Do most start-up founders really end up making a choice between the start-up and their relationship/family? Are there examples of people who haven successfully been able to maintain the energy in both? If not, that's pretty depressing.
You can not have everything; if you work 12 hour days for long enough, your health, your sanity, and your relationships will suffer. Personally, I think 12 hour days only make sense if you are within a week of a deadline, and if you can take some time off after that to recover, simply because you will not be as effective as you would otherwise be after that week is over. In the past, after the first 90 hours in a week, well, the additional hours might as well been spent drinking, for all the good it did the project. and the hangover, ugh.
But I think even with regular hours, you need to make choices as to what you want to put time and effort into. None of us have infinite time or infinite energy.
On the other hand, I know plenty of small companies where the founders only occasionally do the 12 hour day thing.
The stereotypical 'startup lifestyle' may not be great for kids, but the 'lifestyle business' lifestyle would work great; Me, I spend almost all day at home, and could pretty easily hand off most of my tasks to a (remote) employee. Very little I do is time critical.
I once worked with a lawyer who took her child with her to work every day. the kid was well behaved and generally less irritating than the dogs that other co-workers would bring in (yes, it was one of /those/ .com companies.) I got scolded for my language more often than usual, but it wasn't a bad deal all around.
It's relatively easy for a parent to work 12+ hours/day as long as there's a spouse at home who can dedicate his/her life to the children and household.
Exactly. And in our culture that's usually still women (although more stay at home dads are stepping up - see: http://www.rebeldad.com/stats.htm).
So, as a woman in startup tech, if you choose to have work and family life simultaneously, it means finding a partner who will do that (is willing and financially stable), and/or outsourcing a significant portion of your childcare to family, nannies, etc.
I am still not quite sure what you are complaining about? At least as a woman you have a choice, you can opt out and spend more time with the kids. That's not supposed to be a burden imposed by society, it is supposed to be quality time and a gift. Why else have children, if you don't even like it? If you don't like it, the choice is easy, just spend all the time at your startup.
Unfortunately everything has a price - spending more time at home has a price (earning less money with the startup?), spending more time at the office has a price (no kids). But you have a choice.
In another comment you said that your particular startup requires the long hours. Maybe you could restructure the startup? Maybe you could spend some money on employees? I don't know - but overall I don't see how you being a woman makes it in any way special. If anything, you have more choices than men?
Good point Tichy - not complaining about being a woman, which I very much enjoy. Being a woman doesn't make, by virtue of your sex-linked chromosomes, doing a startup in anyway special. And as to choices, exactly. That's the point of the post (sorry if that wasn't clear). We all accept (or should accept) responsibility for our own choices. I like your closing comment ;). More choices, more challenges. Synonymous?
In hindsight I thought OK, just having kids probably is easier for men. As others commented, it's easy if the spouse stays at home to take care of the kids. It seems kind of equivalent to employing nannies - except it is probably not easy to find adequate nannies?
And the man working long hours also might not benefit from his children much. Except maybe later in life, when they are older and he works less?
I didn't want to come across as harsh. I just suspect that in hindsight it is common to wonder what for did one sacrifice family and children? I am 37 (male) now, and I don't really have a strong inbuilt desire to have children. But one could just go for it and see what happens? If not now, then when? Other things are probably more easy to delay.
I admit that I am also becoming cynical about the traditional roles. I am not that thrilled about having to provide as much money as possible to compete for child rearing women. It may still look as if men have the better position in society, but it doesn't really make much sense. Men don't have any bargaining position at all. They are 100% replaceable (sperm is cheap) - so struggling to be as successful as possible financially is pretty much the only option. Men have to take the risks - women pretty much can opt to take them for fun, or not. More or less, at least...
