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I had a similar thought: "woah a support group for people whose kids we corrupted!". So I clicked expecting to see posts like: Hi I'm Gary, my son reads HN. On day my son mentioned he wanted to start a business. I was skeptical, but proud. I mean he's young, why not start a business -- it's the American Dream right? So I asked him about it a bit, and he started talking some website mumbo-jumbo... you know widget scripts and railmarks and all that. It was also the first time I heard the term "Hacker News". Now I know (wipes eye) it was a turning point. If only I could go back (sob). Anyway, he goes off to SF to do his biz thing. He worked alot, but times are tough, and I was just happy to know he was independent. So we didn't talk much, but when we did it was tech stuff I didn't understand, or HN. He would babble incessantly about startup this, or founder that. Then one day he mentions money, and that he is selling his company. He wants me to come out and meet some people, and pay off my mortgage. At this point, I felt I was losing my son. I mean, he was all valley all the time. It went from healthy interest to 100 hour weeks, and I didn't like what it was doing to him. I didn't care about the money, I just wanted my kid to be OK. So I hopped a flight to the bay area. Palo Alto is cool, those stanford women are something else... but tommy had none of it. His room in a house was all coke cans and monitors. Half of them had browsers with the damned orange bar on the top. So I tried to talk to him, but he just said "you don't 'get it'". We went to a party and he introduced me to Paul Graham, as PG. There was this obvious case of hero worship happening. I mean, all night it was "pg says this" or "pg wrote that" or "pg...". And not just tommy, but all the other kids with companies too. So now I got it. It's a cult. I still haven't gotten my tommy out of there yet, and I still hear about how he got x karma for y post, or how he just doesn't like the reddity directions the site is headed. Sometimes, even tho I've forbidden it, he slips and drops a "did you hear about pg's latest...". I don't know if I'll ever get him back, but you people sure have helped me deal with it. Followed by a bunch of "Hi Gary, thanks for sharing. It's tough, but we'll get through" type responses. |