Live data from Hacker News

I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

wilwheaton.net

81–90 of 367 posts

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#81
post #75

Quoted post unavailable.

> It's a little sad that Mr. Wheaton felt the need to air his family grievances so publicly. If they were real and he was exploited, why is it unfair to discuss it? Conversation helps - this is how we make progress.

No post body was provided.

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#83
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chores and homework are a long way from forced hobbies and careers. The question is about pushing your kids to do things you think they should like.

It wasn't when the OP first posted the comment.

Sorry for that, I also commented on your initial reply to point out my edit. I agree with you about chores. There seem to be cultures who have it easier in that regard (kids derive purpose from doing chores), but those cultures have a totally different day to day life.

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#84
post #8

Wow Will was such a part of my childhood watching Star Trek. Obviously, he didn't appear often but he was memorable simply because there were so few people as young as him on the show. Sad to hear this all around. This also brought back memories of me being required to play piano growing up. I hated piano, performing (recitals), playing in general. I was terrrribbleee (still am) and was put up in lessons for 12 years…

I wish I was pushed as a child to play the piano. And I did it for my child. He endured it for a year. He's talented and he's at the beginner's level, but when we observed closely, he didn't want to practise. He only did it when we threatened him with stopping the lessons. So we just let it go. Now we have a piano at the house. He sometimes plays whatever he likes. Maybe he will pick it up later in his life. Maybe I…

My parents were similar (I played trombone, though I was terrible at it. Or I felt I was anyway).

One interesting thing, is the thing I am best at, I had to sneak and scrape and fight tooth and nail to do, which was learn to program on our PC: the thing that is my life and career now two decades on.

I've been programming my whole life, but all throughout my childhood my parents hated the idea of me spending my time on the computer tapping away at GameMaker v4 and work through QBasic and the C++ book a family friend gave me (I think I was using the Digital Mars compiler at the time?).

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#85
post #8

Wow Will was such a part of my childhood watching Star Trek. Obviously, he didn't appear often but he was memorable simply because there were so few people as young as him on the show. Sad to hear this all around. This also brought back memories of me being required to play piano growing up. I hated piano, performing (recitals), playing in general. I was terrrribbleee (still am) and was put up in lessons for 12 years…

That's something me and my wife struggle with now that we have a child. We both wish we had been pushed more when it comes to music lessons. So, we think we will try to get him to learn piano or an other instrument (except violin). However, we will most likely put a time limit, if after 3 years he still doesn't really like it, he can give it up.

The idea, is that I think that for certain things like music, it only really become enjoyable once one has developed a certain amount of competence. So 3 years mean having enough basics so that our son can decide if he likes it or not.

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#86
post #41
post #8

Wow Will was such a part of my childhood watching Star Trek. Obviously, he didn't appear often but he was memorable simply because there were so few people as young as him on the show. Sad to hear this all around. This also brought back memories of me being required to play piano growing up. I hated piano, performing (recitals), playing in general. I was terrrribbleee (still am) and was put up in lessons for 12 years…

I think a lot about how much pushing is the right amount. When I was very young I had piano lessons. My memories are only dim, but I think I enjoyed them. I also gave them up quite quickly. I distinctly remember trying to play a little tune and messing it up again and again. I didn't have the skills to deal with my frustration and anger. I didn't have the perseverance. Perhaps if someone had helped me through this I…

The way I handle this with my kids is that if they don't feel like going to some activity at some point I will try to give a bit of a push (sometimes it's more about leaving the current activity then going to the next). However, I make very sure they enjoy the activities. If my daughter say they want to stop generally we will stop immediately. I am quite lucky though, if anything they need to be held back a bit, my older sometimes complains that there are not enough days in the week because wants to try something more.

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#88
post #33
post #8

Wow Will was such a part of my childhood watching Star Trek. Obviously, he didn't appear often but he was memorable simply because there were so few people as young as him on the show. Sad to hear this all around. This also brought back memories of me being required to play piano growing up. I hated piano, performing (recitals), playing in general. I was terrrribbleee (still am) and was put up in lessons for 12 years…

> Music is a very "asian" or "chinese" thing to put your child through. Asian culture simply adopted American and English culture in this regard. In the United States circa 1950s and 1960s it was very common for children to be taking piano lessons, and owning a piano was also relatively common. Both the lessons and the piano itself were important status symbols, and having both were considered markers of being middle…

as a second generation Chinese American, at least growing up it seemed like keeping up with the rest of the community, but it wasn't really so much about being middle class, but more about the kind of "so and so's child is a star tennis player, a pianist, the class president, speaks three languages, and they're probably going to get into Harvard and my child is going to need to keep up."

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#89

Quoted post unavailable.

It's a little different whether your parents were "just" neglecting or impatient, compared to manipulative, abusive and basically robbing you of your childhood. Would you tell a rape victim the same?

He's carried this burden for a very long time. Maybe he thought it would go away. Then he seemed to have tried therapy. This appears to be just another attempt at getting over it; shouting it out to the world. And yes, he's "lucky" he became famous so this actually gets attention. For every successful child actor there have to be a hundred kids who didn't make it but weren't treated any better by their parents. So they're just some broke-ass adult sitting in a run-down bar drunkenly rambling about it.

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#90
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clarification: I‘m talking about self-actualization & leisure time here, not chores. > What is a healthy amount of pushing vs too much? There is no healthy amount of pushing, period. If you stop applying pressure, children will find their own thing, and that’s the best outcome for them. Just make sure they know the possibilities of what they could do. What would you have liked to do instead of learning piano? Did you…

I wish my parents had pushed me to practice piano. They subjected me to lessons for almost 2 years, and I didn't mind (although the 30 minute drive each way to the teacher's house sucked.) However, between lessons instead of practicing I would just fck off and improvise and try to teach myself popular songs instead of actually practicing, and I'm not talking about hours each day either, maybe more like a few minutes.…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN