Thanks for sharing, Aaron, and I'm glad to hear you have a "chill" work life, while founding and running such an awesome organisation!!! I shrimply love it (is this joke still a thing in 2024?)

Hi @Eli_Nathan. Apart from those already officially announced or listed in the post above, are conferences specifically in Asia, Latin America or Africa planned for this year? Thanks so much, Pia

I second this, but even people you pay for childcare aren't that easily found (at least where we're living - Germany). 

The same with this type of network/friend circle - I absolutely love the idea, but my experience is, that it's hard to build this up and it takes time. Every family is struggling, and have different rhythms (e.g. my kid's nap time is 12-2pm we can meet afterward - oh but my kid is sleeping from 1.30-3pm and then it's almost getting too late before it gets dark/dinner time/whatsoever...), you plan a play-date, and then one kid gets sick - just some examples from real life ;-)

I don't want to sound too pessimistic. That's just been our experience and I wish I'd had more realistic expectations on things like that. 

 

I absolutely LOVE this article and the discussion it sparked. 
I'm 35, mum of an almost 3-year-old and 1-year-old, and founder of an EA-aligned organization (+ two other side projects). I've always considered myself a powerhouse, life's challenges usually didn't push me to my limits, even though I worked in 60+ hours careers (eg. as a consultant). But oh boy, did that change. In the last year, I've faced moments on a regular basis when I felt like: I can't do this anymore. I cried, I screamed, I thought about just giving up. But I didn't. 
What kept me going:

• quitting my current position as a CEO might be a temporary relief of responsibility, but eventually I would need to work in other jobs, that come along with other aspects I didn't like in the past (e.g. lack of impact and purpose) - so in sum, it wouldn't be a clearly net-positive thing to do
• plus I would probably feel some sort of resentment, that I had to sacrifice something very meaningful for my family - not good for the relationships with my husband and kids ;-)
• things will get easier - a lot of the stress from the last year was a result of our youngest not yet being in the Kita, but eventually she, too, will be a Kindergarden Kid and that will change a lot in our daily routines and bring significant relief; this is an important lesson in general: my husband and I noticed that a lot of the challenges you're going through with kids are phases that will naturally end at some point anyway - e.g. teething, weaning, getting better with naps and so on

I resonate with someone saying here that a lot of the time or activities you'll have to sacrifice are mostly things like watching TV/netflix/youtube. It's true, I am not wasting as much time on "shallow" entertainment like this anymore. In a way, it seems like my time is very efficiently spent mostly on just meaningful things. But let's be honest, sometimes all you need is this form of shallow entertainment (at least for many of us). 

The one thing I wish I knew before and would have factored into our decision is the lack of childcare outside of Kindergarten. We don't have any family close by, but I thought - hey we can just hire a babysitter/nanny. Well, we tried for a year and we couldn't find anyone. Maybe this is just a coincidence, bad luck, and not very representative, but if I had one piece of advice for everyone thinking about whether to have kids or not it's this: make a reality check on how easily available childcare in your area is. 

• Do you have people that will regularly babysit in the evenings so you can have an evening with your significant other (to reconnect as partners, not just be a team of highly functioning parents)?
• Do you have people that would be willing to take care of a sick child? Because most of them will be sick a lot at the beginning, which means regular interruptions of your usual routines
• How many other actual needs to you have that you need to plan in (e.g. do you need a lot of time for yourself to cope with things, to you have a great need for socializing with other people outside of your family, do you need to exercise on a regular basis and so on...) ?

I was voted into the district parliament for the Tierschutzpartei (animal welfare party) here in Berlin. I would love to share and evaluate my experience with the EA community after one year in this office and see what I could do for the next 4 years to have even more impact. I don't have the capacity to write a long answer or article, but if this would be interesting or helpful I am always open for a call to share what I can share :-) 

Hi Peter, thanks for sharing this experience. Unfortunately, this doesn't surprise me at all. Glad to hear you eventually found someone. 

Hi Lee, 
thanks a lot for your comment and perspective - I second that. Given the variety of skills and education in the EA community, I am quite optimistic that there are enough people who could work successfully as a recruiter for EA (or EA-aligned) organizations, even without prior experience in this field. Training and mentorship could be very helpful in these cases. I'd be happy to offer some sort of support, as we have a lot of recruitment experience in our Tälist team. :-)

Hi Chris, 

thanks for sharing your thoughts and questions. In the linked job profile I also mention that I think for EA organizations having a value-aligned recruiter might be very valuable. I would love to see more people from the EA community consider this role for themselves because they already are mission-aligned. :-) 

Hi Charlie,

yes, I am very pleased to see that there are more and more initiatives in the EA space to build up professional recruitment for the EA community. And this is why we need more recruiters ;-) 

Hi Charlie. Great question. I don't have any data at hand on the recruitment industry as a whole compared to in-house recruiting. I know that the demand and market for recruitment services are growing as it gets harder and harder for companies to fill their positions. There are economic calculations comparing the total costs of in-house recruitment vs. hiring an external service, of course assuming that external services are doing a better job (as in successful and efficient). I do believe that there are plenty of services that only do an okay job and might not be better than in-house recruitment. But sometimes these services just get hired because the in-house recruiters don't have the capacity to manage all recruiting processes themselves. 

This being said, my article wasn't about promoting the recruitment industry as a whole. I think what makes recruitment impactful is if you are hiring for an impactful project or organization. So I was referring to in-house recruiters of EA (or EA-aligned) organizations and recruiters for EA (or EA-aligned) hiring agencies. 

I hope this was helpful and thanks for sharing your experience :-)