I grew up in a house with a computer, and as soon as I showed any interest in it my parents did everything they could to get me training with it. For example I was sent to an intro to BASIC course when I was 8 years old at the local community college, and then was sent to computer camps nearly every summer after that until I graduated high school
Ask HN: Which parental action increased your happiness and success as an adult?
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Re: Ask HN: Which parental action increased your happiness and success as an adult?
#12This one is probably very different than many people experienced, but I credit these things for being in the top 1% of earnings for my American co-hort (starting race, gender, educational attainment and economic class.) My parents were theologians and both grew up as missionaries kids in incredibly dangerous, remote, environments, the best thing they did was teach us to think critically and parse communication (espec…
Religious indoctrination was a negative in my experience, and contradictory to the critical thinking and skepticism taught of everything not blessed by the approved authorities.
Re: Ask HN: Which parental action increased your happiness and success as an adult?
#13I'm not sure there was any one thing. I will say there was a big negative - teaching that society is a meritocracy and to have integrity. I would be much more successful and happy if they told me how crooked society really is.
Society is not a pure meritocracy, but I think it’s more merit-based than random. And people have agency over their success. This is despite society having crooked elements.
Re: Ask HN: Which parental action increased your happiness and success as an adult?
#14We kept the computer in the lounge/living room.
This began in the 8-bit days when it used the family TV, but even when it had its own display it continued to be in the family room.
That meant even when I was coding, or making documents, web pages, or playing games, it was easy for my parents to take an interest in what I was doing and kept it on the side of being a family/social activity. It also let them keep a healthy balance on the amount of time spent, too.
Re: Ask HN: Which parental action increased your happiness and success as an adult?
#15My parents would talk about their struggles growing up without any money. My mother who was orphaned at a very young age and was raised by her grand mother would tell us about how she would have to erase their books and turn over their school uniforms and restitch them when they got faded when a new school year began because they couldn’t afford new clothes or books. My uncle who was all of 8 months when my grand par…
Agreed, thanks OP for the prompt, for myself.
My father was really stingy with money and wouldn’t gift me anything. All my friends drove cars in high school. I didn’t feel jealous (rides everywhere!) but it felt good when I earned my first car (and, uh, learned stick shift on the drive home). My mother didn’t spend a lot but never worried about money while working exactly the job she wanted how she wanted (including taking the risk of starting her own business to run her way).
You can guess they had slightly different upbringings. I had a solid middle-class experience growing up, never was spoilt but there wasn’t much I wanted, either. Supported by the privileges of socioeconomic class, between them I got a healthy balance of fiscal responsibility and freedom from letting that dictate my life.
Re: Ask HN: Which parental action increased your happiness and success as an adult?
#16Moving to the US had the largest impact by far.
Re: Ask HN: Which parental action increased your happiness and success as an adult?
#17I'm not sure there was any one thing. I will say there was a big negative - teaching that society is a meritocracy and to have integrity. I would be much more successful and happy if they told me how crooked society really is.
Society is not a pure meritocracy, but I think it’s more merit-based than random. And people have agency over their success. This is despite society having crooked elements.
It seems to me that it's more about luck, chronyism, backroom deals, and backstabbing than it is about merit. One's abilities only go so far, then you become victim to politics.
Re: Ask HN: Which parental action increased your happiness and success as an adult?
#18This one is probably very different than many people experienced, but I credit these things for being in the top 1% of earnings for my American co-hort (starting race, gender, educational attainment and economic class.) My parents were theologians and both grew up as missionaries kids in incredibly dangerous, remote, environments, the best thing they did was teach us to think critically and parse communication (espec…
Religious indoctrination was a negative in my experience, and contradictory to the critical thinking and skepticism taught of everything not blessed by the approved authorities.
Strong agree, big part of why I'm not involved with any theist _anything_ anymore, it was a unique experience and my parents were unique people, some of the few people I've met who really valued systematic thinking, arguing from first principles and were raised in a very plural cultural environment. Not many 5-15 year olds get age appropriate training in cultural bias and taught to see that so much people tie to their personal or cultural identity is just recent memetic trend.
The feedback loop of regular and default critical analysis really prepared all of us children for the internet age, a mental firewall inculcated at a young age to analyze instructed belief and media literacy is not a common experience, I did started appreciating it during highschool.
They were also strongly anti shame and strangely were against both non-conformity and conformity. We all ended up being very different people, and different in almost every way from them with but we share their agreeableness, openness to new experience, and tend to the analytical.
Re: Ask HN: Which parental action increased your happiness and success as an adult?
#19I'm Vietnamese-American, so I'd say making me pho every once in a while.
Yeah...I know you can get it here in the states, but having it at home made me really appreciate that simple things can really bring happiness.
Re: Ask HN: Which parental action increased your happiness and success as an adult?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Society is not a pure meritocracy, but I think it’s more merit-based than random. And people have agency over their success. This is despite society having crooked elements.
It seems to me that it's more about luck, chronyism, backroom deals, and backstabbing than it is about merit. One's abilities only go so far, then you become victim to politics.
Politics is its own skillset in which merit plays a role, no?