Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods • Hacker News Board

Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods

#21

Post by anonymous_fun » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 1:41 PM UTC

mmsimanga wrote: post #7

My most upvoted comment on HN was when I made reference to fact that I had grown up in African village. I was totally unaware that this was a something worth sharing but it seemed to pique people's interest. As I didn't know any better at the time, I never felt that I lacked anything. I had two parents, grand parents and many cousins around. We spent the whole time playing, "exploring" and "hunting". Not once did it…

Growing up hungry, with worn out second hand clothes, and dysfunctional families happens also in post-industrial societies. The hunger for knowledge and escape drove me to the library and the outdoors. I remember being young and thinking, if I can get $1500 dollars together, I will have made it. Every decade it seems to get another zero on the end of where I think I can be successful, and I continue to love to goto work. In contrast, many of the people I work with went to elite universities and had curated upbringings. I see them also be successful and start at a much higher footing in life. I put my kids in the second camp, for better or worse. Growing up hungry shapes me to this day decades later.

Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods

#22

Post by phakding » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 1:47 PM UTC

mmsimanga wrote: post #16

phakding wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My story is not too different. I grew up in a dirt poor Asian village. We didn't have running water and for first few years of my life, not even a toilet. Parents taking active part in kids education was not common. I remember my parents bought be one toy when I was in second or third grade, and that was it. We used to get one pair of new clothes once every year during festivals. That's about it. Nobody ever celebrat…

Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading your comment. I am genuinely glad it all worked out for you. I can identify with not celebrating birthdays and the lack of toys. As a result it feels awkward when people wish me happy birthday. I see the term surviorship bias quite a lot on HN and I sometimes feel it applies to me. When debates happen on Africa and poverty I tend not to be as sympathetic. I get impatient and rath…

Thank you. I appreciate your sentiments.

There's definitely a survivorship bias. It worked out for me with lot of hard work and few strokes of luck here and there. I know bunch of my classmates from grade school who couldn't do much with their lives because they lacked resources and opportunities.

I understand your impatience with your countrymen, but without enough resources and opportunities, it's hard to make any progress for vast majority. I know Americans like to tell their less fortunate to pick themselves up with their bootstraps, but that's an almost impossible task, literally and figuratively.

Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods

#23

Post by Arete31415 » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 1:48 PM UTC

I've had both experiences. I had very difficult home circumstances, and I "overcame" them at a challenging boarding school. Then I "couldn't handle" them in a challenging Ivy League environment, where I felt isolated and developed depression.

I have a few takeaways from these experiences:

1. The difference for me between "succeeding in spite of" and "failing because of" was in a few areas. One, good help being available if I sought it out. Two, being able to find a few niches - academically or in extra-curriculars -- where I could excel and feel mastery. And three, having involved, concerned adults around who cared -- even if they weren't "yours" (not your family, not teachers in your major -- they're still there and they still care).

2. Other peoples' judgments about whether you are "succeeding" or "failing" are, in fact, part of the problem. That's why I put those terms in quotes. Sometimes leaving a bad situation to take care of yourself is success. Sometimes forcing yourself to look good on paper but ignoring your insides is failure. Who knows what's really going on with other people? Not me.

3. Good health care, especially good mental health care, especially good mental health care that looks at the whole body -- these are extremely important.

4. Focusing on resilience is important, but it's only half the story. The truth is, most kids who experience hardships are affected by them, often quite seriously. It's better that we as a society figure out how to reduce poverty and misery to help most kids, rather than figure out how to help a few more kids be the exception to the rule.

We need to get back more to a group mentality, rather than an individualistic rising-from-the-trash-fire mentality.

Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods

#24

Post by watwut » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

pvaldes wrote: post #8

An more interesting thing to me is why resilience is so overlooked nowadays. We "design" young people to shatter like a glass when bad things happen.

The resilience is talked about every other week. And we also have tons of data about people who had difficult childhoods or kind of struggle when young and did not came out winners in the end. Or did became winners battling life long depression, alcoholism and personal problems. Or became winners in winners in way you would not want your kids to win. [x] Article itself mentions it in "Social scientists have shown that these risks are real" sentence. Real, indeed. Abusive alcoholic parent may force you to problem solve, but a kid raised by alcoholic parent is also more likely to end up alcoholic too.

There is also interesting question on whether you would rather raise kid for the hall of fame or whether you would rather raise kid for what you think is good for that kid. The two goals are not always the same.

Current society does not exactly have surge of poor kids raising through the ranks and rich kids struggling. It is other way round, poor kids tend to remain poor whole their lives and rich kids tend to remain rich. There is enough of data on that nowdays.

When you look at past generations and look at details, you see a lot of problems in them too. Plenty of them had real problems - be it violence, alcoholism, drug abuse or other self harming ways to deal with problems. We tend to look at past people through rose colored glasses, but they were real people, not always best of best.

[x] Hitler was homeless at one point. Lenins brother was executed. World would be better if those two did not became resilient and capable in way they did became.

Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods

#25

Post by saalweachter » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

mmsimanga wrote: post #7

My most upvoted comment on HN was when I made reference to fact that I had grown up in African village. I was totally unaware that this was a something worth sharing but it seemed to pique people's interest. As I didn't know any better at the time, I never felt that I lacked anything. I had two parents, grand parents and many cousins around. We spent the whole time playing, "exploring" and "hunting". Not once did it…

I didn't really have a childhood that could be described as "difficult", but having grown up on a farm and having ended up workin' in the big city for a tech company, I suspect we have at least one common experience.

Do you ever sit and think sometimes how weird it is, to know all these things and have all these skills from your earlier life that have, like, no relevance or use in your current life?

It's weird to me how much I know about pigs, tractors and corn/soybeans/wheat that just doesn't come up much when you're sitting at a computer typing all day. (Hay bales should be stacked "sideways", to allow air to flow up through them, so that they will dry safely and not spontaneously combust. With straw it is fine to stack it any which way; some people prefer to stack it with the wires up so that it is easier to walk on, others the same as hay for consistency.)

Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods

#26

Post by rdsubhas » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

mmsimanga wrote: post #7

My most upvoted comment on HN was when I made reference to fact that I had grown up in African village. I was totally unaware that this was a something worth sharing but it seemed to pique people's interest. As I didn't know any better at the time, I never felt that I lacked anything. I had two parents, grand parents and many cousins around. We spent the whole time playing, "exploring" and "hunting". Not once did it…

> I read somewhere though, I think one of those decade long Harvard studies that having chores when young was the biggest factor in how successful people became.

That seems to make sense.

> I presume poor kids have to play a bigger role, hence have more chores in ensuring that household is fed and clothed.

But this seems to imply that poor kids are more successful because they do a lot of chores by virtue of being poor.

Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods

#27

Post by madeuptempacct » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

mmsimanga wrote: post #7

My most upvoted comment on HN was when I made reference to fact that I had grown up in African village. I was totally unaware that this was a something worth sharing but it seemed to pique people's interest. As I didn't know any better at the time, I never felt that I lacked anything. I had two parents, grand parents and many cousins around. We spent the whole time playing, "exploring" and "hunting". Not once did it…

I don't buy that - my chores were a waste of ing time. I spent a lot of my childhood picking weeds, removing Colarado bugs from potatoes, etc.

Could have learned so much instead.

Edit: I think the main benefit I got from it is time to think about other stuff and some apathy to comforts/luxuries which a lot of my peers don't seem to be able to related to.

Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods

#28

Post by madeuptempacct » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 2:28 PM UTC

anonymous_fun wrote: post #21

mmsimanga wrote: post #7

My most upvoted comment on HN was when I made reference to fact that I had grown up in African village. I was totally unaware that this was a something worth sharing but it seemed to pique people's interest. As I didn't know any better at the time, I never felt that I lacked anything. I had two parents, grand parents and many cousins around. We spent the whole time playing, "exploring" and "hunting". Not once did it…

Growing up hungry, with worn out second hand clothes, and dysfunctional families happens also in post-industrial societies. The hunger for knowledge and escape drove me to the library and the outdoors. I remember being young and thinking, if I can get $1500 dollars together, I will have made it. Every decade it seems to get another zero on the end of where I think I can be successful, and I continue to love to goto w…

I think part of it is that if you grow up poor you see a rise, where is a lot of people you are working with are happy where they are, although others perceive them as successful.

At risk of sounding pretentious, as you move through the economic strata of society, you realize that most people don't move - they are just where their initial socio-economic status put them.

So as a poor kid moving, you understand the ability to move up at a deeper level, and you are also capable of making moves.

I do find that the higher I move, the harder it is to compete.

Anyway, that's my rant. P.S. I am not implying I am somewhere high in life - far from it, but took a lot of little jumps to get even here, which is kind of depressing.

Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods

#29

Post by obelix_ » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 2:33 PM UTC

Arete31415 wrote: post #23

I've had both experiences. I had very difficult home circumstances, and I "overcame" them at a challenging boarding school. Then I "couldn't handle" them in a challenging Ivy League environment, where I felt isolated and developed depression. I have a few takeaways from these experiences: 1. The difference for me between "succeeding in spite of" and "failing because of" was in a few areas. One, good help being availa…

Good points and well put.

The people/environment around the person going through the trauma makes a big difference to outcomes imho. And usually it "takes a village". Because though most people who care will want to help, they each bring different strengths and weaknesses to the table. It's a magic combo of the different strengths that make a diff. And realising that and raising group consiouness about it I agree is badly needed these days.

Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods

#30

Post by mmsimanga » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

anonymous_fun wrote: post #21

mmsimanga wrote: post #7

My most upvoted comment on HN was when I made reference to fact that I had grown up in African village. I was totally unaware that this was a something worth sharing but it seemed to pique people's interest. As I didn't know any better at the time, I never felt that I lacked anything. I had two parents, grand parents and many cousins around. We spent the whole time playing, "exploring" and "hunting". Not once did it…

Growing up hungry, with worn out second hand clothes, and dysfunctional families happens also in post-industrial societies. The hunger for knowledge and escape drove me to the library and the outdoors. I remember being young and thinking, if I can get $1500 dollars together, I will have made it. Every decade it seems to get another zero on the end of where I think I can be successful, and I continue to love to goto w…

You bring up so three points that I think about quite a lot. First point, I often wonder what impact the curated upbringing I am giving my daugther will have on her future outlook on life. I know I can't possibly know and she will ber her own person but I am a parent and I do wonder. Doing what you love was an alien concept to me and my peers. It was a case of doing what needed to be done. Fullstop. I ended up doing Computer Science because that is what was available. I probably would have prefered civil engineering but I had to make do with what I got (no I am not complaining). I don't know how to be the parent/person that says do what you love. I always have done what needed to be done.

On definition of success and adding another zero to your income. I don't hold an idealist view of village people. Having grown up with them I see them as normal people. You get happy village people you get vindictive villagers and your get carefree villagers. Having said that I have to conceed that village people seem to be less stressed than city people. They own less whether it is clothes, cars, bicycles ... and they worry less. I often look at how much we have in the cities compared to the villagers and intrigued by how much we have is still not enough. I guess we measure ourselves againsts our city neighbours and our "needs" grow with time. It seems the more we have the more we want and the more taxes we pay. I always make it point to visit the village once a year. Sit around, do nothing, with no urgency. It gives one more perspective on life.

The final point you touch on is how we may have started our journeys in different places and positions but we end up in similar positions (yes I know surviorship bias comes in here). Some of my colleagues come from gang ridden townships, some had a silver spoon and went to the best schools. You would never be able to tell listening to our conversations. We all discussing the Soccer World Cup, our kids coming birthday parties, corrupt politians, our bosses and the rising taxes. We all just people.