizations make you so much more effective in other ways as a communicator.

- Having kids makes you INCREDIBLY efficient. After I had kids, I decided to be home by 6.30p every day with my mind cleared and ready for my family. Per Parkinson's law ("work expands to fill the time you give it"), I figured any level of success can be had while meeting that constraint, provided you (and your environment--a big factor) prioritize accordingly. So I've become incredibly efficient. Once I made efficiency a priority, I realize that improving my thinking was a necessary step. Among other things, I started meditating as a way to improve mental clarity and the ability to switch efficiently between tasks. It's had a huge impact on my life in ways beyond what I intended. I now do more things than I did before I had kids and wonder what I did with all the time I had before I had kids!

eytanlevit3• 14 years ago

Great points, totally agree.

Regarding the meditation, it's really interesting - could you tell a bit more about how it has helped you, do you do it every day, how long, what exact meditation technique and where did you learn it?

fjaved2• 14 years ago

I've just found my thinking to be much clearer. Meditation is essentially practice in awareness: awareness of your thoughts, awareness of your focus, awareness of your emotions. It doesn't mean being able to ignore or eliminate them, just becoming aware of them and reacting accordingly.

Ideally, I'd like to do it twice a day for 20 mins each, but right now at least I average every other day or so for 20 minutes after the kids are asleep.

I first heard about it when reading stuff by Ray Dalio, founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. He called it the best return on investment he ever made so that piqued my curiosity.

There's a great online resource at http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/medita...

There are a couple of different types of techniques that seem to be variations of each. Transcendental Meditation is possibly the most famous (or notorious). It's expensive and has a "secretive" air to it.

Sara Lazar, who does research on the effect of meditation on the brain, was really helpful. Check out her talk here: http://www.tedxcambridge.com/thrive/sara-lazar/

She recommended a few places that eventually led me to the Insight Meditation Center.

leke• 14 years ago

“it’s better to regret something you did than something you didn’t do”

Isn't that line from Satan, by Orbital?

eytanlevit3• 14 years ago

I heard it first when I was 16, listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers song called Deep Kick

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjj6ZnTAeUA Lyrics: http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Deep-Kick-lyrics-Red-...

I remember... 10 years ago in Hollywood We did some good and we did some real bad stuff but the Butthole Surfers said It's better to regret something you did Than something you didn't do

guylhem• 14 years ago

[WARNING - sorry if this is considered trollish - this is my own analysis, where I try to consider the general issue without giving in to emotions]

I am concerned that the positive outlook is given and shared ( and commented here on HN) by persons who describe themselves as parents.

Besides the potential biais due to social pressure (not liking kids is socially throwned upon, which might favor expressing a positive opinion and keeping quiet about a negative opinion) I wonder how much of this is about sunk costs?

I mean, when you have a child, it's a sunk cost - you can't get rid of it (putting a child to adoption is also socially throwned upon) or decide it would have been better to do without one, so you try and get the best of it.

[Even considering this, you will have to take care of it for 18 years (legally) and then add financial costs for the child college/university etc.]

Considering most couple stick with a limited number of kids, the marginal return seems to decrease.

But given the social pressure to a) like children and b) do not put children into adoption, maybe we are not just looking at marginal returns, but at what the real decision should be when sunk costs are removed.

The fact, noted by other posters, that kid makes you efficient is at least doubtful. Maybe you will be more efficient for the time spent at work, but if you spend much less time that your "improved" efficiency factor, as most parents seem to like spending time with kids, you are overall less efficient.

codex3• 14 years ago

In my experience, kids do make you 2x-3x more efficient, at least. You can only do so much real work in a day and you're forced to move that work into a smaller time interval. However, your mileage may vary.

I think the positive outlook given my parents simply stems from the fact that they wouldn't make a different decision if they had to do it all over again, even if it was a giant pain in the ass. It's less of an unconcious aversion to admitting mistakes and more that, after all is said and done, they would rather have their child (and the memories of them) than to spend 18 more years being childless. Childlessness is fun but it does lose novelty, and some things are worth it even though they can be hard.

Hacking Kids - Part 1

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