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Pussification At Its Best

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maximummax

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E news Chudandi

 

Fed up with feeling “terrible” about spending little time with his 2-year-old daughter, Anand Iyer quit his high-powered, high-paying, technology gig to be a stay-at-home dad. Now three months in, he tells Yahoo Parenting why it’s the best investment he’s ever made. (Photo: Anand Iyer)

It wasn’t just one thing that pushed Anand Iyer over the edge. Like all working parents who often struggle to balance career and family, the San Francisco tech guru had just endured one too many nights of rushing home only to find his 2-year-old daughter, Ava, already asleep. He was missing too much and “felt terrible,” the dad tells Yahoo Parenting. 

 

I wasn’t spending any time with her in the evening,” says Iyer, noting that one conversation with a fellow father really got him thinking. “We started talking about how hard this was, being a working parent. My friend said, ‘My son is 2 months old and I haven’t bonded with him yet.’ And I felt the same way. I started to ask myself, ‘What am I working so hard for? Why are we trying to make our lives so great but aren’t investing in time with our child?’”

 

So on January 23, the former Microsoft product manager, then chief product officer at Threadflip, walked into his boss’ office and quit. 

 

Iyer announced that he’d decided to stay home and focus on spending quality time with the toddler before it was “too late,” he writes in Tech Crunch, describing how he decided to tackle the “work-family imbalance” as he calls it, and urging others to spark a conversation about it too. 

For the sake of his little girl, that high power, six-figure gig he’d climbed the ladder 15 years to score would have be on hold for a while. And to his surprise, Iyer tells Yahoo Parenting, his boss applauded him for it. 

 

 

 

He told me, ‘I totally get it,’” says the 34-year-old, whose wife Shreya, 36, became the primary breadwinner with her job managing recruiting for Splunk, a technology company that does data analytics. “My boss said, ‘You have to realize who you’re working for.’ His words, not mine. He was very understanding. It actually wasn’t a tough talk at all.” Colleagues followed suit. Iyer’s father, not so much. 

“The one person who really questions me is my dad,” admits the Indian-born, Bahrain-bred, Purdue college grad of his retired-entrepreneur father. “He says it’s an ‘interesting move.’ He’s curious about it but is really more concerned about whether we’re OK financially.” 

Turning your back on a seriously well-paying gig isn’t something most people would — and could — do, after all. “I’ve had occasional sleepless nights over our finances,” Iyer admits. “But the reality is that I’m fortunate that I’ve been working nonstop for a long time so it wasn’t as difficult a transition for us financially as it could have been.” 

Shreya initially asked, ‘How are we going to be able to pull this off?’ he says, “Her thoughts now are, ‘Take this one month at a time.’” 

The same strategy can be applied to Iyer’s stay-at-home social life. At first he says he felt seriously out of place at the playground during the day with Ava. “I would look down at my phone a lot because I didn’t know how to socialize there,” says the former exec, who still relies on the nanny to help out as well. “I didn’t know what to say. But I’m slowly starting to make my way into that circle. It’s about being there over and over again, I think. And now that I’ve done this a few times, and I’m recognizing people in the neighborhood, it’s gotten better.” 

Initially he says he thought people were looking at him like, ‘What’s that dad doing here?’ But then, he continues, “I realized it’s just that I was the new parent. It wasn’t a dad-vs.-mom thing, that was really just in my head.” 

So while he still has a “freaking out hour” now and then — and cops to worrying that if he’s not feeling guilty or worried there is something wrong — Iyer insists he has no regrets. “People say that they can multi-task well, but that’s actually really hard. If I had the stress of knowing my daughter didn’t eat breakfast that morning, when we’ve been trying to help her gain weight, and I go into work, it’s on my mind as I deal with other things. It’s not easy to compartmentalize and leave stuff behind. Being home has really helped with that.”

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Photo: Anand Iyer.

Instead of hurrying off to get to work each morning, “I look forward to getting up every morning and feeding Ava,” he says. “And when I first read that study about fathers being more happy the more time they spend with their kids, I was like, ‘That’s totally right.’ I feel magnificent. This experience has been so rewarding and I can see that Ava is benefitting from it.” 

Watching the toddler’s social skills blossom only reinforces his resolve, says the proud papa. “That’s one of my biggest clues for figuring out that this is right,” he notes. “My brain is wired to look for patterns and goals. And I can see that her communication skills are improving and I feel like that’s a signal that my time with her is really paying off. It helps feel like I made the correct decision and stops me from second guessing it too much.” 

Looking to his own father, Iyer says, “He talks about how he wasn’t there for so many things with me and my sister, and how burning the candle at both ends he missed lot. And I want to be there for Ava.” 

She’ll be going off to preschool three days a week this fall, so at that point Iyer is planning to dip a toe back into the workforce. The worst-case scenario of not being able to return to his career when he wants to — or burning through all of their money— “can be really, really scary,” he admits. “But on the flip side these six months probably won’t have a big impact.” 

The present is perfect enough to settle his fears for now. “Seeing Ava grow from little girl to a big girl is so rewarding and I can’t say that I would have seen it this way if I’d been working all day, every day,” he says. “From that lens, if we can live like this a while, it’ll be totally worth it. It already think it is.” 

Please follow @YahooParenting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Have an interesting story to share about your family? E-mail us at YParenting (at) Yahoo.com.

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    • Doug  •  4 hours ago

      Best story I have read in a while. I am convinced that one of the problems in our society is not enough real parent time. I don't mean taking your kids to soccer, I mean having dinner as a family, no tv during that time etc., turning off the phones for 2-3 hours, playing catch in the yard ... Keep reading

      Show replies (2)  •  
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    • Bestat  •  14 minutes ago

      It gets very tiresome to hear these stories of very wealthy people opting out of work for a couple years being told as if there is some kind of moral superiority in staying at home. 

      Research has shown over and over and over again that the amount of time parents spend with kids has ... Keep reading

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    • Gianna  •  57 minutes ago

      This is cool and it's dope they can afford it BUT parents can spend LOTS of time with their kids even if they work.
      It's called PRIORITIES.
      TV, cell phones,social media etc should all be last, your family time should come first.
      Instead of staring at your phone all day on ... Keep reading

      Show replies (2)  •  
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    • ramblin man  •  2 hours ago

      I worked 3rd. from 11 to 7 for 15 years after I lost my wife to cancer. My son was 2 years old at the time. Until he started school was the roughest. I would only get about 5 hours sleep at that time. He pretty much stayed at the sitters till I got up and would go get him. After he started school ... Keep reading

      Show replies (2)  •  
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    • Victoria  •  22 minutes ago

      A good man will do this and be successful. A good decent man will make a go of it too and not just sit around all day long playing viceo games. 

      I admire my son-in-law who did this very thing 20 years ago when my grand daughter was born. He was an IT guy making good money, but my... Keep reading

       
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    • darrynl  •  2 minutes ago

      Both of them in the tech industry, probably making six figures each for a few years before the baby was born. Yeah, they can pretty much afford him not having a job for a while. He can also do freelance, where he can stay up with his skills while determine his own hours. 

      A good chunk ... Keep reading

       
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    • Larry  •  19 minutes ago

      When you have a baby, it is only a baby for a very short amount of time. When the child becomes two, you only got one chance to experience it with that child. That is why I did what i did by sacrificing a better paying career. Now that I am older and my child is about to graduate from college, we ... Keep reading

       
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    • M K  •  21 minutes ago

      I left my six-figure high-level executive job a few months ago to be home with the kids. Being a military and pilot's wife, I am used to make adjustments because of my husband's career; however, this has been the most impacting and the most rewarding as well. I think it's all about... Keep reading

       
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    • NG D  •  26 minutes ago

      No amount of money or career pride can buy quality personal relationships. I work in Tech, all these idiots bury their head either on the computer 24/7 or focus on fighting every argument just to be right while thinking they are smarter than the rest of mankind. A job should just be a way to ... Keep reading

       
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    • Someone From The South  •  1 hour ago

      This is cool - for people who can do this. I think overall most people I know with kids do NOT spend enough time with them. And children today do not seem to really be parented anyway. I chose not to have any for this reason - because un-parented kids are really difficult to deal with. People ... Keep reading

       
 
 
 
 
 
 
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maximummax Celebrity

maximummax

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Pussification ante ?

he went from beign a man to a women's vaginaaa

vaade_veedu Celebrity

vaade_veedu

Posted
Posted

he went from beign a man to a women's vaginaaa



Hahaha I can totally understand... i guess he got harassed or why cant he take wfh or search for a new job
ramu Sr. Hero

ramu

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Ento mari over ga work chesi...frustration lo ila ayinattu vunnadu... munde balanced ga vundochu ga...

donganaaK LEGEND

donganaaK

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it looks like he wants to spend time with his kid man , and probably he's very well off and can afford  to not work at all ....... doesnt seem like pussification to me ...

maximummax Celebrity

maximummax

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it looks like he wants to spend time with his kid man , and probably is very well off and can afford  to not work at all ....... doesnt seem like pussification to me ...

well he can work something wuth his employer and adjust working hours right

Like leave early and work from home ( women do this all the time)

take a day off or two in a month ( every one does this)

Work from home once a week or twice ( many people do this)

 

or Above all

 

change company which is flexible to him

maximummax Celebrity

maximummax

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Hahaha I can totally understand... i guess he got harassed or why cant he take wfh or search for a new job

em cheptham cheppu

 

if he likes his daughter that much, hey every parent goes through the same thing.

I have seen lots of people travel lengthy time to commute to work.

donganaaK LEGEND

donganaaK

Posted
Posted

well he can work something wuth his employer and adjust working hours right

Like leave early and work from home ( women do this all the time)

take a day off or two in a month ( every one does this)

Work from home once a week or twice ( many people do this)

 

or Above all

 

change company which is flexible to him

 

priorities man , he's doing what he thinks is the best for him ...

 

also, just take a look at his profile  https://www.crunchbase.com/person/anand-iyer

 

he's the cofounder of a company called Hitpost that was acquired by yahoo , he probably made millions of dollars from this deal alone ( counting out the stock options from all his other ventures ) 

 

maybe he doesnt really need to work for the sake of money ever ..... So , he's giving his kid the best priority .. I see nothing wrong in that

vaade_veedu Celebrity

vaade_veedu

Posted
Posted

priorities man , he's doing what he thinks is the best for him ...

 

also, just take a look at his profile  https://www.crunchbase.com/person/anand-iyer

 

he's the cofounder of a company called Hitpost that was acquired by yahoo , he probably made millions of dollars from this deal alone ( counting out the stock options from all his other ventures ) 

 

maybe he doesnt really need to work for the sake of money ever ..... So , he's giving his kid the best priority .. I see nothing wrong in that

 

Dude there is a word in the dictionary for that 'Sabbatical' no need of making it a hype saying I resigned for my daughter lol .... as if he didn't see his daughter's face for 2 yrs.. now if this guy goes into interview with that reason he will be rejected outright

donganaaK LEGEND

donganaaK

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Dude there is a word in the dictionary for that 'Sabbatical' no need of making it a hype saying I resigned for my daughter lol .... as if he didn't see his daughter's face for 2 yrs.. now if this guy goes into interview with that reason he will be rejected outright

 

lol nenu raasindi neeku ardham kaaleda bhaiyya .... he probably has millions of dollars already , why would he even care about attending an interview if he already chose not to ? ..

 

and also this guy is not some petty employee , he cofounded 2 companies in the past and future lo oka vela if he really wants to work again , he's capable of starting his own company again , attending an interview would be the least of his worries ...

lazybugger LEGEND

lazybugger

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Jobs are for people who haven't made $30m yet :)

 

do you know how many 28yr olds retire in the financial sector? The reason he mentions may be little silly, but its immaterial.

 

He'll be back after 5-10 yrs with another startup or he may be working on it right now from his home. He chose to not talk about it.

 

Also, playing second fiddle to wife isn't that bad :) The traditional power structure in a marriage is BS. It means that you never marry a girl who's better than you, because you are insecure of her awesomeness?

wololo Side Hero

wololo

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This is one zany thread!! Whether someone has his/her priorities ironed out or not, and howsoever approving or disapproving of your perception those might be, why would you lambast him/her and label them as a wench or incompetent blowtard?

 

maximummax Celebrity

maximummax

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Jobs are for people who haven't made $30m yet :)

 

do you know how many 28yr olds retire in the financial sector? The reason he mentions may be little silly, but its immaterial.

 

He'll be back after 5-10 yrs with another startup or he may be working on it right now from his home. He chose to not talk about it.

 

Also, playing second fiddle to wife isn't that bad :) The traditional power structure in a marriage is BS. It means that you never marry a girl who's better than you, because you are insecure of her awesomeness?

now co founder of companies us working in the kitchen

lazybugger LEGEND

lazybugger

Posted
Posted

now co founder of companies us working in the kitchen

 

whats so great about going to a 9-5 job? especially when one's got millions in the bank. Its in fact a waste of time.

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