I always hated the people who said, "You'll understand when you have children." It's emotional, intellectual, and social gatekeeping that says I can't "get it"—putting one part of the population on a pedestal above another. And they earned it merely by performing a natural biological instinct, or even just failing to pull out. Like, get over yourselves, breeders.

Well here I am, prostrate, saying they were totally right.

With rare exception, if you don't have a kid, you don't "get it."

Yes, the anti-gatekeeping king (haha) is admitting that he didn't get it and you didn't either. Further, I'll admit that people with 3+ children must "get it" way more than me. Those people are either superhuman or inhumane, I'm not sure yet.

Of all the transitions I've been going through and will be going through for the next decade+, one of the biggest was my relationship with the professional world. Working with kids vs. without is a sea change. I dream about my pre-kid work schedule. I had two jobs, attended law school and wrote a one-man show for funsies. Now I'm excited if I make it to bed without cursing at a pillow. And I've only got one of those little buggers.

A truly new perspective on the working world opened to me since the greatest change in my life, and it would've been nearly impossible to have grasped it beforehand. But I'm going to try to give y'all a leg up anyway.

Here are are the biggest things I learned about the working world since becoming a parent.

Everyone Else is Operating at 40% at All Times

Returning to work after a too-short parental leave that my wife still holds against me (more on that in the next section), I found I was drag-assing constantly, and couldn't keep pace at the clip I had before. Lack of sleep, stressing, and planning meant I was really only giving around 40% at my best moments. When I confided that to my boss he said, "Welcome to your new life."

After mourning my old life for a few days, I realized that not only was I not the only one going through this—every other parent was too. This meant that everyone was also operating at a 40% max. Rather than feeling drown, I felt freed. No one would expect more than that from me, and it was OK. I had busted my ass before kids, they knew I wasn't slacking, so my 40% was going to become my new 100% and I wasn't going to get fired. Holy ish.

This revelation made everything more manageable (or manageable at all), but also raised a question about my pre-kid work life: How was I not running circles around every parent in the office? If I had learned about the 40% maximum before children, I could have achieved so much more, because not one parent's 40% could match my 100%, or even 90% or 80%. I had wasted so much potential for the 15 years I had in the working world before children.

Lessons:

If you're a parent, learn to accept your 40% as the new 100%.

If you're childless, kick the ever-loving crap out of every parent in the room now before it's too late.

Access to the "Reasonable Boundary Setting" Club Membership

Like I said in the last section, I took too little parental leave after my child's birth than my wife wanted. She's probably right, though at the time I had only been working for three months, and I hadn't told work about my impending fatherhood in the interview (legal advice: never tell them), so I felt like I had duped them. The department desperately needed my help, and I didn't want to leave them high and dry. But what I soon learned is, well, often as a parent you get to do that. It's pretty sweet. You can just ditch and make it up later.

When there's trouble at home—sick kid, doctor's appointments, sleep trouble, whatever—if your boss has a kid, they will understand. If you say you have to leave early today and you won't be available until after 10pm, they get it. If you phone it in on a conference call because you're in a daze, it's generally excusable.

Though this is related to the 40% rule above, there is something distinctly different to take away. I finally learned how to set reasonable boundaries between my life and my work after having a child. And as long as your boss has a child, not only won't they fight you on it, they'll respect you for it. I know I'm not going to outwork that 22-year-old giving a 100%, and I'm not supposed to. I'm supposed to be smarter than them, and be in it for the long haul. As long as I understand my bosses' expectations for me, and set them reasonably together, I don't fear when texting them at 2pm saying, "Hey, my kid's sick, talk to you tomorrow." It's necessary and wonderful. I'm in a club now, and club members support club members.

To the childless, I'm sorry. You do not have access to this club. It is unreasonable and incorrect, but for the most part your child-filled boss will not understand why you want to go to the dentist in the middle of the day. They are thinking, "What else do you have going on in your life? Just do it some other time." Kinda sucks, but at the same time, it's less likely that you've had to set reasonable work boundaries anyway yet. You should be busy kicking the crap out of all the 40% bastards in the office. Just reschedule the dentist for the 8:00am or their one-time-a-month Saturday shift, grin and bear it.

If you're good, you can get the time off by appealing to your boss's nostalgia for their own free time. Lean into the fact that you're young and free, and don't want to spend your life slaving away. This is totally fine, but just know they are silently judging you, and you are less likely to get that promotion over a parent who's giving their top 40%. A parent boss will always think when a childless person requests an extension, or asks for non-emergency, non-vacation time off is: "What pressing thing even exists in their life?" Even if that thought is unconscious and wrong. Them's the breaks.

Lessons:

If you're a parent, graciously accept your new club membership and don't be afraid to pull the child card during times of stress. Learn to love your new normal.

If you're childless, consider what your co-workers are thinking about "errant" requests. And, for the love of god, when you do request time off or extensions, soak it in; enjoy that time—even if you're just going to the dentist.

 

All Your Social Relationships Become Co-Working Ones

I remember the halcyon days—working the 3pm-12am shift at the local video store. I got up, ran, biked to a coffee shop with a swimsuit, games, and a book in my bag, then texted to see what friends wanted to hang. At midnight I'd walk to the local bar and text friends to meet me there. It was truly wonderful. I was broke, living in a friend's spare room, and had no prospects outside the next week, but I was never closer with my friends.

Boy howdy, has that changed. To make B.C. (Before Children) friendships work in the A.D. era (After Daycare), you have to proactively plan events, find childcare, or if you don't find childcare, host your friend while monitoring a small thing actively trying to kill itself. The amount of preparation and planning becomes like another job, except you've gotta pay for drinks. This makes your friendships start to resemble co-working ones.

And let's be honest, your best friends—the ones you really want to hang out with—aren't your co-workers. What naturally occurs is your childless friends get sick of your bull, and only other parents will stand you. Further, even among that crop you'll discover that you gravitate towards other parents with children your child's age. Then it's parents with kids your child's age who are into the same activities yours are. This makes resemble co-working relationships even more.

The final nail in the coffin is that once your children no longer share the same activities, or go to the same school, or they just change friend groups, you'll stop hanging out with them. Just like when you and your former co-workers have moved into different spheres. You might get drinks every now and then, but they quickly become acquaintances.

The good part is you know how to have co-workers! So you can overcome. To combat this miasma, you have to take a lesson from my previous blog about networking, and just constantly do it. Constantly. My prior life as a Hollywood assistant prepared me for planning month-out drinks, and even if when the day comes and all you want to do is collapse on your couch, you drag your ass to the bar and have a good time.

Just like assistant networking, you're not doing it for the short-term benefits—all your body really needs is sleep. You're in it for the long haul. With assistant networking, you both know that some years down the road, there's a chance that one of you can help get the other's movie made, or make a connection to an actor or producer, or help you find a job because your production company shuttered out of nowhere because your rich benefactor decided he didn't really want an Oscar that badly anymore. Here, you're doing it so in ten years you won't wake up and friendless.

As an extroverted, social human, this lesson might have been the hardest parenting pill for me to swallow. But luckily, the amount that you're skating at work (thanks Club Membership!) allows you some time for your friends. You need it.

Lessons:

If you're a parent, take that "extra" time from work, and try to be a good friend. It will pay you back ten-fold.

If you're childless, make your network as wide as possible for the future. And that couple you're sure is having kids before you, be extra kind to them. They're trying; they really are.

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When I went to law school, I went for the exact reason everyone tells you not to go: I wanted to learn the law. I recognized that my everyday life was governed by contracts, rules, and regulations that I had basically no comprehensions of, and I felt like I was just throwing up my hands at the world and saying, "Welp, sure hope this works out." I wanted to make better informed choices and understand the dictated terms of my own modern life. Even though I might not go back to practicing any time soon, I achieved that goal in spades and it's wonderful to feel you have some modicum of control in 21st-century life, even if it's only illusory.

Becoming a parent has been the greatest joy in my life, and it's made me feel the same way as attending law school did. It opened up doors of comprehension that I didn't even know were locked. There are infinite daily challenges and lessons, but I feel I have the breadth of knowledge to face it and figure it out, even if it's just duct-taping it together and saying, "It's fixed!"

 

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