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Comment by doodyhead | Hacker News Reader

I'm completely fine working with people who have kids. I don't have a problem with them working from home some days to look after a sick child, or taking time off during the day to pick them up from school, or coming in late because they were up all night with a crying baby.

What I detest is the sanctimonious, holier-than-thou attitude that, just because you have kids, you a superior or more evolved human being.

I admire that you made the decision to have and raise kids. I understand it takes huge dedication and effort, and it eats most, if not all, of your free time.

What if I choose not to have kids, and I spend the rest of my life "pre-kids"? What has that got to do with my job? Absolutely nothing. And it shouldn't come into it.

Having kids is a choice, and not a path everyone chooses to walk.

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Speaking as a kid-raiser (past now; they're 30 and successful) I have this observation: folks who never buckle down to something as demanding as raising kids seem, well, immature to the rest of us. Still kids themselves. Still complaining over their ruined weekend because they had a flat tire on the way to the movie on Friday night. Still upset that a late Amazon package may impact their fishing trip on Saturday. Their responses to life at an entire different setpoint, much lower and amplified.

Its like soldiers - the rest of life isn't as vivid for them, as emotionally gripping as being responsible for a life yada yada. Dis it all you like; the effect is still there.

Complaining about trivial problems is in no way limited to people without children. In fact, in my experience, people with children take this to an entirely new level when those are things that affect their child.

Sure, it takes all kinds. But for really caring about something, there's nothing like worrying the spike in white blood cells in your very ill child might be diagnosed as leukemia on Monday. After that, the rest becomes noise.

Even childless people will experience those sorts of "real cares" in the lives of people they care about (whether it is parents, grandparents, spouses, nieces/nephews, cousins, or even more less strictly well defined relationships). Painting all childless people as free from attachments is its own sort of naïve, even if their current problem of the day seems trivial to you, it certainly doesn't mean that every problem in their world doesn't meet your arbitrary "real" scope requirement to "grow up".

But for really caring about something, there's nothing like worrying the spike in white blood cells in your very ill child might be diagnosed as leukemia on Monday.

Some folks are mature enough to develop empathy while completely child-free. Others must have it forced upon them via childbirth. It does, indeed, take all kinds.

Maturing is due to experience. The snarky "forced upon" isn't a good description? It has to be learned regardless of the method. Hipster urbanites may have insulated themselves from emotional attachment to the point they're indeed less mature.

Simply not true in my experience. Most people in my country have children yet react strongly to completely irrelevant events like a team they "support" winning or especially losing a football game. That's way worse than complaining about someone ruining your fishing trip as it has nothing to do with them at all.

Pretty much all people care about stupid shit, you just don't empathize with people who care about things you don't personally care about.

What matters more, in this context, is if you let this personal prejudice influence how you treat your co-workers. Do you value their input and opinions less? Do you think you somehow do a better job because of your kid-raising credentials?

I'm with you on anyone holier than thou on anything. As a parent of 3, I myself grimace when I hear some woe is me/praise me tale from another parent.

My general theory is: you made your life choices, quit bitching and just get your obligations met. I don't care if it's kids, fur babies, Tamigatchi, or music festivals. I really don't want to hear about the corporatization of Burning Man just as much as I also don't want to hear about the ridiculousness of your kid's pre-K administration not recognizing your special snowflake's brilliance.

I've always had a lot of interests and obligations outside of work, but the thing I never had until kids, was a mental/emotional productivity nuclear bomb when you're feeling like you are shorting your family for work, or work for family, etc. Nothing will screw with your mind like the biological imperitive.

> What I detest is the sanctimonious, holier-than-thou attitude that, just because you have kids, you a superior or more evolved human being.

Is this in response directly to what manyxcxi wrote, or is this a response in general? I didn't pick up any such attitude in their writing, so I'm genuinely curious whether anything triggered it for you.

(I agree with you in general, and I'm a parent. For me, it's one of those things where I realized how much free time I used to have and squandered.)

It's a general response. I happened to seize upon the term "pre-kids" because it seems to imply that a person is somehow "more" for after having kids.

You find such people in software development circles? I haven't met a single one so far.

Sure, there are plenty of people who are unaccomplished otherwise so they treat raising a child (something the majority of the population succeeds in doing) as the pinnacle of human achievement. But I have never worked with someone like that. In my experience these people usually don't work at all...

I work directly with two software engineers who have kids. One behaves exactly like that, the other is completely different and reasonable.

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