Well I (36M) became a parent 18 months ago to a beautiful baby boy and it has been a wonderful and life changing experience to say the least. I love being a parent, but holy hell, the one thing that has really taken a hit is the business side of life.

Owning my own shop in the construction world (specialty millwork – think art world adjacent) there are deadlines, occasional long hours, and a never ending list of things to do. My business is in the building stage – there is demand for the product and we have a good client list but need to hit around 2x revenue what we’re doing currently (and sustainably) in order to have the platform for the next step and the team to support it.

The issue I’m having is since becoming a parent I have a lot of trouble balancing the two and feel like I’m dropping balls at work and also not spending as much time with my boy as I’d like to. It’s been a year and a half and I feel like I still haven’t cracked the code to making both work in tandem.

My main mentor is a guy in his 60s who built a similar business and is now retired. His consistent advice is ‘you have to do whatever it takes – go home late, work till 3am, get up at 5 and do it all over again’. A somewhat telling anecdote about him is that he had a period of around 10 years when he was building his business where he had literally no friends – they all stopped calling him because he was too busy with work to keep connected with them.

This lifestyle was no problem pre kids. I have always prioritized keeping at least a few close friends and good relations with family, but I have no issue working outrageous hours and grinding it out. The problem now is if I work 5-7 then I don’t see my son at all, and it puts all the load on my wife of childcare. If I stay up till 3 working, then I disturb my wife’s sleep and her day is hell dealing with no sleep, daycare pickup and drop off, and also working her own 9-5 job, and probably picking up some slack on the housework side and everything else.

I read a fair bit of business books, listen to podcasts, and also seek advice from mentors and others. The grind it out mentality is very common and I just don’t understand how to square it with trying to be a decent parent and partner at the same time.

What I’m looking for in making this post is any info or discussion on how others are making it work (or not!) and if anyone has a less grindset-y podcast that they can send me to then I’m all ears.