
Ask HN: If you've had a kid, what do you wish you'd done differently? - jlward4th
I&#x27;m a 37 year old nerd and having my first kid in a few months.  I&#x27;d love to hear from other fellow nerds what, in retrospect, they wish they had done differently.
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geebee
I have learned the value of career flexibility. It helps enormously if at
least one partner has a career path that allows for good earnings with the
ability to scale back on work or leave the work force for a few years without
badly harming long term career prospects.

I've noticed that a number of health related professions, ranging from dental
hygienist and registered nurse up through dermatologist or radiologist, are
big winners in terms of "career flexibility." Some of these fields have very
high early barriers to entry (radiologist), others have medium-high barriers
to entry (nursing isn't a trivial degree program, nor is dental hygiene).
However, out in SF, these fields often pay (at the median) as much as or
considerably more than software development (again, at the median).

Now that I've gotten older with kid, I place a much higher emphasis on
financial and career stability, and time with the family is more important
than long hours at the office (or the small possibility of a huge financial
score), I really do see vastly greater appeal in these health-related career
paths than I did when I was younger. I wouldn't go so far as to say I wish I'd
gone into one of these fields (grass is greener etc., and there's a reason I
was so interested in computers and math as a young person and continue to be
as a middle aged person). I'd just say that becoming a parent who would like a
stable income and more time with my kids has helped me understand the desire
to go into these fields far more than I used to.

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brudgers
Realizing raising a child is not a competition or an engineering project or
about me sooner and more fully. Nobody really knows what they're doing...we're
all amateurs. We all make choices, some are better than others. But if we do
it right the reward is that our children go away and we miss them terribly
because they are such wonderful people.

I wish I was more kind and patient and understanding more often. I wish I
lived a bit less vicariously. These are the things that will make me a better
parent. All the little points on which I can obsess over comparison with other
families are a waste of energy; it's not about the relative but the absolute.

Congratulations and good luck.

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csorrell
My suggestion is to take off as much time as you can around the birth to be
home. Having your first kid is a big transition, you won't want to be
distracted by anything else for a while. Also, your wife will really
appreciate having you around. (Assuming you're married)

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geoffbrown
If I could go back and have one piece of information its about dialing in my
expectations. I find that there are (at least) two types of babies/young
children. I call them chill babies and intense babies. If you get a chill baby
then you can expect a subjectively normal pace of achieving milestones and
overall less trouble. I'm not saying its easy with a chill baby, but its
overall your stress levels will be lower. If you get an intense baby, you
really need to take a step back and play the long game. They will take longer
to get to the milestones, they will try your patience more, they will be more
frustrating to respond to your inputs. Its like there is something interfering
with their response system. While this can feel like you are doing things
wrong at first, it can be confirmed when people give you advice about
sleeping, eating, or gas and its clear they've never experienced what you are
going through. Also, if you have one of each like I do, you can make the
mistake of thinking that one is normal and that there is something wrong with
the intense baby. Don't worry about the intense baby's lack of milestones or
responses the odds say they will come out all right. (I was pretty sure my 1st
born had ADD/Autism from week 3. ;)) The good news is that either way you get
a little break from the frustration around 3 and they pretty much equalize
around 7 or 8. Just be ready for either and figure out a way to spend lots of
time with them.

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cesarbs
How old is your "intense" kid now? I believe my stepdaughter falls in that
category, and my wife and I seem to have the same worries you do (or did)
about ADD and other psychological ailments.

She's clearly very smart. She's really good at math (she's in first grade but
already has a good grasp of 3rd and even some 4th grade stuff). It took a
while but now she's good at reading. She's creative, usually kind to others,
VERY social (a challenge for both of us being introverted and shy to an
extreme), and doesn't cause trouble anywhere.

However, every conversation with her is a challenge. She's stubborn, sticks to
absurd ideas and gets really angry if we try to show her she's wrong. This is
contradictory with her ease at math, but she has a hard time following logical
things like if A -> B and B -> C, then A -> C, so there are daily verbal
arguments with her that are very frustrating. It's practically impossible to
have a 5 minute conversation with her without it drifting into nonsense.

Do you notice the same in your "intense"?

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geoffbrown
I would say the main difference between my boys at each perspective age was
the speed with which they could process reasoned input. The chill guy by age
2-2.5 or so would listen and generally abide by instructions almost
immediately to the best of his age ability, the intense one would take days or
weeks at the same age to get to the same level of practice and disagree and
try to argue in favor of his ideas or actions. It was very frustrating at
first (I would have to take a walk to cool down) but then I would catch him a
few days later behaving in the directed way. I didn't say anything about it,
but I was just wtf?? After all that, now you're fine? Slowly I saw the pattern
emerge that he WAS processing the information, but that the appropriate
behavior came later. Sometimes weeks. That's when I stopped worrying about it
so much. He 'gets' it, he just needs time to process it in his own way. I'm
not sure I handled it the best, but I would calmly explain the desired
behavior or information and leave it at that. I acknowledged that he disagrees
and move on. Honestly, I worry more about my integrity as an authority figure
than his displeasure or the rightness or wrongness of the issue being
discussed. (That's what I meant by the long game) I do a lot of image
processing in my side project and his behavior reminds me of image
thresholding. He needs to see or be exposed to an ideas a certain number of
times before it takes. I have no authority to offer any real advice, other
than I understand your frustration.

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codegeek
Nothing really. The thing with having a kid is that it totally changes your
life and no matter how much you prepare (which I am sure you will), there will
be a lot of things that you will learn on the job.

Make the best of it as there will be tough days and nights. The first 3-4
months are the most difficult and it gets a bit easier after that. Remember,
there is no right or wrong here.

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bobjordan
On my 2nd child now, also soon to have 3rd in a few months. As I've grown
older and learned more about deep learning tech, I've realized child starts
out similar to untrained neural net for deep learning, and progresses in
similar manner with training. For example, at 2 yrs old, child seems to know
ABC's well, until you switch up the font or go cursive. Bottom line is more
specifically realizing the child is basically a biological computer constantly
seeking new information to update their model, has been interesting insight
for me. I think it is a productive viewpoint for logically inclined nerds.

~~~
LiweiZ
I have somewhat similar view, though I got it from books like this one:
Welcome to Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College.
Different times come up with different understanding, perhaps this time we
have a better one.

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andrewstuart
Had more, earlier.

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gadders
I think you will find that things you do in the short term for an easier life
will come back and bite you later on. A prime example is cuddling your baby to
sleep. This may get them off to sleep more easily in the start, but they will
quickly become unable to sleep without you.

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bosky101
made more alone time with my wife.

