> The passionate hunger to do something significant and meaningful with my life was a major reason I took care never to have any children.

Raising kids is probably the most meaningful and significant thing I have done with my life.

Thanks for sharing! I remember thinking pre-kids mostly about how much work they would be but not really considering the joy they bring too. Like I knew they would, but vastly underestimated what effect that would have on my life.

I don't particularly regret any of my choices either, but knowing what I do now, would have chosen to have kids earlier in my life.

May I ask you what significant and meaningful thing you tried to do, and why you think you failed at it?

I've spent my 30s doing something similar and it's still unclear whether it will work out or not. And I've foregone essentially all else, including family.

> Having grown up in a large family within a religious subculture full of other large families, the amount of time and attention children consume was crystal clear

Similar experience here growing up Mennonite (they’re sorta like the Amish but more moderate).

I’m one of the only remaining men in my family without kids, but those that do have kids (and there’s a lot of them) are super busy. This is at least partially offset by their wives who are more on the traditional side.

They all do seem very fulfilled however :)

I think one of the reasons that a lot of successful founders are in their mid-40s is because they combine 20ish years of experience with an empty nest after kids are out on their own.

Nothing to back it up, but it makes sense to me.

I think being a proper dad (or mom of course) you realise that that is something extremely "significant and meaningful".

My ambition is to become a dad. I have other ambitions too whcih require a lot of time but if need be i'll make my choices.

I got sort of lucky early in my career because I had a talent that was discovered in a national network. Which meant I found myself writing national strategies for IT in our public sector (Denmark) at my late 20ies. It felt great for a year, or maybe two. When it stopped being fun though, it sort of hit me hard. I did enjoy writing and working on the strategies with other people. All the "glamour" around it, advicing politicians, going to conferences, networking with all sorts of "important" people. That got to me on one of the many train rides I had to take. I know a 3 hour commute might not be a lot to Americans or people in larger countries in general, but here it's a life time. Eventually I didn't know why I was going on them, so I quit and went back to being a nerd in a basement. Having my first child was the kick I needed to push me to where I was already heading though. I would've likely ridden the career ladder for a lot longer if I hadn't become a dad.

I rarely speak about it but something about reading you accepting the failure of your ambitions made me want to do it. Are you sure it's a failure? For me family life turned out to be what I wanted and work is just a fun place which makes me money, but I totally get why people want to do it the opposite way. In some ways you could say that I did something significant, but it made me misserable. So I failed just as much as you, if not more.

I don't regret any of it either though. It's what made me who I am.

and yet most nobel prize laureates seem to be family people. I found that adult responsibilities have a way of making me very very intentional about how i spend my time.

very happy for you that things turned out this way

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