The case for working parents

Why I love working with people who have kids, and how kids affect my career

I was looking at my kid playing with a cat, backlit by the sun. This was not our cat, and yet she has a kind heart to feed every neighboring cat that comes to our house. The combination of the backlight, the morning sun, the silhouetted moment, and me looking on from about seven meters away created a core memory. I purposefully sat there longer, just to record it deep in my heart and mind. I want it to be a core memory—a memory that I will replay on my deathbed.

You see, my wife and I used to want to have more kids. But we settled on one. It’s been an amazing journey, not easy of course, and many of our decisions are made based on the fact that we have a kid. Where we live. How we live. What jobs I take. What lifestyles we want. Whether we plan short-term or long-term. It all revolves around our only daughter. It’s not perfect, but we’re learning and iterating along the way.

You see, the gist of this article is that I prefer to work with coworkers who have kids. Managers, peers, subordinates. All apply.

Reason 1: Life is more important than a job

The first reason is that I do think they have more important things in life than a job. Climbing the ladder. Serving the bullshit. Living up the AI hype. Those are nothing in comparison to the life they’re building, serving, and living for. Of course, singles and kidless people also have their own private lives to build for, but ask around these singles and kidless people what their mandatory goals in life are: it’s almost always self-serving. 90% of the time.

What about caretakers of parents and families? I would say they belong in the same group as people with kids. This also includes foster children.

How about pets? They’re just not the same as taking care of other human beings, unless you run an SPCA.

I remember I used to have a boss’s boss who was very controlling and micromanaging. Every week we would have team updates and every single team lead would be scrutinized on what had been worked on, and all the team members had to attend, including subordinates. So it was a big team meeting of 32 people every Friday at 2 p.m. What a bad time to have a weekly update, right?

I hear stories of this person being very controlling up to the point that people cry and complain. But of course, there are always people who love this person’s style.

I am not going to complain about it today.

What I want to highlight is that soon after she had her first baby, she became occupied, even after maternity leave. This forced her to trust and delegate more to others. It actually makes perfect sense—insights from places like the Harvard Business Review show that when managers become parents, their sheer lack of disposable time forces them to stop micromanaging the “when” and “how,” and shift their focus entirely to the actual results. Because of this, she became more pleasant to work with overall.

Reason 2: They become more agreeable to life’s events

You see, it’s sometimes hard to argue with people who don’t have kids. They wouldn’t think that picking up a kid from school at 2-3 p.m. would be a non-issue. They will always book our time at the absolute wrong time. You have to explain why it’s a conflict and why it’s important.

Say that to a manager with kids, and they instantly nod.

I used to have a manager who had kids, and when I asked him if it’s okay to run out between 3-4 p.m. on some days to pick my kid up, he said, “Go, just go. We know we all have kids or at least commitments in our lives.”

Another time, I had just been diagnosed with hypertension, and wanted to have a longer break after lunch. He nodded and said, “Sigit, you don’t have to tell me these things. I trust you. If you want, just go rest or do whatever you like. Go play video games if you will.” He said this because I had told him in our team update before that I just bought a gaming PC. I did not expect this.

Call me generalizing, but every time I have kidless managers or coworkers, it’s very hard to be open and talk to them, at least for me personally. All they think about is themselves: their career ladder, money, ambition. Occasionally, maybe dogs and cats, or their personal hobbies. It’s as if their world is very simple and in a singular dimension. They will never relate to what you think as a parent.

I worked for a crypto company once and my manager was a single, unmarried, kidless woman. All she thought about was that every designer on her team wanted to be a superstar, and wanted to survive the career ladder. I can say she was wrong. For me, my career goal is to sustain my life as a family person and a father. I just want to have a steady job, and if I am lucky enough to be passionate about it, maybe yes, climb up the career ladder. But to work my ass off? Hell no.

Reason 3: It’s just a different world, mindset

I said previously that it’s as if people with kids and those without live in a different dimension. One is very singular, the other is very multidimensional. There is a quote from an anonymous parent in a Pew Research survey that sums up this exact tension perfectly: “I’m supposed to work like I don’t have kids and supposed to parent like I don’t have a job.”

Because we are carrying that kind of pressure, I can never talk very long or build lasting relationships with coworkers or managers without kids. They’re simply just thinking about totally different things. They are valid, of course. But we’re just built differently.

When I talk to any coworker with kids, we already know at least 50% of the unspoken rules. It’s like those beer lads who understand each other with just a nod — but this time as a fellow parent.

When you discuss plans or sit in a meeting — you know the energy level radiating from fellow parents is the same. It emanates as a baseline we can agree on together. When we decide on a timeline, we cater to our kids (yes, even when we’re not conscious about it, there is always an undertone). When we set goals, we put some context of our personal lives. We won’t set too ambitious of a goal.

Then the pet peeve talks — you do know parent coworkers talk to each other, right? Oftentimes excluding those without kids.

Then if we decide on life’s important events, like moving to another country, changing a job, or accepting/rejecting a job offer, it all depends on factors like financial upside, career opportunity, and factor X — that factor of whether the job will fit the family situation.

A study highlighted in the Harvard Business Review explored how a parent’s career mindset affects their kids. They found that children’s emotional health was actually higher when parents explicitly believed that family should come first, regardless of the physical amount of time they spent working. Prioritizing life over the job isn’t just a personal preference; it yields measurably better outcomes for the kids you are raising.

Working alongside fellow parents brings a sense of humanity and groundedness to the workplace that, for me, makes all the difference. We might not be the ones grinding 80-hour weeks for a meaningless title, but when the laptops close, we know exactly what we’re really working for.

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