[hilbert42]

"20 years later, I got back to playing piano, and I can't thank my parent enough for having me to continue playing in my teenage years."

One of the tragedies of being young is that few have the insight to realize that the 'boring' stuff parents and teachers are forcing us to learn will actually benefit us and that eventually we'll be very thankful that they did.

My parents nagged me all the time about studying and even though I did my fair share of it I never fully appreciated how important it was until much later.

It's a strange phenomenon, one cognitively understands the reasons but one is isolated from the reality so one is somewhat distant from it. For example, one can get upset watching war footage on TV but being there is on another level altogether (soldiers often do not talk of their experiences because they know those at home will never fully understand).

In the same way, wisdom gained through experience is almost impossible to impart to a younger generation who has no actual experience.

[ho_schi]

I upvoted all of the above posts because - all of them share some correct arguments.

  * Training is hard.
  * Using your training e.g. a bicycle race is fun.
  * Training is easier, if you actually know why you’re doing it and recognize some progress.

[Magma7404]

> the 'boring' stuff parents and teachers are forcing us to learn will actually benefit us

My parents forced me to play the piano for more than 10 years because they were obsessed with the piano, and because they had a piano. I hated every second of doing that in order to please them, and I never got higher than beginner level because it was a torture for me. Being a beginner for 10 years should be considered as abuse and it messed me up big time, especially for my daily confidence.

30 years later, I still hate that fucking thing and I understand that they fucked up due to their delusion. They deny everything when we talk about it though.

Sometimes you have to listen to the kids and understand what they want do do, and accept it instead of feeding your Munchausen by proxy syndrome. All I wanted was a computer, even the cheapest computer ever would have been acceptable. Nowadays, I write C++ for a living and I still hate the piano. If only anyone listened to me back then... My hatred for that instrument is a mystery for some people, and some people think that "wisdom gained through experience is almost impossible."

[jalapenos]

Amen. And the surreal thing is to then hear the very same mentalities behind this uttered in this comment section.

It's like there's like a vehemence in people towards abuse. Reminds me of how Zweig said that people were in a state of jubilation in anticipation of WW1.

There's something dark in humans where they don't accept the absence of pain. They think to at least some extent, that hurting their kids is a good thing, perhaps under a twisted "toughen them up" mentality.

And the thing is, they get away with it. Maybe their kid gets a chip on their shoulder against them, or maybe even estranged from them. But they don't get hurt back.

In a moral world they absolutely would.

[hilbert42]

"They think to at least some extent, that hurting their kids is a good thing, perhaps under a twisted "toughen them up" mentality."

Hurting a kid and proper discipline are two separate matters. Good discipline and training doesn't hurt kids (in fact many enjoy them). If you find that your actions are hurting a kid then you are doing things wrong.

[hilbert42]

"Sometimes you have to listen to the kids and understand what they want do do, and accept it instead of feeding your Munchausen by proxy syndrome."

I agree, and it's more than 'sometimes', kids have a right to be heard and that hearing should be fair and reasonable. Clearly, in your case it wasn't.

What you experienced was unacceptable by any measure, and in my opinion the fact that your parents were oblivious to your predicament is a damning indictment on their parenting skills.

Your extreme situation isn't what I was referring to, so let me explain by briefly describing what I experienced.

I learned the piano because I wanted to, not because my parents forced me. In fact, whilst my parents were both musical we didn't have a piano when I was young—so I started late and that's been to my disadvantage. I mention that to let you know I understand what you went through.

Whilst I like the piano learning it was no bed of roses and it's difficult for all but the most talented (anyone not wishing to learn it would be an unmitigated drag). For me, those fucking Czerny scales used to drive me to distraction, I'd goof off and play whatever took my fancy whenever I could. Also, my teacher used to reprimand me regularly for not reading score timings as written, I'd play the tempo as I felt felt like it and that always casued a ruckus.

At no time did my parents force me to take subjects that I did not like. That said, gentle persuasion was used. I was never much good at languages and despite my ambivalence for the subject I took French not so much at my mother's insistence but rather her desire that I do so (her sister married a Frenchman and was living in France and she thought it would be useful). Learning French used to drive me crazy, it's not that I detested it (I understood its value), rather the problem was that I wasn't much good at the subject. I'd sit on my bed at home doing my French homework and bash my textbook up and down on the bedclothes whilst tying to learn those fucking French nouns with their damn random genders—why the fuck can't they all be 'la' or 'le' and not random? Having a single 'the' in English is immanently sensible.

Well, despite being not much good at the subject in hindsight learning French turned out to be a blessing when I was living in Europe. I could never have foreseen that situation when I was at school.

Another example, my father used to nag me about not taking Latin, my usual retort being why the hell would I want to learn a dead language (although that was more in jest at his persistence). I sort of had a paltry excuse as my school didn't teach Latin but there were arrangements to do certain subjects by correspondence under teacher supervision in the library. So I never took the subject at school, so nowadays my Latin is at best a mess.

That was a fucking mistake of the first order on my part for reasons too long to describe here. It's only the wisdom of hindsight that I now know I should have taken my father's advice.

BTW, I understand your frustration over not having access to a computer, I'm an IT professional and I managed an IT department for years (I was one of those nerds university security would regularly chuck out of the computer room at 10pm at night). If I'd been in your position, I'd have been mightily pissed off at your parents' miserable attitude.

[tasuki]

> One of the tragedies of being young is that few have the insight to realize that the 'boring' stuff parents and teachers are forcing us to learn will actually benefit us and that eventually we'll be very thankful that they did.

I'm 40. I don't know, perhaps I'm still young.

I did not appreciate having to learn the boring parts. Learning things for the next exam so as to forget them in two weeks... I didn't see the point then and still don't.

I managed to get by with the minimum possible, fluked my CS education, then had a career earning an order of magnitude more than the average salary. Shrug.

Maybe I'm missing something else because of my lack of education? I don't know...

[throwaway31131]

We’re all going to have different paths but I’m certain that flunking CS education and then getting 10x the average salary is not going to be the common case and was probably only possible for a given point in time.

I’m in my late 40s. I left grad school to get a job in VLSI because it was possible to do so in the job market of the 90s. In today’s job market we wouldn’t even pickup the resume of a new college graduate that didn’t have at least a masters. I would’ve been totally passed by today.

Assuming the benefit we’re looking is getting a high paying job of course.

[ThrowawayR2]

You (and I and many others on HN) were lucky enough to join the tech industry while it was still growing explosively and got outsized salaries because of it. If you were to do the same thing today, you'd be telling a very different and much grimmer tale.

[hilbert42]

"…perhaps I'm still young."

Possibly so, wisdom often take years to gel and often only after life events force its notions to the fore.

[tasuki]

I had way more than usual share of "life events". I threw my career out the window to care for my toddler and dying partner. Then my partner died and I'm left alone raising the kid. What else is going to happen to make me wiser?