Nearly six years ago, I chose to move to San Francisco to expand on some of the entrepreneurial things I was working on. It was a choice to expedite my initiatives. Fast forward to now, I have raised venture capital, launched two startups, and now I am writing this newsletter.
Outside of all that, and most importantly, I am now a husband and father. One of the more taboo subject matters discussed in Silicon Valley today is parenting. While there are exemplary examples of parents who thrive as business leaders there is no magic playbook on how to do unlike how to find product market fit, raise venture funding, and hire engineers. Content on the delicate dance of being a parent while being a founder in the technology industry is severely lacking.
This week in a special edition I collaborated with my wife on 10 things we’ve learned in our first 10 months of parenting. The trade offs of running a company with your spouse cannot be distilled down to a list but we took our best shot after 10 months of on the ground training.
The startup grind in itself has been grueling for a lot of founders coming out of COVID and having a little one adds both inspiration and requires more focus on lifestyle hacks.
I plan to document more of my journey as a first time father and the learnings I am having along the way. Here are 10 lessons from my wife Whitney and I.
Matt’s Five Lessons
1. Paying for childcare is worth it
Ten months into fatherhood, I have quickly learned how important child care is — it frees up time, allows you to have focused time at work which is the only way to afford to live here, and gives your child an engaging experience outside of the time they spend with you. Fortunately, Whitney was there to handle the task of finding the right nannie, by interviewing several and joining multiple facebook groups. We then were able to find a great family to share the cost and split the time between our places. It is essential and as long as we are in the city we will want to have our nannie around.
2. There is no equality when it comes to parenting
Equality is a word that gets used a lot in work, relationships, and other institutions. Parenting is one where it can not exist. For one, children are naturally more attached to their mothers. While I play a critical role in Cain’s life day to day — there is just more attachment to his mom. That burden is not always easy for either party to accept. There are nights where Cain wants his mom only, it is like I do not exist. That can be hard on both parents for two different reasons.
It is important to have ongoing discussions with your partner about this imbalance. There are several things we get to take care of like pick-up and drop-off during the week, who gives Cain his baths (Whitney is batting 100% here), and who is responsible for taking care of him when he wakes up at 5am sometimes?
I’ve learned you will drive yourself crazy when trying to equally split these tasks so you have to take it day by day while creating systems to make sure everything gets done on the right timeline.
3. Paying for seats for infants when they are <2 is a necessity
First of all, currently we fly coach and economy at that 99% of the time we travel. Having a kid changes things drastically when you travel, there is no way around that. We learned a hard lesson both times we have traveled with our son in the first 10 months. Airlines think they are providing you a favor allowing children under two to fly for “free.” This may work for some but I would advise it is not a good idea. Invest the extra money and buy your child a ticket if you can.
After our two experiences, we think of ourselves as a family of three which means purchasing the extra seat is essential to having any reasonable experience flying in this day and age.
4. Kids cost a lot of money but think of the costs as investments
I grew up in a town maybe 1000 people, but some of my best experiences were my mom taking me or send me off to go to visit my family in New York and other metropolitan areas. I think of the costs and expenses that come with having a child in a city like San Francisco as an investment. The investment is both for my kid as well as for me.
As he grows older, his friends parents will indirectly become my friends, acquaintances so there is a mutual benefit in that the costs both in the present and in the future will make his experiences as well as mine better.
5. Start a 529 Savings account when your kid is born
We started a 529 Savings account through T Rowe Price when Cain was born. I think that is essential. The account is growing every month and that is something we can be proud of. There is no way to know what college tuition will look like in the Class of 2040 or even if college is something he will want to do, but it is good to know we are stowing away money for him either way and it is automated so we never see it.
Gender dynamics are quite different when it comes to parenting so I wanted to invite my wife Whitney, who also edits the newsletter to give her perspective on her first ten months of parenting.
1. Breastfeeding is hard
And not only is it incredibly difficult, it’s time consuming. I gave breastfeeding truly all I could for three months until we moved to exclusively formula feeding our son. As a first time mom, I didn’t understand all that went into breastfeeding your child and I like to think that ignorance is bliss in this case because had I known, I might not have spent three months thinking I could make it work before my mental health was completely worn down.
From the pain of your milk coming in (engorgement), to helping your baby latch properly, to the anxiety of not knowing how much milk your baby is getting…it’s all draining. And it didn’t stop there for me. Because my milk supply was so low I was following up every time I nursed (every three hours around the clock) with pumping and bottle feeding our son with formula. Theres a term for this in the parenthood community: triple feeding. And it’s as awful as it sounds. Most days I felt like I had a better relationship with my pump than my son with the amount of time I was tethered to that machine.
All this being said, I took ending my breastfeeding journey really hard. There is something so primal about nursing your baby and I found this time with him really sacred. It didn’t help that formula gave my child acid reflux which we had to treat daily with medicine and feed him a special type of formula that still to this day, is extremely hard to find in stores. We began formula feeding right at the start of the formula shortage. SUPER.
2. NICU Nurses are Literal Angels
Our son was born rather abruptly 5 weeks early and while his stats looked good (5lbs 14oz and a whole 20 inches long), he needed support breathing for his first 48 hours and then assistance with feeding for the three weeks he stayed in the NICU. Leaving the hospital after my delivery without my baby was without a doubt the absolute hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. It felt as though my baby was ripped from me and I didn’t have an opportunity to mother him the way I anticipated I would in his first few weeks. I was living a dual life as I slept at home with my baby in the hospital. I visited him in the NICU from morning to night each day. It was there in the NICU where I healed my body, where I learned to breastfeed my baby and where I learned to become a mommy. It was like baby boot camp in there. Matt and I learned how to change a diaper and how to bath our baby. For someone who never spent time in a hospital before birthing my son, I got to know the ins and outs of one quite intimately.
3. It ACTUALLY Takes a Village
Ok, we’ve all heard this before but nothing will bring you back down to earth than having a village of family and friends to support you in your first few months of parenthood and beyond. The meals that were dropped off to us fed my family when I couldn’t, the text messages checking in meant more than anything and having fellow mommies I could call to just simply…cry…were basically my lifeline. Learning to accept and even ask for help became something I learned very quickly as a new mom.
4. NOTHING Can Prepare You For Postpartum
Man, I hope this reaches the right audience but um, this was ROUGH. Your body feels like it goes through a whole Iron[woman] competition at best. The amount of healing your mind, body and soul needs to go through is abundant but there’s often no time to prioritize that. 1 in 7 women will experience the baby blues, postpartum depression and/or postpartum anxiety; myself being one of them. Your hormones go through a significant shift is this period and there was no book, no podcast, no meditation flow and certainly no advice and research to prepare you for this time. It’s unique to every woman and every pregnancy.
5. I’ve Learned How Strong I Am…Emotionally and Physically
This sums up the last 4 lessons. Pregnancy and giving birth taught me how physically strong I am. Postpartum taught me how emotionally strong I am. And 10 months into motherhood has taught me how both those periods would continue to radiate within me to be a mother, wife, colleague, friend, daughter and so on. Most days I feel like I could have done more with my time; worked another 45mins at my desk, taken care of something inside the house, checked in out that friend I’ve neglected. This is the portrait of a working mother. The emotional and physical labor mothering requires is unmatched. A constant sacrifice. Drowning and flying at the same time.
This is so powerful and extremely proud of you both for sharing the truths of being parents. There is no book, no advice for each experience and y’all persevered to show your resilience. Keep sharing! ♥️