Not everyone wants a kid. It is not a failure at life, it is not their greatest regret.

Nowhere in my comment did I say that everyone wants a kid nor that they are a failure at life if they don't have one. What I said was in response to the comment about family life being boring.

Well, you didn't qualify your sweeping general statement at all. You seem to be implying that nobody should find family life boring and not want it.

First, I didn't intend making a "statement". I made an innocent, if not necessarily crystal clear, comment which attempted to give one person's experience to those that have already chosen to have a child. NOT a comment about the merits of having a child or not.

It's a nice theory, but the concept of "men overworking to avoid going home" didn't become a trope by chance. Not everyone feels the meaning given by those tasks.

I'm not saying that everyone feels the meaning given by those tasks. IMHO, if you asked those same men "overworking to avoid going home" what they regret later in life, not being with their kids will rank very high.

> Not everyone feels the meaning given by those tasks.

OK. Do meaningful things with your kids then. Make art. Volunteer at a food bank. Learn how to grow tomatoes. Build a robot.

There are more options than "fold socks" and "put cover letters on the TPS reports".

There should be a balance I suppose. I'm sorry but playing pretend-grocery-store with my 3yo girl can't compete with the challenge and satisfaction of cracking a really hard algorithm or a similar problem. But having a family in general gives life way more meaning than creating some app or website.

Please don't take this the wrong way and this is just one man's opinion. When that 3 year old girl is older and naturally becomes independent and moves on from you to the next steps in her life, that pretend grocery store experience will be orders of magnitude more meaningful to you than solving ANY hard algorithm. Not judging, not preaching, just giving you thoughts based upon experience.

I don't think I disagree with that, I'm just saying that being with my children is not always fun or interesting. Louis CK has some excellent bits about this stuff.

Louis CK has pretty amazing insight...I'll check it out.

Oh, thank god Louis CK has covered this. Case closed, then.

For me is isn't either or but rather both - algorithms, startups and family.

I agree with you, but I wouldn't presume to tell someone else how to give their lives meaning, just because I'm "older", or to tell someone they will later regret not taking the same path in live as me.

Some people just aren't cut out for the family life.

I didn't tell anyone to do anything because I'm older. I shared that if you do choose to have a family one person's experience is that you will cherish the moments you are serving your children.

And I share this as someone who has gone through it in the hope that sharing might in some small way assist those that have not gone through it yet.