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> I’d appreciate honest answers, not platitudes. Well, if you say so. If you're a parent of a recent college grad who is on Hacker News, haven't you been in tech for some time? I would expect your perspective to include experience seeing at least a couple cycles of economic ups and downs. > It’s Christmas and we aren’t celebrating. No decorations. No pretending things are okay. I’m completely shattered as a parent, mostly because I don’t have answers. I told her for years that merit would protect her. It didn’t. This is pretty bonkers on multiple levels. IDK what your family's overall situation is, but based on what we can infer, your family is not in economic jeopardy. If I'm mistaken, then I apologize, but it seems you are just one of the many, many families with an unemployed recent college grad, and if you're positing on HN, I assume you and your wife are doing at least adequately. I don't understand how you, as a grown man, could be under the illusion that "merit would protect her" or that somehow graduating from a good school guarantees someone anything, or how you could lack the perspective that this is temporary and less important than health, family, etc. Nobody is above broader, universal developments and forces, whether economic vicissitudes or worse (war, societal collapse, etc.) Your arrogance in thinking that "merit" could protect an individual from these things is justly punished. I also went to a top school, and there is also something to be said about your daughter's lack of resilience and naiveté here, but she's a ~22 year old girl, so that's acceptable. From you, this is not, IMO. Your entire view of the world was mistaken and brittle, and reveals a stunning lack of value placed on things other than career and such, but the good news is that it's much better than you seem to be stuck thinking right now. Economies get good again, and your daughter is in a better position than many because she at least had one job and has a good CV. |