Episode Transcript
Qin En 00:00
Welcome to Season Two, where we interview dads who are technology company leaders, based in Southeast Asia. After hearing from moms in Season One, now it's time to speak to dads who are raising kids while striving in their careers. Let's find out the stories, challenges, and advice they have for us.
In this episode, you speak to Mark, Head of Enterprise Sales and Cryptocurrency for STRIPE in Southeast Asia. Mark started his career in media and advertising before spending a decade building and leading Mintel, a market intelligence firm in Asia Pacific. Mark is passionate about coaching and building high performing teams and is a father of three, a twin boy and girl, age six, and a newborn.
Hey, Mark. Welcome to the Parents in Tech show. To begin with, could you tell us a bit more about your family?
Mark 01:10
Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. Where to start? I'm the dad of, initially twins, who are Harrison and Emily. They're both six years old, but we have a newborn with us. So we have just increased the family by 50%.
Well, not me, but me and my wife have increased by about 50% with the addition of Sophia, who is three months old and keeping us very busy. So yeah, we're a family of three kids and my wife is Justine. I couldn't have done it without her. She's the rock of the operation and keeps everything going.
Qin En 01:38
Beautiful. There's so much that I want to go into already, but first and foremost, I have to ask, how did you meet Justine, your wife?
Mark 01:44
So kind of an interesting story. You could call it fate or you could call it laziness, but I met Justine, my first night out in Sydney. So I decided as a 26-year-old to just pack my bags and move to Australia, having lived in London before that. I was on my first night out and I spotted Justine and she ignored me.
I took it to mean that she was playing hard to get but turns out she was actually just ignoring me, but I enjoy a challenge. A few months later, we got together and we've been together ever since. And we've got our 10-year anniversary actually coming up.
Qin En 02:13
Wow. Congrats.
Mark 02:14
There we go.
Qin En 02:15
That's gotta be exciting.
Mark 02:16
Thank you, mate.
Qin En 02:17
Okay. So when did children come into the picture, the conversation about how many children do you want? When do you want to have children? How did that conversation come about?
Mark 02:27
To bring some colour to that conversation, it was always, I was always on two and my wife was always on three. So you can kind of see who won that in the end, but I'm glad she did.
Um, we'd always, I think we aligned very early on our family values and how we wanted our lives to go. So I think the conversation- it was never a kind of a sit-down conversation of this is the date and the time, but we kind of just knew, we felt that something was possibly missing, that we were looking for the next stage of our relationship and children, inevitably, as the part of that. And we felt that that was an important part, an important milestone that we both agreed that we wanted to take.
We weren't quite ready for twins, but that's a whole nother story that sort of changed things in how we were looking at planning a family.
Qin En 03:09
I'm going to go right into that. So, when did you realise, and the pregnancy journey and what was your first reaction?
Mark 03:17
So it was interesting. We went for a scan and being, this was my first time we were looking on the monitor and the doctor was looking at, he said, he actually said, oh, he did a scan. I said, oh, that's weird. Why are there two dots on there?
And the doctor was like, “Hmm.” and I was like, “Oh, I know. Cause there's like two things.” And I was trying to get, like, compartmentalise. This is normal. So I was trying to reassure the doctor. “I know to become one, I think, and then it's going to become a baby.” And he was like—
Qin En 03:43
So you became the doctor.
Mark 03:45
I became a doctor. The doctor was in silence. My wife was silent. They both knew what was going on. And I was just rambling around trying to sort of go back to my basic biology and figure it all out. Then he said, “Oh, I think you might have two, there might be two in here.” And then, there was kind of silence on the walk home with my wife.
It was just such a shock because I think, I mean, you know, as a dad, you kind of have a preconceived idea of how your life is going to go and what it's going to be. And then suddenly these changes come in and your whole journey changes. Suddenly we were going to be twin parents from just what we'd imagined. And I remember I was with my wife and we were walking home and asked and she said, because I think it was just a shock. So I went online and I was looking up the best things about having twins.
I was like, I'm going to just throw this out here. And the first one was, “People will look at you with such respect, for the hard work that you put in”. I thought, “Oh, that maybe is not the best one to live with”. Then, [the] second one was, “Just think how cute Halloween costumes are going to be”, and then the list went a bit, it [has] gone worse from there.
So I was like, so I sent that to my wife and she just looked at these and she was like, “We're in for a big ride here”. And she was absolutely right.
Qin En 04:53
Oh, wow. That sounds like an incredible story to tell. But maybe describe a bit about the emotions that you, and of course, your wife felt. Was it more excitement, fear, anxiety, of course, probably a mix of those, but how would you best describe it, looking back?
Mark 05:08
Being first time twin parents, there was a kind of an element of naivety, which got us through that. So we didn't really know what was entailed. Everyone told us it would be hard. We were very excited to be having twins, but we were very daunted by the task of how we are going to manage everything. My wife was working in banking at the time.
I had a busy job. I was travelling around. How are we going to manage this as a team and as a partnership? We knew it would put us under an element of strain. So I think, yeah, we were very excited. We felt very blessed that we had healthy, happy children that were on the way, but there was a healthy dose of concern about how we were going to manage it.
Qin En 05:42
Absolutely. And a lot of how, because a lot of the preparation goes [to] assuming that you have one child at a time, but now you have to prepare two of everything. And also the part where you mentioned about balancing careers, your travels. So what were perhaps some of the changes that you had to make on the Workfront in preparation or upon arrival of the two daughters?
Mark 06:03
It's so easy to look at it now, now we nailed it. We got it. I didn't get it right. Actually, at the beginning, I tried to keep every element of my life as is. So I tried to sort of wedge this giant change into a normal career. And I think at the time, on reflection, having just clear cleaner boundaries would have been much better. So just more planning around my travel, and how I was going to think that through how I was going to agree with that mutually within the business versus what was required versus where I was required at home.
So prior to children, the home didn't really have a huge amount of voice in my career. Everything's career-led, and we would adjust, I don't know if you've found something similar, and then suddenly that changes where you have to bring the home into your career and you have to find that balance.
And it really depends on your manager. At times, I find that if you've got a manager who also had to make that adjustment, they're possibly more understanding than a manager that hasn't, and that comes with its own challenges.
Qin En 07:01
Exactly. So I completely identified [with] that. In fact, that was one of the reasons why I started this podcast because I was just assuming work would be normal and almost like it's a hobby.
Mark 07:10
Yes.
Qin En 07:10
Kids, you slot that in your free time, you're off to work, but we realised that absolutely wasn’t the case. Yeah.
Mark 07:17
Yeah.
Qin En 07:17
You talked a bit about boundaries, Mark. How do those boundaries settings look like over the past six years, because you said, of course, at the start, perhaps that was something that we are on YouTube, we had to figure out. But of course, over the past six years, you have grown. How have you grown?
Mark 07:31
On my calendar every day, I block out my time for dinner with my children. I will block out those moments. I still feel guilty about doing it just as that's how I've been programmed, but I will block out that period for the time with kids.
I will commit to wherever possible doing their bedtime and bath time and getting them on the bus in the morning.
Qin En 07:49
Nice.
Mark 07:50
What we've agreed is what are the must-haves for the kids that they get enough time with me and with my wife and what can I then structure around that? Whereas I think if I look back six years, it was probably more fluid.
I would have less of a routine because I was moving around trying to keep all parties happy. So I think that structure, just that planning has helped enormously and also I've noticed, with our kids themselves, they now know when I'm working and when I'm Dad. And I'm sure you know, this, there's just inherent guilt as a parent constantly.
Qin En 08:21
Yes.
Mark 08:22
It's a black box. You could absolutely always do more when it comes to being a dad or a parent, you could spend that extra five minutes and I've had to be comfortable with myself that it's enough. It's okay, what I'm doing. And actually, the quality of what I do is more important than the quantity, looking back on relationships with your own parents.
It's just those small moments. Some of them [weren't] anything mind-blowing or big it wasn't going to, like, Universal Studios or that time. It was just something small that you remember. Like, I remember my dad driving me to a swimming lesson and just having a chat with him and that, and that's what stuck with me.
And so that's the kind of stuff that I think we become guilty [of], that we got to create amazing life-changing experiences for our kids. And it's actually the more mundane stuff that they remember when you were just present and there for them.
Qin En 09:08
Yeah. I fully agree with that. It's so true. It's those small moments that count often, I guess, pre-COVID there's this temptation to spend lots of money, go for holidays and all of that, and that's great, but I think, really, what brings those memories, those relationships, it's the small things that we do every day.
So you talked a bit about that special moment you shared with your dad with the swimming lessons. Tell me about what those special moments look like with you and your family.
Mark 09:33
It's probably the quiet moments. It’s like– So for me, coming down and I find my kids are sitting. It's not always like this, but you know, they’re reading a book, my wife's there, maybe with our baby and we're all just calm and settled? That's a really nice moment. Getting outside, going for walks on the beach or going off to a park with our dog. I didn't mention that. We've got a dog called Nacho, who was another COVID decision that joined the family. So I think it's nothing out of the ordinary for us. It's just those moments where you can all be together and honestly, if you can avoid having a phone there.
If you can just sort of try and be present. I think that makes it really special.
Qin En 10:12
It's so tough. But by force, I think it's one of those things that just always [pops] and the notification as the pop-up, the emails you have to check. It's so tough.
Mark 10:21
Yeah. Because you want to take photos. So you've got your phone there with you and then suddenly you're going and taking a photo and you see a message and then you're looking at your son and they're saying something to you and you're off again.
My kids have got the same. They call people phone zombies. So they're like, don't be a phone zombie. They're finely tuned to try and spot me when I turn into a phone zombie where I kind of switch off. And that helps also to keep me in line.
Qin En 10:44
Over the past six years, it must have been a joy to raise your two daughters. You're actually the first parent I've interviewed on the podcast that has twins. So you have to tell me, how different or how similar are they, as time goes by?
Mark 10:56
Sorry. I've got an infant daughter and I've got a boy and a girl twin.
Qin En 10:59
Oh, a boy and a girl twin. Okay. Got it.
Mark 11:01
Yes. So in Singapore, I've learned a very handy phrase when getting into grabs, which is “Lóngfèng tāi”, which means phoenix and dragon.
This is very lucky over here in Singapore. There's something quite cool that there's a good thing about twins, which is you realise because you parent them in the same way and they're incredibly different. You realise where your influence starts and where it stops, which is– Because you've got two different outcomes, you realise, “Hey, this isn't entirely on my parenting when things go right and when things go wrong”.
Qin En 11:29
Right.
Mark 11:30
There [are] things that you're trying to help them with. Naturally, as a parent, you're like, “Oh, this is my fault. I did this because I was worried about X or Y. I've put this on them”. And you do realise there's just inherent traits in their character that they come with.
So they are very, very different. My daughter is very carefree and artistic and fun. And is someone who does something and worries about it later. My son is very– He's a planner. and a thinker. Really likes to work through things and understand things in their entirety before he'll move forward. So they look at things very differently and inevitably get on brilliantly or [fight] like cats and dogs when I come down.
Qin En 12:08
That's wonderful. And it's almost incredible to hear [the] same parenting style, they were born on the same day, but yet they have so different kind[s] of personalities.
Mark 12:16
Yeah.
Qin En 12:17
What are some of the things that you and your wife do to really help them grow? To express? And also, I guess the next question is more [on the] challenges, because managing two at the same time, it is tough.
Mark 12:27
Yeah. And it's so easy to come off on these things that you've got it now. Because to give the perfect answer and it's not always practical or reasonable. I think one of the things that we always tried to instil is trying not to always answer their questions, but get them to think of the answer. So we'll try and work through things with them quite a lot.
So that's just an instinct we both built up like, “Hey, why don't you think that is”? And we'll give them guidance. It's not that we'll leave it hanging there, but just getting them to think things through first. We also really early on, we [made] "can't" a banned word in the house. So "can't" is a banned word.
Qin En 13:01
Wow.
Mark 13:01
That we forced them to change it. And this is from a very young age to "how can I"? So they don't say, “I can't, I can't reach that glass”. We ask them to say, “How can I reach that glass”? Yeah. And it's really, I think that has actually had a big impact on them. It's one of the few things we really stuck with and follow through with them and just changing that mindset of solutions versus a fixed mindset.
It's, I think, something that helps kids in today's world enormously as they venture out into the world. So those were a couple of things that we did that I think have worked really really well.
Qin En 13:32
Yeah, I'm going to stay on there just for a moment, because I think that it's so small, but it's so powerful because it really shifts the mindset of almost calling things out as what it is.
Sometimes, accepting things as they are versus taking ownership and figuring out how [you can] go about doing that.
I'm curious. How did you or your wife come to this? Did you read it somewhere? Did it just occur in your conversations? Did you get inspired somewhere?
Mark 13:56
Well, it's interesting. So I heard my son, he kept saying I can't do it.
And so I didn't necessarily read it, but the philosophy is definitely elsewhere. And the typical thing you'd expect is someone to say, I can do it. Don't say, I can't say you can do it. But I thought actually, there's probably a tool in here that can help them. I worked for STRIPE. You may notice Heinz company out here, one of their principles is optimism, and you can look at optimism as just being very positive about everything that you see.
That's not how it's intended and that's not how I look at it. I look at it as seeing problems as temporary. So you see things as I can get through this, I know that something's not easy, but I can figure out a part. And so that for me is a real core value. So I want it to instil something to help the kids aligned to that as well.
It doesn't always work, but it helps.
Qin En 14:46
Yeah. And it's almost a drill, rinse and repeat so that it really becomes ingrained. And I'm sure you see that gradually over time. That's the mindset that they adopt.
Mark 14:54
They pulled me up on it as well. When I say can't they're like, "Ah! banned word". Yeah.
Qin En 14:59
Wonderful. So with the experience of raising twins with the newborn. How has the past three months been? Is it almost a walk in the park?
Mark 15:09
So easy. No, it is. It's had its challenges. Definitely.
Qin En 15:12
Hmm.
Mark 15:13
So there's a six-year gap between us. So it felt like being a parent all over again. We were learning it.
Qin En 15:18
Right.
Mark 15:18
Um, what has been lovely is the kids have, definitely, and you see this in your own house.
Everyone's role adjusts quite naturally. So the kids have created room for the newborn. They know when we're available, when we're not. And I think that has worked really nicely. And honestly, Sophia, our youngest, is just not interested in us as parents. All she wants to do is stare at the dog and the kids.
They are the most interesting characters in the house. So that makes a huge difference. Just having all of us parenting in some way. And also it has just been very, very difficult [to find] that time. We'd got our routine work down in sunny Ham to slot in. My wife is very much 24/7 with Sophia, the additional burden to make sure everyone is looked after and everyone gets enough care, I guess.
Qin En 16:04
Yeah.
Mark 16:04
And family time is definitely a challenge…
Qin En 16:06
Exactly.
Mark 16:07
… continues to be. Yeah.
Qin En 16:08
I feel like it's almost like phases and just as how you are settling into one, getting comfortable, then there's a new addition to the family and you [have] to reject everything and figure it out again.
Mark 16:17
Yeah. So my father is a family lawyer.
Qin En 16:20
Oh, okay.
Mark 16:21
He does a lot around relationships and parents. And one thing he always said to me when I was growing up, which I thought was a fantastic way of looking at a relationship is that people think of marriage as one relationship, but it's actually not. You have about seven relationships within the marriage.
That is not to say that you're doing anything that you shouldn't be doing. What he meant was there's the relationship when you first meet, there's the relationship. There’s a relationship when you get engaged, there's the relationship with your newlyweds, but you have your first child and each one is different and the dynamic changes in your relationship.
And I also, as a really healthy way to look at how relationships do, can drift apart, can come back together at different times and segment it in that way. I thought it was such a smart way to look at life from relationships and that pertains to family as well.
Qin En 17:04
Absolutely.
Mark 17:05
Yeah.
Qin En 17:05
So, Mark, I noticed that you have been at STRIPE for less than a year and you know how people always say new job, new kid, those things, generally, you try to avoid that.
Mark 17:14
Yeah.
Mark 17:14
Talk to me a bit about that. Was there any concern, what was the thinking behind that?
Mark 17:18
Yeah, it was total madness [on] my part, but not something I could really plan or mitigate in a sense. So one, STRIPE has been incredibly supportive of me with a newborn and making sure that, you know, I can balance things with parental leave and things like that.
So STRIPE and my manager have been incredibly supportive. The other side of it is just my wife as well, who has been incredible. And I think that support structure to enable me to throw myself at this job whilst we're sort of working with a newborn has been amazing. We sat down and talked about how we were going to do this.
What was fair? How do we divide things up? How do I take maybe more of a load off my wife on the weekend and how do we divide that work? So there was some thinking about it to make sure that there were no surprises. And I think what we learned from the twins as well is that we sort of agree on what our roles are and try [to] stick to that as much as possible because being a parent, there is this kind of feeling of it's very hard to recognize each other's role, it’s very difficult.
Qin En 18:20
Yes.
Mark 18:20
But everyone feels like they're working incredibly hard.
Qin En 18:23
Exactly.
Mark 18:23
Perhaps at times, feeling unappreciated for what they're doing. And so that's really important that we both recognize what each other are doing in this scenario to support each other.
Qin En 18:34
Agreed. So maybe tell us a bit more about how that workload is currently split.
Mark 18:39
Yeah. So in terms of a routine, like I said, during the week, the weekend we can have two different impact[s]. So. we've kind of figured out. I'll get the kids onto the bus, take the dog for a walk, [and] go for a run. And then I'll pretty much lock myself in my office or go to the office for the day until 5:30 when the kids are home and we'll do dinner time.
My wife from that period is looking after the baby, making sure that she's okay throughout the day. And then she'll hand over the baby. We’ll go to bed about six o'clock and then I'll get the kids bed and bath time. So at the moment, during the week, I will probably spend a little bit more time with our older kids and my wife will spend more time with the baby.
And then we try and change that up on the weekend, but I'll spend a little bit more time with the baby.
Qin En 19:18
Nice.
Mark 19:19
And my wife would be a bit more with the kids. That's the general process that we work with. But it works differently for everyone, but right now that's what we've settled on.
Qin En 19:26
Gotcha. And I'm curious, when was the decision for your wife to perhaps stop out of the workforce and be at home for the most part?
Mark 19:34
Yeah. So with twins, our wife went back to work after I think it was after six months, that was tough actually to sort of get [to] that stage. They still feel so young to leave them at that point. So that was really challenging. So this time around, my wife had actually decided she wanted to take a pause in her career and think about what her next step was and be very conscious of it.
And then actually Sophia came around. So it wasn't necessarily a conscious choice to stop working for Sophia. Her intention would always be to go back to work. Now it's about just getting the time to actually think about what she wants to do when she goes back. But at the moment it's quite that bringing up a newborn is fairly all-encompassing and that's really our focus for now.
Qin En 20:15
Gotcha. That's so fascinating. And Mark, now that you're also in a leadership role at STRIPE, how do you think about engineering this idea of work-life balance, also for your team?
Mark 20:25
Yeah. So I think it's about empathy and I've got certain people in my team that probably don't want that work-life balance. They want to just throw everything at work and I've got others that are looking for more balance.
And I think it's understanding where people sit in their journey because I was probably in the former as I was coming through. And then I moved to the latter. And it's not [about] forcing on either party. It's just working with empathy, with how people want to balance their lives out.
Um, how I look at it is really, and I think working within the guidelines of the company, it's really well balanced in terms of giving people space and time to fulfil those parts of their lives that are crucial outside of work. We had a very interesting company talk around leadership and they'd be training Olympic athletes.
What was fascinating about them was the majority of the time when you were working with Olympians is actually a lot of it is focused on recovery, not on the actual training.
Qin En 21:18
Yes.
Mark 21:18
And because they're such highly motivated individuals, they will push themselves. Where they need help is winding down. And I think working in tech with such talented people that do push themselves, you don't actually have to be very much pushy.
A lot of it is around helping them create boundaries. A lot of it is around helping them also restore and recover in those periods when they aren't working intently. And I think that's still a bit that everyone needs to get better at, particularly in COVID where you are available 24 hours a day.
That's been really challenging that recovery.
Qin En 21:51
Yeah, that's a really fascinating perspective, but one that I can't help but agree [with], because a lot of times in tech naturally, the people who join because of the fast-paced dynamic nature, they already have that energy and the motivation like you were saying.
So your job as a leader, it's almost a shepherd and to still channel these pools of energy into productive users and making sure that it also doesn't run out or dry out, especially, I'm sure, for the younger folks in your team without families, you just want to go full steam seven days a week.
Mark 22:21
Exactly. Because you want a long career, you want to pace your energy and use it in the right way.
So it's not like my role is to get a run on some lounges and then everyone just relaxed. It's more just trying to, a part of it is helping them with that recovery and how to pace themselves for a long sprint.
Qin En 22:28
Got it. Now we're talking about recovery. What is perhaps one or two things that for you yourself, you find your way of recovery?
Mark 22:45
I'm like a reluctant exerciser. So I know it's good for me, but I have to drag myself to do it everyday. So nothing's mind-blowing in terms of going for a swim or going for a run or even just walking the dog. This is natural with a lot of sales, but there is kind of an introvert[ed] side of me that just needs my space.
I just need time, spend our whole day. I'm in a sales role so we're speaking to people every day, talking, listening. And so I find just having even an hour of just silence to myself where I haven't caught my fire and where I'm just able to just let my thoughts go. And that's normally going for a walk that actually is really powerful for me as so much gets done.
And the other thing, and this, yeah, this is a relatively recent thing I've done is writing a journal at the end of the day. Like, a short summary of my day really helps me process and kind of dump what I want to dump onto that. So that I have a clear night's sleep and I can recover a little bit in my sleep because I think that is also vital that there's some way of decompressing after a really intense day and the kids and everything else, otherwise it does build up.
Qin En 23:51
Exactly. And I think for most of us as introverts, we do need that downtime because talking to people all the time and for you, sales role. Especially, literally, you probably [have] meetings most parts of the day. So you really need that time to recharge. And to be energised.
Mark 24:05
Yeah, my mother-in-law was a teacher and she used to crave silence. ‘Cause she's just been attacked by five-year-olds for about 20 years. So I can definitely relate to that.
Qin En 24:14
Gotcha. So Mark, also, one thing I'm curious about is status quos and stereotypes of parenting dads versus moms. Tell me maybe of one status quo stereotype that you disagree with and you want to change or do differently.
Mark 24:30
Yeah, I think Peppa pig has a lot to answer for when it comes to dads. I think it's changing, but I think there is a perception that dads are somewhat unreliable or potentially make mistakes and a bit kind of bumbling, I guess. And I think the majority of dads I've met do an amazing amount of work. They're not going off in the days of kind of wandering off to the golf club for the weekend.
I think that's gone for a lot of parents. I think there [are] equal strains on both now. And I think that is being recognised more and more, but I think that would be my stereotype of, kind of, the bumbling dad, Peppa Pig-style, not maybe the most kind of effective parent. I think a lot of us do research.
We do read, we want to understand and be better parents. We will see this as a real investment in our future. And I think it's not that there's a moms versus dads thing going on, but it's more, I think there is a, both sides have an equal role to play, and that's not always presented in discussions or in the media necessarily.
Qin En 25:25
I think the media has a huge part to play in that. It's almost like the stereotypical dads. It's the guy who sits on the couch, [has] a beer and watches a football game.
Mark 25:35
I mean, don't get me wrong. I would love to do that, but I, it's just, it's just not going to fly at home, sadly. Yeah.
Qin En 25:41
Oh, so you also talked about the idea of research, looking stuff online. So what's perhaps one area that you are curious about right now as a parent?
Mark 25:50
There was a book I'm reading. I'm just trying to remember the name of it pertains specifically to sensorial issues within children. I'm just really interested in how things have changed within the school environment. It's called the self, my self-regulated child. I have to check that.
Certain stimuli can affect children differently to other children. So whether it's noise or bright lights or too much stimuli. And if you think about a classroom that's an incredibly noisy, crazy environment, and looking at it now, some kids will act up in that scenario and actually misbehave and throw themselves around.
And when I was a kid at school, those kids would be sent to the back of the room. They would be called naughty. They would go down a very different track. And what's really interesting is this, this kind of growing awareness, isn't a conscious choice by kids to be naughty. It's sometimes a reaction to their environment and what I'm noticing from the school, you know, our kids go to a great school is that they are adjusting their approach to children that maybe struggle with those kinds of sensorial overload.
So it's a really interesting book, kind of, in understanding where that comes from, this. Just a lot more Interrogation to why this is happening versus just going, "Ah. You've got a difficult kid, send them to the back or kick them out [of] the school". And I think that it's a fascinating area for me.
Qin En 27:05
Gotcha. And perhaps I know this might be early, but what's one takeaway that you could share with the parents on listening here from the book?
Mark 27:13
From the book, the takeaway is to try your best, to understand the behaviour without just kicking into the, perhaps, the traditional way that we've been raised where, perhaps, ego comes into it as my child should not be behaving like this. I wasn't like that. I wasn't raised like that. I would never speak to my dad like that or mum like that.
Qin En 27:35
Yeah.
Mark 27:35
Those things that inherently come in that force things that maybe don't help your child, actually, it just inflames the situation.
The takeaway for me is if you have a level of empathy for where that behaviour is coming from, your response is actually probably more beneficial in that scenario.
Qin En 27:52
True. The idea to understand and empathise. And I think you pointed out, also, a very valuable point of not comparing. It's so easy to compare yourself, your growing-up years, or even those of others, those of peers, but that's just unhealthy.
Mark 28:06
Yeah, exactly right. And social media also isn't helpful when you're seeing an Instagram that everyone would perfect buttoned up children that are kind of waving politely. I think it's important that you just run your own race when it comes to parenting.
Qin En 28:19
Absolutely. So Mark, if there's one lesson you've learned as a parent in tech, what would that be?
Mark 28:25
I think I spoke about a little bit earlier but it’s about quality over quantity. So [it’s about] making sure that those times that you are parenting you’re trying to really add value and make it special, not in a blockbuster way, but in a way that is just meaningful to your child.
That even if you can only give them 30 minutes a day, that 30 minutes is high quality and with you and no other distractions. So I think that's it, which is you can't always control your schedule or your availability, but to make sure that when you do have that time, you make the most of it.
Qin En 28:58
Got it, quality over quantity.
Mark 28:59
Yeah.
Qin En 28:59
That's a wonderful way to sum up this podcast. Well, for some of our audience will love to connect with you, how can they best do so?
Mark 29:06
Definitely feel free to connect to me on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to make connections and love to meet some of your listeners.
Qin En 29:12
Sure. We may include your LinkedIn profile link in the show notes. Well, thanks so much for joining me Mark today. It's a real pleasure speaking with you.
Mark 29:18
Thanks so much.
Qin En 29:24
Thanks for listening to the Parents in Tech Podcast with me, your host, Qin En. We hope you were inspired on how to raise kids and build companies. To catch up on earlier episodes or stay updated with upcoming ones, head over to www.parents.fm to join our community of parents in tech. There, you can also drop me a question, idea, feedback or suggestion. Once again, the website it's www.parents.fm.
That's all for this episode, folks. See you next time.
