Kids as projects

A question I often get is “how is life different, now that you have a kid?”. I think my life is, in many ways, basically the same; and I think this is because of how I orient towards projects.

The way some people orient towards kids seems to be as this entirely different being with no reasonable reference class. This thing that will suck up all your time and focus, that you will have no ability to continue to see friends and excel at work and pursue other projects.

I don’t like this narrative, because:

It doesn’t reflect my experiences
I think dissuades other people from trying out “having kids”
I think it leads parents to orient their identity-as-parents to be about the hard work and sacrifice they commit

I think sacrifice can be good! But I think parents should be more chill generally. I’d rather have a lot of happy lazy parents, than a few angelic stressed parents.

Having a kid doesn’t have to be hard. Sure, it takes up time, sure it draws your focus from other things, but fundamentally it’s a process that billions of people have succeeded at, while mostly focusing on other things.

For most of my life, I’ve been a pretty projectful person. Which is to say, there’s usually a particular project I’m obsessed with; sometimes, several. Usually, this would be a coding project (an Android app to teach kids math; a manga translation website), but also sometimes a project would be organizing a ski trip or conference. Many initiatives at work have

To be clear: there’s still a fundamental seriousness with kids as projects. When I’m obsessed with a project, I feel a keen sense of responsibility and ownership. How to make the project go well is top of mind. I stay up late, wake up early, forget to eat and see friends. I lose interest in distractions and games.

But at the same time, there’s a fundamental levity. It helps that my daughter is in no way a serious person, that every action a 2yo toddler takes is inherently silly. But as with all projects: because I chose to embark on them, there’s always room to do the silly thing I want to do.