Before I became a parent, I thought I had a pretty good handle on chaos management. I had juggled early-stage startups, launched products on ridiculous timelines, and handled last-minute pivots that would make anyone sweat. Then I had kids.
Suddenly, my carefully honed skills in roadmaps, prioritization, and stakeholder management had to be applied to a completely irrational, unpredictable, emotionally driven user base. And that’s when I realized raising kids is the best product management crash course you’ll ever get.
Lesson #1: You’re Not in Control And That’s Okay
Before kids, I thought a good plan meant a smooth execution. Milestones, dependencies, risk mitigation check all the boxes, and things should go as expected.
Then I tried to get a toddler to put on shoes.
“I want the blue ones.”
Hands over blue shoes.
“No! The RED ones!”
Hands over red shoes.
“NOOO! I wanted the BLUE ones!”
This is exactly what happens when you build a feature customers say they want, only for them to completely change their minds the second they see it in production.
And history proves it. In 2006, Microsoft invested $500 million into Zune, convinced that users wanted an iPod alternative. Turns out, customers didn’t want another music player they wanted streaming services. Zune flopped, and Spotify ate their lunch.
The takeaway? Plan all you want, but expect chaos. Flexibility is more valuable than certainty. A roadmap is a guideline, not a contract. The best PMs and the best parents adapt in real time.
Lesson #2: Communication Is Everything (And Words Are Not Enough)
I used to think clear documentation and well-structured meetings were the key to alignment. Then I tried explaining to a three-year-old why he couldn’t eat crayons.
You can’t rely on logic alone. Kids and customers don’t just process words; they respond to tone, emotion, timing, and context.
If you tell an engineer, “This needs to be done by Friday,” but your face screams “I have no idea why, but my boss is breathing down my neck,” guess which one they’ll believe?
A 2022 study by MIT found that tone and body language account for over 60% of workplace communication effectiveness not just the words themselves.
In both parenting and product, communication isn’t just about what you say it’s about how you make people feel.
Lesson #3: No One Reads the Instructions
If you’ve ever built IKEA furniture with a toddler climbing on you, you know instructions are an afterthought.
It’s the same with software. No matter how clear you think your UX is, no matter how detailed your onboarding guide, users will not read it.
Case in point: Clippy. Microsoft’s infamous virtual assistant from the 90s was built to help users navigate Word’s features, but instead, everyone just ignored or hated it. Why? Because people want intuitive products, not instructions.
The best designs are so frictionless that they don’t require a manual. If a toddler can figure out an iPad without guidance, your app should be just as simple.
Lesson #4: Urgency Is an Illusion
In product, everything feels urgent. Roadmap deadlines, stakeholder requests, market pressures everyone needs everything now.
But when you’ve spent two hours trying to get a baby to sleep, only for them to wake up the second you put them down, you learn a hard truth:
Some things just take time.
Not every feature needs to ship immediately. Not every bug needs a same-day fix. Knowing when to push and when to let things breathe is a skill. The world won’t end if you take a minute to recalibrate.
And history backs this up. Google took 12 years to perfect Gmail before officially removing its beta label in 2009.That patience paid off it’s now the world’s most popular email service, with over 1.8 billion users.
In contrast, Quibi rushed its streaming service to market in 2020 without testing whether people actually wanted short-form premium content. It shut down in six months.
Lesson #5: If You’re Not Having Fun, You’re Doing It Wrong
Kids are chaotic, exhausting, and completely irrational. So is product management.
But the best moments in both happen when you stop trying to force order onto everything and instead embrace the ride.
That ridiculous customer request? That unexpected feature that changes everything? That moment when a toddler invents a game with nothing but a spoon and a sock? That’s where the magic happens.
You can fight the chaos, or you can learn to play with it.
Final Thought: Parenting Is the Hardest Product You’ll Ever Build
Every parent wants to create a happy, capable, independent human being. But you don’t get to “release” a child at version 1.0 and walk away. You iterate. You adjust. You learn on the fly.
And if that’s not product management at its finest, I don’t know what is.
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