Ask HN: Do You Have Kids? - roschdal
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sethammons
Since I was 15, yes. Still with the mom over two decades later. She had to
take a year off high school and skipped college. I graduated on time and got
academic scholarships to cover tuition for university. A hard start; I don’t
recommend it. I like how things turned out, and I like who I am and my history
is a major part of that. But man, things were hard and many choices were
driven by immediate needs over long term planning; this hurt income for a
long, long time.

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quickthrower2
Having a kid that young your life is going to be determined a lot by the
support of your immediate and extended family. Can a 15 year old dictate how
they want their kids to be raised like a 30 year old with their own means,
when they are reliant on everyone else for both child raising help and
financial support? Can't imagine how tough it is in every way.

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sethammons
We had little to no support from parents. Having full support of immediate and
extended family would have been really, really helpful. Instead, my dad's
girlfriend decided to kick my then-girlfriend-now-wife out when we were living
at my dad's, my mom did the same, her dad was not in the picture, and her mom
was at best a terrible room mate with mental issues. We were able to finally
(through help provided by my best friend's dad) rent our own place at age 19.
From there, my wife worked 2-3 jobs at a time while I had 1-2 part time jobs
while being a full time student (one was doing php programming which would
eventually lead to the way out of poverty). I eventually got my degree (BS
Business Admin, minor CS) where I worked for the same friend's dad selling
insurance, then went out to be a financial advisor with Edward Jones, did some
construction work, got my teaching credential and taught inner city high
school math (very rough), and all the while through those years I worked on
programming/web-dev as a hobby. After losing my job as a teacher, I was able
to work with a recruiter and able to get my first real programming job. We are
now well adjusted upper middle class people and my wife is a stay at home mom
and homemaker. Quite a wild ride!

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s1t5
This is the high quality content and discussion that I come to HN for.

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batt4good
Nope, and I do not have plans to have them since for the first time in my life
since finishing college my mental health is in a good place.

I acknowledge some people like the idea of having a family, but I have zero
interest rolling the dice on my mental health where someone else's life is on
the line. Especially when my ability to keep a partner "happy" bears the
penalty of half my net worth.

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scott31
Yes, big mistake

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codegeek
Why ? Honest question.

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scott31
Because I now have to choose between working extra hours to pay child support
or going to prison

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quickthrower2
Fuck, hope it gets easier for you. The only way I can think of is getting a
pay rise so you can earn that salary without needing the overtime.

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hatboxreappoint
No and childfree (won't have them)

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runjake
3 of them.

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gt2
no

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brogrammer2018
No

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austincheney
Yes

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photonios
Almost

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quickthrower2
Yeah

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PaulHoule
Yes

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giantg2
Yep

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maps7
nope

