[JFlash]

Yeah, I don't really know what I'm going to do if/when I'm a parent. Academia is calibrated around kids doing this "hoop-jumping" as early as possible, so do I push my theoretical children into this race or do I let them eat into precious time to figure things out?

[threatofrain]

I don't think you need to focus on all of the academic hoop jumping, most of which is a bit toxic for intellectual development, especially on the English & literature for K-12. Your kids will learn to jump the hoops and hopefully forget it once they graduate.

Rather, I would focus on a narrow range of activities, such as only math, reading and outdoors activity (sports / outdoors organization like scouts). The rest of their time would be up to them. If they wish to enroll in more activities, and your income so permits, then so be it. If they wish to meet with friends, then so be it.

Too many upper-middle class parents attempt to raise renaissance children, and I've found that most of my peers never really reach anywhere with their rennaisance skills. Their piano is whatever. Their kung fu is whatever. Their Chinese is whatever. Their art is whatever.

Yes, art, music, dance, foreign language school, martial arts, crafts, etc, can all be interesting. But there's also opportunity cost. When you're learning Chinese you're not learning math. When you're learning math you're not hanging out with friends.

In sum: Don't make a renaissance child. Focus on a few things and give the rest of the time to your children, preferably for outdoors or social time.

[zappo2938]

Both my parents have PhD's from Ivy League schools. My mom ended up doing research at MIT and my dad at Harvard. I joke too bad Ivy League schools don't teach people how to be good parents.

The place I think people get crushed is when kids are the smartest person in their class in high school at the top and then arriving at an Ivy League college are of average ability in comparison. Their self esteem is propped by being the best at academic subjects while their peers excel in sports or in a social hierarchy. All of a sudden, they are not the smartest kid in the class.

My parents were so upset when I decided I didn't want to go to college out of high school. I was doing minipreps, isolating DNA, PCR chain reaction, and making gels, in my dad's genetics laboratory at an Ivy League school which is basically cooking. I liked cooking so much I decided to be a chef. That is when the yelling and screaming started. I should have stayed in the career closet.

The worst part was after 8 years and a successful career cooking with my parents accepting my choice I decided I wanted to do other stuff. Now my parents were upset at me again and refused to pay for school. Really? We are going to start this again?

[epalmer]

As a parent of a recent college grad and a HS senior getting ready to trek off to college I would not pay for college for one of my kids if they waited 8 years. One gap year, okay so that is fine. But 8 years. My wife and I are looking forward to eventual retirement and want some control over our bank account. Eight years would put college payments solidly into my retirement years.

So from a practical standpoint cash flow is a consideration. From a dependency standpoint isn't eight years long enough for you to mature beyond financial and emotional dependency?

[qrendel]

On the other hand, if you've already set aside the money to pay for their college, why does it matter when they decide to go? You were presumably going to use it for their benefit, so why wouldn't you want it to be used for that same purpose, just in another way or at another time.

Not to imply a parent is obligated to pay, but parents aren't really obligated to pay when their kid is 18 either. It shouldn't affect retirement savings, unless spending increased in the intervening years and ate into the investment they had planned to make in their offspring.

[epalmer]

College costs continue to rise. And predictability of retirement funds are important as well. Did his parents know after 8 years he had an expectation they would be asked to pay for college?

Even though we have saved for my youngest to go to college we are expecting her to apply for many merit scholarships and we expect her to help with some expenses using summer internship earnings. The more she contributes the better her chance for ownership over the college outcome.

[qrendel]

I mean to say that I don't think there's a universal standard for when parents are or aren't obligated to pay for their kid's college. Some might have alternatively chosen to invest the money in their children another way, like using it to start a business or starting a stock/bonds portfolio. In that sort of scenario, tuition inflation would mostly mean paying a lower portion of the costs than would have happened 8 years prior.

In the case described, I somewhat question the motives, since (s)he described "screaming and yelling" over the choice of a different career, which seems to imply they sought a degree of control over his/her future. Keep in mind both were Ivy League PhD's. So perhaps they didn't see it as money set aside as an investment, but more as something they'd donate with conditions. Not wanting to pay could also be a way of punishing their children for not pursuing the career paths they'd wanted.

The problem in this case, imo, is that there wasn't an understanding between them about whether paying for college would still be an option in the future. Since that's an attitude that will differ from family to family, it doesn't seem unreasonable to think a given family would need to work it out for themselves ahead of time.

[epalmer]

My comments we not meant to defend the parents. I should have been clearer on that matter. And yes there should be conversations about funds for college and any conditions that apply.

>Some might have alternatively chosen to invest the money in their children another way, like using it to start a business or starting a stock/bonds portfolio.

I strongly support this for families where this works out. There is never one model fits all.

[copperx]

It amazes me how self-centered this comment is. It's your kids education you're taking about here.

[epalmer]

You are welcome to your opinion. Some parents choose to make their kids pay for the entire education even when they can afford to pay for college. They see it as a ownership and responsibility lesson. I've seen that work very well for several.

I don't see parenting as providing your kids with everything. I see it as provide your kids with the tools they need to be successful in life. Sometimes the hard way is the better way.

When a child is ~26 then hopefully they can be on their own.

I'm not sure how you can judge me self centered when I provided for the education of one child already and am ready for the 2nd one. I was pointing out that there are many dimensions of being a parent and providing for college.

[chris-pb]

In this case the "kids" are at least 26. At that point surely we can expect them to be able to fend for themselves?

[aaronem]

Only 26? Surely not. Why, at that age he might not even have a master's degree yet!

[aaronem]

Well, yes. When you decided what you wanted to do with your life, and made that decision stick over parental objections, that was in the nature of a declaration of adult independence. Good for you! Lots of people never make it that far. But, having done so, you can hardly expect to retract it eight years later. "Mommy, Daddy, I don't want to be a grownup any more!" With whom do you imagine this playing well? How would you react if your presumably notional kid tried to pull it on you?

[freyr]

You're eight years out of high school and you have a "successful career. Why would they pay for you?

[geographomics]

Why should your parents pay for your continuing education? Seems rather an unreasonable expectation.

After reaching adulthood you should be taking financial responsibility for yourself, rather than demanding to be bankrolled by your family.

[maneesh]

why would you expect for them to pay?

[superuser2]

That's how it works in the US. Schools cost what they believe your parents can afford until you are 26.

[dawnbreez]

Edit: I misinterpreted the context here. My bad.

[chris-pb]

I don't think the above comment is disputing that someone should pay for his education, just suggesting that it should be him rather than his parents.

[dawnbreez]

Edited my comment, because I did not read the parent comment.

[spdionis]

Why would they pay school for you after you have already set up your life cooking? "After 8 years" makes me think you should already be independent.

[zappo2938]

I was independent the day I graduated high school. The issue is the fights and arguments about not going to college after high school and knowing that I wouldn't get help in life if I made that choice. It is ironic that later they tried very hard to persuade me not to give up the career they had previously opposed.

What is wrong with waiting until I was 26 to start college? I was not ready for college right out of high school.

[myle]

Aparrently, now being on hackernews I guess you study/studied something in STEM. How did it work eventually? Do you think taking some time off this predefined track helped you make wiser decisions about your life or was it wasted time?

[zappo2938]

I worked in the number 1 and 2 top rated restaurants on the Zagat survey in San Francisco in the late 90s. I was earning a base rate of $5.35 an hour being paid for 12 hours a day working 16. My dad's lab was lead by a noble prize winner. The post docs were making less than I was working more hours. No matter what we decide to do we all have to pay our dues.

That is the hardest thing for me right now, I'm not 21 anymore and I still have to pay the dues in a new career. After years of being at the top of a hierarchy mostly because of hard work a some natural talent, I now find myself at a bottom of a different hierarchy.

[dorfsmay]

How is that your parents' problem? How many careers (and pay your dues period) do you expect parents to subvention?

As somebody who never had a career subventionned by anybody, I am shocked by your attitude!

[zappo2938]

I owned my decision when I got out of high school and supported myself. I asked my parents if they wanted to pay because they were so angry about my decision not to go to college. Then they were angry with my decision to go to college because I was beginning to be accomplished. I own that choice too. I didn't expect them to pay for anything. I've seen many people get pressured into professions that they are not happy with. I didn't follow that path, but, yes, I'm on my own.

[meagain20000]

You didn't really answer the question.

[x5n1]

The funny part is you could easily accelerate the figuring out part by doing some life stories. You could help kids figure out what they want out of life by giving them case stories about other people's lives as accurately as possible.

Instead none of that knowledge or relationship skills are taught in schools. Instead they teach mostly useless technical skills, harass kids in physical education, allow a small percentage participation in sports, give a little information about having sex... and send them on their merry way to trial and error.

Society priories are as screwed as they were in religious-based ideologies. Instead of it being about God it is now all about production and consumption. Not how to know what you want out of life and how to get it.

Many people who are on the accelerated path end up losers in the game of life just as many who get their own their own time.

[lumpypua]

Studs Terkel - Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working:_People_Talk_About_Wha...

[dawnbreez]

Your kid needs to find something that they will do with their life. It has to be something that they can do for a living, but there are no other restrictions. They don't really have to know this until they're old enough to starg working (the sooner the better, though).

Let them play, but--and this is key--play with them, and notice what they like playing with. Learn what their dream is, because that's the best thing to be successful at.

[aaronem]

Option three: do your kids a favor and don't have any.

[taliesinb]

"Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence" http://www.amazon.com/Better-Never-Have-Been-Existence/dp/01...

Haven't read it, but the author taught a class I attended and it was great fun.

[aaronem]

Your erstwhile instructor seems to be a professional troll, which is probably good work if you can get it, but I'm not joking. GP's comment casts the options available to him in the following duality: either

1. push [his] theoretical children into this race, or

2. let them eat into precious time to figure things out.

Whatever my opinion of the article under discussion, I can only agree with its author that option 1 is a horrible mistake whose consequences for his children may accurately be called lifelong impairment.

Option 2 is no better, and it only even seems that way if you don't think about it too hard. It implicitly accepts the premise, not that childhood is precious (which it is), but that childhood is precious because, and in the way that, academia claims it is. That's toxic as hell, and it will poison any parenting that proceeds from it.

Specifically: He won't be able to relax around his kids, because he'll always have that nagging ambivalence that he's doing wrong by them, failing to equip them to compete as functional adults in a world which does not care about them, and that will come through in his actions. It can't not, and his kids will pick up on it, because a young child's parents are by far the most important things in her world which are not actually her, and she notices everything about everything they do. She won't intuit any of the paragraph I just wrote, of course, because you have to be old and jaded and cynical for that. She'll just know her daddy is never happy or comfortable or relaxed when he's around her, and with the unconscious, inevitable egotism of the very young, she will assume that's because of something to do with her. And she'll almost certainly never get over that.

I don't know that I agree with David Benatar that bringing a child into the world is invariably harmful to the child. But I certainly have a hard time arguing other than that it's harmful to bring a child into the world to endure the kind of parenting I've just described -- hence my advice to GP.

A better third option, if anyone's interested, would be to opt out of the entire nonsense and raise your kids without reference to it. The trouble is that you are not more powerful than the society in which you exist, and it is interested in your kids whether you like it or not. You might find or make an enclave, and a method, in which to raise them without having them be too badly stunted by its more pernicious influences; people have done it before, are doing it now, and will no doubt continue to do so. Perhaps you will be among them. But it's not implausible that your notional kids are better off never having existed at all, if you're not even equipped to recognize the need to be willing to make the attempt.

[taliesinb]

I enjoyed the rest of your comment, and I share some of these sentiments, but don't agree about Benatar being a troll. I'm confident he actually believes the positions he espouses.

Also, I want to know, what are the best modern examples of enclaves? Are they all bespoke? Some likeminded parents getting together? Something more formulaic that has actually scaled out without becoming a self-parody or a lifestyle brand?

[aaronem]

Oh, it's quite possible for a troll to believe what he says. The essence of trolling isn't bullshitting; it's knowing how to get a rise out of people.

To answer your question as best I can, I really can't answer your question very well, because I'm not a parent and never will be, and thus have only a peripheral knowledge of the detailed mechanics of parenting. Based on what little I know, the first place I'd suggest looking would be the homeschooling movement, which seems to be gaining secular adherents quite rapidly of late for reasons appearing not much different from those I suggested in my earlier comment.

[taliesinb]

> The essence of trolling isn't bullshitting; it's knowing how to get a rise out of people.

"Provocative"? No, I think there needs to be an element of bad faith or inauthenticity. 'Actual' trolls are supposed to be malicious creatures.

> homeschooling

I wouldn't call that scalable, it only worked for me because I was already coding by the time I convinced my parents to let me do my own thing. Though maybe there is an advanced body of theory I'm not aware of.