Being a Parent
Boosted My Career

What I learned in my 8-month parental leave

April 2023

Before having a child, I always thought raising kids was highly time-consuming, which would inevitably harm my professional development. However, after the birth of my first child, my thoughts changed completely. Raising kids would push my career to a new level, which would be hard to reach otherwise.

What happened?

My employer allows me to take an 18-week parental leave. I decided to use all of it. Otherwise, I would work against the corporate culture for work-life balance and pressure my peers not to use all of their parental leaves.

However, I didn’t want to leave my projects unmaintained for 18 weeks, which may harm their popularity in the open source world, so I worked in a one-week-on-one-off manner for 36 weeks.

Before having a child

In my early career, I worked hard because I was so eager to be a good software engineer. It was a mixed feeling of anger and hunger.

I was angry at everything that slowed me down. I’m not too fond of any busy work unrelated to my career, even including the courses I took at the university. I was also angry because I did not have the resources to match my ambition. I was angry that I could not afford to eat near the office but had to spend time cooking. I was angry about not affording a car to stay in the office to work as late as I wanted.

I transformed my anger into the motivation to work hard. I resonated with the movie The Prestige by Christopher Nolans so much. I used to believe that success in one’s career is about making sacrifices. Make the most significant sacrifice and achieve the biggest success. So I made sacrifices, like working in the office on weekends and having no vacations. I would push myself even more if I did not meet my expectations.

Such attitude pushed me to where I am today, a professional software engineer in an essential team in one of the tech giants. If this was the end goal of my endeavor, my attitude was perfect. It helped me 100% achieve my career goals.

Such an attitude can help anyone become a comparatively good professional in any field. However, it would be a completely different story if your goal is to become a world-class professional.

Anger is not the answer

Being hungry and angry is not enough to become a world-class professional. To be a world-class professional, I must stay creative. Happiness is the key to achieving these, meaning I have to enjoy my work, be passionate about what I do, and believe in a bright future.

Therefore, it is no longer about sacrifice, anger, and hunger. Although they can provide motivation, they can also drag me away from happiness. I do not need to worry about not having enough motivation because the joy of doing the work I love could offer an equal level of motivation anyway.

After having a child

After the birth of my first child, I felt so happy to take some time off and take care of the child. I am so happy that I even question whether I deserve such a happy life. Then, I bring this gratefulness to my everyday work and enjoy the work I do.

It would take some time to see the real effect, but it is helping my career in the long run.

Another me in a parallel universe

I sometimes imagine there is another me in a parallel universe who always put work as the highest priority and sacrificed everything he could to get a better career, including having kids.

He made the sacrifice and deserved a better career. He did have a successful career, but he always felt dissatisfied. Although he knew not all efforts could be paid off, he was still angry for not being more successful given his big sacrifice.

Such a feeling of not getting enough reduced his happiness in his work, which prevented him from creating the masterpieces he should have created. He is a professional but was far from the top professionals making significant contributions to the world.

Conclusions

To become a world-class professional, I need creativity and focus, which can only be achieved by leading a happy life. Being angry and hungry led me to where I am today, but it would not lead me to where I want to be.