A Parent’s Guide to Programming Life

As a super happy father of two beautiful little beings, and a programmer (many find our job boring, by the way…), I often find myself pondering: which is more complicated, raising kids or writing code?

Spoiler alert: it’s a tie, and both can drain your mental RAM faster than a poorly optimised algorithm.

Imagine if raising kids was like debugging a program…..

The Pre-Children Era: A World of Infinite Loops

Remember those superb days when you and your wife or girlfriend could stay on the sofa, binge-watching shows without interruption? When your biggest concern was choosing between Netflix and Sky+ or a night out at the cinema? Ah, the joys of being a couple who fully embrace their own world, indulging in an endless loop of relaxation and leisure.

A Tsunami of Runtime Errors

Then, faster than you can say “Oh my….,” two wonderful little beings enter your life. Suddenly, you’re thrust into the most important and complex task of your existence: parenthood. It’s like switching from “Hello World” (programmers will get that one!) to building a full-stack application overnight.

Having one kid is challenging enough, but with two? Boy, oh boy! It’s like trying to debug a program with multiple threads running simultaneously. New variables pop up everywhere.

Let’s try to turn my parenting feelings into code, shall we?

class Family {
    public $kids;
    public $jealousy;
    public $fighting;
    public $sharing_issues;

    public function __construct() {
        $this->kids = 2;
        $this->jealousy = true;
        $this->fighting = true;
        $this->sharing_issues = PHP_INT_MAX; // The largest integer supported...
    }
}

$myFamily = new Family();
echo "Congratulations! You've created a family. May the coffee be with you.\n";

The Fridge Paradox

Remember when you used to come home to a fully stocked fridge? Those days are long gone, my friends. Now, opening the refrigerator is like checking your code coverage, you’re always disappointed by how little is left.

function check_fridge() {
    $fridge_contents = ['empty_milk_carton', 'no_greek_yoghurt', 'mysterious_leftover'];
    
    if (empty($fridge_contents)) { //If the fridge is empty
        echo "Where is ME food????!\n";
    } else {
        echo "Ketchup packets don't count as a meal....\n";
    }
}
check_fridge() //again!

Netflix and… Kids?

Picture this: It’s Saturday night. You’ve spent the day running errands, buying clothes, groceries, and helping with homework. You collapse onto the sofa, ready to unwind with some Netflix, only to discover…

function attemptToWatchNetflix($kidsAsleep = false, $energyLevel = 0) {
    $excuses = [ 
        "Kids colonized all devices",
        "Forgot to charge iPad",
        "Dog ate the remote",
        "Toddler changed password to 'PawPatrol4ever'"
    ];

    echo "Attempting to relax...\n";

    if ($energyLevel < 20) {
        echo "Error: Insufficient parental energy. Abort mission!\n";
        return false;
    }

    if (!$kidsAsleep) { //If the kids are NOT alseep
        $randomExcuse = $excuses[array_rand($excuses)];
        echo "Netflix access denied: $randomExcuse\n";
        return false;
    } else {
        echo "Kids asleep. Proceeding with caution.....\n";
    }

return true;
}

The Parallel Processing Challenge

Being a father, especially abroad without the support of extended family, is like trying to run multiple processes on a single-core processor. You’re constantly context-switching between work, personal projects, and family responsibilities. It’s exhausting, but somehow, you manage to keep all the plates spinning.

Fatherhood: The Ultimate Refactoring

Despite the challenges, fatherhood has been the greatest refactoring of my life’s code. It’s taught me to be less selfish, to give more to others, and to worry less about trivial bugs in the grand scheme of things. It’s like moving from procedural programming to object-orientated, suddenly, everything is interconnected, and you’re responsible for so much more than just your own methods.

In conclusion, whether you’re squashing bugs in your code or decoding why your toddler suddenly treats broccoli like it’s radioactive, remember: both programming and parenting are Olympic-level problem-solving sports. Every parent is secretly a programmer, we’re all just trying to debug tiny humans without a user manual.

And just like in programming, when all else fails, have you tried turning them off and on again? (Note: This is a joke. Please don’t actually attempt to reboot your children.)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to optimise my dishwasher’s loading algorithm (aka playing real-life Tetris with plates) and negotiate a peace treaty in the ongoing sibling cold war over the last cookie. It’s just another day in the life of a father-programmer, where every tantrum is a feature, not a bug, and bedtime is the ultimate ‘compile and run’ command.

Now, time to git and commit these kids to bed! (only programmers will understand that one! :-))