Some of the reasons why I decided not to pursue web work are in there. It's hard to balance the fun and the work of it, especially when the fun of it becomes annoying in a work context with a deadline, like debugging. Maybe it was just the company I worked for (we used Joomla for all sites...) but it really killed my passion. I think my plan to battle burn out in the future is to go out of cell range once a month, to the best of my ability. I don't know how parents like thenewgreen do it. I've been thinking about this a lot lately (mostly to make myself feel better), and wondering if parenting alone can burn you out, and how rough it must be because its your kid(s) and you want the time and energy for them. I don't know if it's immensely hard to extend your energy during stressful work periods so that you can go home and be a great dad or mom to your kids. Or if it's a release in its own right, because parenthood. I doubt it's that black and white, but kudos to those of you that do it well.
Kids, if done right, are multiplicative. I run with the kid a lot. Sometimes mommy comes. she doesn't jog as much as I do, but then, she wears size 2 pants no matter what she does. Anyway, running is harder for mommy. So I taught the kid to say go go mommy! And for a month or so we'd get go go mommy! every now and then. But then she decided that cars and motorcycles and trucks and buses and occasionally dumpsters go vroooooom! And then she started working on sentences. I took a breather yesterday going up a hill. It's a massive hill, and the stroller ain't light. So I started walking. Go go Daddy! Go go! Vroooom! I was boring the kid. Walking is much less fun than running. So you know what? I ran when I wouldn't have run because my kid wants to go fast. ___________________________________ "I spend 10 hours a week learning another programming language because the programming language that pays my bills I hate." PREACH.Some of the reasons why I decided not to pursue web work are in there.
Anyone that ever tells you that parenting can't burn you out is either full of shit or likely not a very good parent. It's a ton of work, but it's really rewarding too. What I've found out of late is that two is much harder than one. I had to give up certain things after having two. For example, it takes both me and my wife to put them to bed now. It used to be a one person deal, now we each get one. That means no more, "okay, you put the kid down tonight, I have a tennis game..." Yeah, I haven't played tennis in almost 5 months. I LOVE tennis. But it's worth it and soon, my oldest won't need as much coddling when going to bed and things will normalize, but it's been a rough few months. Some may have noticed that I'm on the site a lot less since #2.