However, as I’ve blogged before, the best answer for the juggle is having the commitment to your family to step back on your career expectations while your children are young. Having a shaky marriage is detrimental to your children, your own well-being, and to your job. We can have it all-just not all at the same time. You can’t give 100% to your job, your children, and your spouse all at the same time.

The Juggle

Thanks to Shabbir’s post on this item as I think it brings up a good point about parenting. I think, even given the struggles that Magda and I have, that we are somewhat in a bubble when it comes to dealing with issues with parenting and childcare. Partially, this is due to the flexibility that we are able to maintain with our work schedules thanks to those above us who are very respective of times when we need to take care of family issues. There’s a lot to be said for working in an industry where you have some flexibility with the work that you do. It’s our curse to be working late nights but it can also be a blessing. We have some friends who work on a tighter 9-5 schedule and I just don’t know how they can get things done.

Regarding the idea that you have to step back on your career - I think that’s true but to a point. Lord knows my dreams are bigger than the allotted time given so I simply have to make choices about where I can get the greatest bang for my buck (time). This has been the biggest adjustment that I’ve had to make personally and I’m still not very good at it but I’m getting better (damn my feed reading habits!). I don’t think you necessarily have to put your career on hold, you just need to find alternative strategies to keep things moving forward without killing yourself in the process. I realize that with Seth now (and then there were two!) that this ideal must manifest itself in a more aggressive manner. Discipline and structure will necessarily have to rule the day.

If anything suffers it might be your friendships - which is another reason why the work that I do is so great. A lot of my friends are web-enabled (hell, they’re web warriors!) so things social networks keep me in the loop even if I don’t have a chance to visit with them as often as I’d like. Maybe I can’t make it to an Austin On Rails, Wordpress Austin or Refresh Austin meeting but I can be on their lists and get tweets from some of the brilliant folks who are part of those groups. This helps immensely in periods where I may need to lay low for a while when family issues arise and need the entirety of my attention. At the very least I can stay on the periphery and not be totally out of the loop. And I can even let other folks know what’s up in my life (read: crazy busy).

My mother raised an only child, had three jobs (in my early years) to keep things going, helped put me through college, was an involved parent and had pretty good success (if i do say so myself) despite doing most of that on her own (just the two of us) and with numerous challenges spread before her. So yeah, being a parent is tough, but relatively speaking we we are blessed with wonderful circumstances and opportunity still. I’m not daunted.