Last August, we got our first child - Jens Ferdinand - and he's been an absolute delight. Becoming a parent has been an amazing experience, with tons of laughter, smiling and crying. And poop, of course.
I live in Norway, a country that provides 48 paid weeks of parental leave to split between the two parents. We thought we'd be a bit progressive and split that time evenly between us - so that we both got to know our little rascal a bit better, and so we could evenly split the workload that comes with it.
Because of this, I've been a stay-at-home dad for about 6 months now, and I'm finding it challenging to keep my technical skills up to par. I think this will probably resonate with anyone having an extended leave of absence from their career - for whatever reason (illness, burnout, parental leave, unemployment, you name it).
I still do a few things to keep up to date though:
- I read a lot of articles, as well as threads on Twitter and Reddit
- I write articles on stuff I find interesting
- I play with implementing designs and app ideas (even though they might never be completed)
- I make sure to stay active in our company's Slack
- I'm making workshops and coaching colleagues remotely to do the same
These are working out well for me, but I'd love to hear what you've done (or are doing)! What are you doing to stay up to date with your technologies of choice?
Oldest comments (5)
My office's Slack is only filled with tasks, that's the nature of our project right now. There's rarely anything related to general technology. Out of curiosity, how are you keeping up with "technology" through your company's Slack?
We share articles, tutorials, videos and we ask questions when we are stuck with problems in different technologies :-)
I had a ton of plans for doing stuff like that too, but turns out the kid takes way too much time to sit down and complete projects like that. Also, I'm not much of a MacGyver. 😄But sounds like a great strategy if you can make it work!
I really don't understand why you feel like your skills wouldn't be up to par after some months away from the field.
I'd use that time to get as far away from tech-news and -trends as possible. Tech is moving fast but not that fast. For me, that free time would better be invested in books, for example. After a while away, you come back with a new perspective and a fresh look on things.
I'm having parental-leave in July again!
(That's just my POV, of course. Not telling anyone what to do 🙃)
True true 🥰 i’m doing a lot of non-tech stuff as well, and I’m definitely enjoying taking some time off from everything and just focusing on playing with my son or other hobbies.