
Startup Fathers Need to Start Taking Parental Leave - coloneltcb
https://blog.ltse.com/startup-fathers-need-to-start-taking-parental-leave-d08acdd9a430
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t0mbstone
Unfortunately, this concept is antithetical to most startups. They usually
don't have the capital required to cater towards long term goals like "happy
families make happy employees". Instead, they try to convince their employees
to work 12 hour days and nights and weekends on call, in exchange for a chance
at making millions of dollars when the startup sells out.

Let's face it. Most startups are straight up toxic. Been there, done that.
Never again.

On the flip side, though, if I saw a startup that enforced a proper work/life
balance for their employees, while fairly compensating them with pay,
healthcare, and clearly defined Vacation/PTO policies (none of that "unlimited
vacation" bullshit trap that startups like to pull), and perks like 7 weeks of
PTO for new fathers/mothers, then I would actually consider working for a
startup like that.

~~~
oceanghost
Same here. Working slave hours with a newborn is the single most damaging
thing that has ever happened to me-- and I have had MRSA, a serious head
injury, been separated, and died once before in an accident, and had a serious
head injury (snicker).

I was working 12-14 hours a day and coming home to take care of my wife, and
then the wife and a baby. Two hours of sleep a night was a godsend. After a
year of this, I was toast. Mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually.

If I may ask-- what are you doing for work now? I have not yet answered this
question.

~~~
t0mbstone
I'm still programming, but I now work for a company that encourages proper
work/life balance. It was one of the things that most attracted me to them.

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throwaway5752
If you are expecting or planning to have a child, don't join a startup.
Startups take a huge amount of time by their nature, and that is time you
should be spending with your spouse & child. I know this sounds harsh, but I
made this call myself and don't regret it at all. If you haven't worked in a
larger company with more generous benefits/time off policies vs small
startups, you might not understand how much higher your new family's quality
of life will be.

~~~
fizzledbits
CEO of the startup I worked at had a child early in the process, and it was
indeed incredibly hard for them individuallly and strained the marriage. After
a few years of struggle, the startup was acquired, which was followed by a few
years of comparatively relaxed (golden-handcuffed) work at the company that
bought us. It paid for a new house that fit their family in an area with one
of the best school systems in the country. I’m certain that he and his wife
don’t regret it. He had worked for big companies before, had an insight about
the industry he could bet on, so it was his maybe best shot at fulfilling a
NEED to build a new company like his heroes did. It happened to ‘succeed’ in
the financial sense, but his wife gets it either way, and his kid will benefit
from growing up with confident, driven, risk-taking people as parents.

It’s hard for me to understand how most people in this thread, who I presume
are super rigorous regarding their degrees of uncertainty about various things
at work, have a clear answer for what everyone else should do in some barely
specified situation.

~~~
throwaway5752
You understand of course that 1) that you're talking about the CEO and 2) it
was a successful acquisition.

I get your point, and different strokes for different folks. I'll stand by
what I said as being generally correct.

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throwaway2016a
Background info: I'm a CTO for a US startup.

I completely agree that father's should also take leave.

I took two weeks paternity leave. It was one of the toughest but best things
I've done. My wife absolutely needed some extra support and help around the
house. As I is, even with my help I don't know how she did what she did. She's
amazing (as are many mothers).

I wanted to take four weeks but I couldn't get it approved. Even though I have
4 weeks a year vacation (in theory). As it is, the two weeks was really tough
to swing. No matter how many times a startup CEO says "take all the time you
need"... they usually don't mean it. And with good reason; capital is very
limited.

She worked for a large company and she worked until 1 week before the baby and
went back 4 weeks later. She wanted six but we couldn't afford it.

As it is my current company does consulting to pay the bills and our president
is already freaking out about one of our employees who is pregnant, expecting
people work overtime to fill the gap.

Edit:

To add a little bit more detail. I find the 7 weeks in this article insane
(awesome but insane). I could have never pulled that off.

Also, my wife's experience by different than that graph. She makes more now
than when she had our daughter. With that said, she also finished her master's
degree in Biomedical Engineering (part time, took her years) right before the
kid so the degree offset the earnings drop she would have probably had.

~~~
roguecoder
"Capital is very limited" is such a corporatist excuse for not treating
employees humanely. Corporations of course want perfect worker bee cogs that
never take time off, or have families at all ideally. It is on workers to band
together and push back on these unreasonable expectations, since we can't do
it successfully individually.

~~~
throwaway2016a
In small companies if you run out of capital you go out of business and all
your employees are out of a job. What about the humanity of those people who
would lose their job? We're not talking public companies where executives make
bonuses... we're talking companies where the bank account can barely pay
salary for the next month never-mind pay a bonus.

~~~
roguecoder
If a company can't afford to give its employees humane leave, it can't afford
to have employees. That's sad for the company, but it's how capitalism works.

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oliwarner
I'm sure this seems exaggerated in startups —because _everything_ in startups
is taken to the nth extreme— but this is true across the board.

 _All_ professionals, regardless of gender, with a defined career track feel
compelled to "get to that next phase". To raise funding, to become a manager,
to sell the company, to pass the next set of exams, to become a consultant.
It's what they've been working toward for years. It's all they know. They also
think it'll somehow be easier after they've reached that goal, but it just
loops into the next goal.

So it's that much harder for them to step back.

The difference is society _expects_ women to stop and look after their kids.
We need to start expecting the same from fathers and that'll only happen when
a few brave sausages step up and regularly take some time off in the week to
keep the house upright.

Speaking as a self-employed developer with needy clients, and father, I've
probably found doing this easier than most, but it's also really rewarding to
influence your child's development. Money isn't everything.

~~~
stevekemp
Sweden is a great country which is showing the way in fathers taking paternity
leave, for example this piece:

[https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2014/07/e...](https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2014/07/economist-explains-15)

Finland is also somewhat similar, though there are still surprises. For
example I took my son to his 10-month checkup when I was taking my own
paternity leave and the very first question I was asked when I got into the
doctor's office was "Where is his mother?" _sigh_.

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Fjdjdncjr
My old boss's kid (well, prolly his wife, the kid was pretty young, but the
kid _gave_ it to him) bought him a nice clock for his desk... So he'd know
when to come home.

Not hating on the guy, he was a really hard worker and afaict a great father,
but something has gotta give. He eventually left for a less demanding job at a
larger outfit.

Take care of yourselves.

/throwaway

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rabbadabba_89
I'd suggest an alternative way of looking at this:

Know how many kids you can handle / afford. Is one enough? Two? You can have a
family, pass on your traditions / genes without creating too large a financial
/ time burden.

If you're successful enough to work at / start a startup, you can probably
afford a nanny. If one of you can work from home, you can have a nanny w/o
having to worry about leaving your kids with a (near) stranger. Even for
people with middling careers, two incomes + nanny expenses is usually better
than one income, one full time parent.

My wife and I both work, a lot. We have demanding careers. We've had the exact
number of children that we're confident we can afford long term without
compromises. We have a nanny. I work from home to supervise the nanny and make
sure our children are ok.

We have an awesome relationship with our children and are involved in their
lives as much as anyone else. There is a bit of juggling e.g., taking turns
attending school meetings but that's not really a big deal.

 _Both_ of our incomes have increased since we started having children.
_Neither_ of us saw a dip in income. My wife did not have to choose family vs
career.

If you're thinking there's no way you could do / afford this then seriously
consider foregoing the "let's get rich" startup _or_ children. The idea that
everyone thinks they can have everything is absurd. That's harsh reality but
reality nevertheless.

Unless you're wealthy or live off of the government, children and startups are
a luxury. Stop whining about what you don't get. We all have choices. No one
has to have kids _or_ work at a startup.

