Article: Y Combinator and being a Mom

[aaaaa11]

I just came across this article written by a mom about her experience participating in Y Combinator, one of the most prestigious and competitive "startup accelerator" programs: https://medium.com/thelist/hi-im-a-mom-and-a-start-up-founder-my-yc-story-3b8c8650ae95

 

What are your thoughts? Here are mine: 

 

As women are increasingly taking more ambitious and time intensive career paths, including entrepreneurship, they of course have less time for childcare (all else equal). 

 

In this new normal, families are naturally looking for new ways to raise kids effectively. It’s important to find effective ways to raise kids because of the effect parenting has shown to have on a child’s well being, how a society is effected by it’s children’s well being, and for the moral importance of treating a child well. 

 

As it pertains to this article, it seems the author’s decision was to leave her children, including a three month old, for five days consecutively, every seven days. I would be interested in hearing how the father adopted his schedule to meet the needs of the children (the author mentioned he is a also a business owner). I also wonder how effective this was, particularly given the importance of breastfeeding in a child's early life.  

 

As someone who also has ambitious career goals, I can understand how women would want to spend more time on their careers, and I think it’s a great thing that they choose to and have the freedom to do as they please. However, an important challenge to address in this scenario is parenting. 

 

While I strongly encourage men and women to pursue ambitious careers if they so desire, I also encourage men and women to pursue the noble and morally responsible mission of effective parenting. If we decide to focus more on our careers, I hope it doesn’t come at the expense of children. 

 

Is the admiration for YC beginning to outshine the admiration for good parenting? If it has, I hope that we can find a model for parenting that has equal or greater positive effects as a father and a mother dedicating significant amounts of time to child care. 

 

The benefits of YC to her career and company are acknowledged, but the benefits to her children are not. 

[Michael Marsh]

I work for a middle-stage YC company, and having traded "startup stories" with the founders, it's entirely unbelievable that this woman is able to "maintain a stable life for my young daughters and make the most of YC." Well, maybe the latter is true, but definitely not the former.

My ex, who I met through my university's startup community, was a similarly ambitious woman, ironically with a dream of "helping children", but seemed to have a little to no regard for our own potential future children. From circumcision to women she knew getting artificially impregnated and raising the child on their own (both things she was very much for), she was a perfect picture of mainstream uncritical feminist thought.

The tech community in general seems very eager to be seen as more "feminist". While there are undoubtedly some cases of unfair sexism in the industry (like all industries) that need to be addressed, it can be disheartening to see so many otherwise smart men and women embrace so many feminist tropes, like "the working mom", so uncritically, dismissing any dissenting opinion as "sexism".

Ironically, the author is ignoring the needs of helpless, dependent future women (her own daughters!), to build a social forum for adult, independent women.

 

In 15 years: "Sorry I couldn't be there for you girls, remember to register at women.com so we can chat about how your life problems now are all patriarchy's fault!"

[aaaaa11]

Great story and comments Michael. 

[Michael Marsh]

Thanks!

[000000La]

clear

[aaaaa11]

That's a great story Laurel. I admire your commitment to parenting. And totally agree parenting is a 0-1 project. 

[NumberSix]

I agree with above posts.  I estimate that she was very wealthy.  The domain women.com must have cost at least a few hundred thousand, if not a million.  She hired a full time developer to build out her app, $50,000 to $100,000.  She left Facebook, she was probably a high level executive there, who didn’t spend that much time with kids to begin with.

[000000La]

Thanks, ... 1MFi? (-: 

[J-William]

Wow, working at a startup is a terrible way to have time for your kids.

 

Of course if you don't spend time on your startup it can fail immediately. If you don't spend time with your kids they will seem perfectly normal because they're just like the kids next door whose parents are running a startup.