[Karrot_Kream]

Yeah when I left where I grew up and finally had the space to synthesize my experiences in poverty, I began to call the attitude I saw when growing up "learned helplessness." When everything that can go wrong does, you learn to stop striving, as high expectations just lead to failure and shame (like the article's volcano anecdote.)

I was lucky. I was able to leverage the US education system to rise far above where I grew up, so I left at 18 when I was still young and hadn't been permanently ground down. Even though I've had a very successful career (beyond anything I could dream of as a kid, truly) I still struggle socially a bit in tech. So many American tech people grew up in the same milieu of upper-middle class American suburbia that their attitudes, (not voting but simply interpersonal) politics, and experiences are both homogeneous and yet extremely different from mine. So many smart people I work with and am friends with talk about their exhausting childhood being pushed from activity to activity that I can never connect with. And yes, sometimes I'm insensitive that friends of mine complain about parental pressure because my parents never had the resources to even send me to any of those activities. That I had parents in a stable marriage itself was a virtue where I grew up.

It's still crazy to me that I work with engineers who are second, sometimes third generation programmers. I had friends who couldn't even afford a computer until adulthood.

[blackgirldev]

Yes that's the term "learned helplessness".

I am curious: what made you able to leverage the US education system? Was there a relative that influenced you to study? A teacher? Were you a part of a community program? What do you think got you out of the cycle?

[Karrot_Kream]

I had just the right personality traits that made me a good fit for the education system. I loved to read, was fine at sitting still for a long time, loved learning without structure, and was not constantly comparing myself against friends. My sister was not so lucky and is having a hard time trying to enter the professional world.