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Comment by jcims | Hacker News Reader

Neither of my kids have any interest in programming or computer science or engineering at all. I sometimes wonder if i could have done something different to spark their curiosity. Welding, working on cars, stupid arduino tricks, lasers, 3d printers, hacking, rockets, robot clubs, computers everywhere...I’ve tried a lot, but nothing really stuck.

One’s just got an undergrad in healthcare and the other likely headed for art. I’m stoked they found things they love and I’m sure we’ll still have lots to talk about over the years... just probably won’t be vi vs emacs lol

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My Dad was in the RCMP. Growing up, I briefly considered following his footsteps but in the end, I just wasn’t the right kind of person. I was more into science, math and computers than sports and gravitated towards computers, programming and general mischief making. Along the way, I got heavy into security and privacy.

My Dad retired 17 years ago and since then, he’s gotten heavy into computers. He knows more about Mailchimp than anyone I know. And though I ended up with a marketing degree, he’s become my de facto email marketing consultant.

Now that he’s heavy into computers, I see all the neat ways he’s influenced me (and vice versa). Security, particularly opsec is a passion we both share. After many conversations, I’m starting to realize that he’s actually the one who got me into the field way back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Now when we talk about his career, it’s clear that he instilled the idea of hacking into me. He wasn’t into software systems, but he was into human systems and he was relentlessly resourceful when it came to solving their problems.

Looking back with 43 years of experience, I realize how much of an influence my Dad had over me. I don’t know that we’ll ever have a vi versus emacs debate, but holy hell, do I ever feel lucky that I got to know my Dad on this level.

I hope to live long enough to get to know my daughter on that level. And friend, I wish the same for you!!!

This is such a beautiful message. Thank you for sharing

Thank you friend. I’m feeling quite emotional now after writing it. I’m glad it resonated! :)

In my haste to reply, I didn't even realize that you wrote and submitted the original article. Thank YOU for your beautiful message that inspired all of this thought, reflection and tears.

Your nephews are lucky to have you in their lives. I'm lucky to have been able to read something so beautiful that inspired so much more beauty.

Take good care, stay healthy and thanks for being genuinely good. People like you have enriched my life throughout the years and that's a debt I will never be able to repay.

This is a sweet, sweet message man, and makes me feel good. Ultimately I think your last couple sentences really is the root of what I'm feeling. Just want them to look back on our time together in good light.

Thanks for your kind words, friend. I don't know you as a person, but I know how you write. It takes one hell of a beautiful Dad to make me come out with a story about my own beautiful Dad. And it takes a wonderful, thoughtful man to inspire me to be that same kind of beautiful dad to my own little girl.

I capitalize the word 'Dad' when people deserve it. You get the capital D because you most certainly do. If my gut and instinct is anything to go by, you've already succeeded and they most certainly look back on your time together in a good light.

Heck, you raised a child with enough love to get into healthcare. I'm not nearly strong enough to get into a system like that. And you raised a child with enough self confidence to get into art.

Frankly, you have joined the ranks of my Dad heroes. If I'm lucky enough to raise my daughter to be the person that your children are, I will be very proud of myself.

Now give yourself a massive pat on the back because you deserve it.

Thanks buddy, I really appreciate this!

Beautiful! Thats how parenting should be & kids will enjoy their connection with parents.

I hope I too can be of some help to my sons in finding their passion & strength.

Thanks for sharing your story.

You know friend, give yourself a huge pat on the back. It takes a really beautiful Dad to think the way that you do and to be so focused on helping your boys find their own passions and strengths.

You deserve the capital 'D' for Dad. I don't capitalize that word lightly - I'm an obsessive fuck when it comes to language and grammar. But you truly deserve it.

Thank you for your kind words!! And most importantly, thank you for being the kind of beautiful Dad who inspires me to be just as beautiful a Dad as you are.

Take good care and thank you again!!

Wow, this has really got me thinking - thanks so much for sharing !

You can't use external motviation to create a passion in people. You can spark motivation by having it 'rub off' from your own passion, you can give people freedom of expression and choice, and you can use authority to keep them doing something when they are in a slump.

It can be a bit frustrating because love from small kids feels very unconditional, although they just learn that if they please you, they get food, shelter and (hopefully) positive emotions. And if you get very excited for them coding, it might motivate them to do more (since it feeds them to please you). This sounds more harmful than it is, just something to bear in mind.

Now there are various ways to appeal to intrinsic interests in kids to have them pick up something, but if it just doesn't ring with them, you can't force it.

The cool thing about computer science/engineering is, that your kids will most likely have lots of contact points in their life with CS fields. Health is getting more and more high-tech, and art is using arduinos, microcontrollers, ... for installations and various effects, depending on the direction the artist goes. So don't give up hope yet, you might be doing a project together before you know it :)

Totally agree with everything you've said and share the philosophy you've outlined 100%. We're just at the end of that childhood run and I just have a wee bit of sadness about it for some reason. Not for them, they are very confident in their lack of interest haha, but just that I feel less prepared to help them navigate their career paths. The human parts will be similar of course and I can help with that, but that's about the extent of it.

That said, the total surface area of the family's (hopefully positive) influence on the world will be a bit larger, so it will also yield good things I'm sure.

Thanks for the thoughts!

> Neither of my kids have any interest in programming or computer science or engineering at all.

The rebellious son who does not want to become a doctor or lawyer like his father has been a stock character for decades.

We may end up seeing "engineer" added to this list based on how often "why don't my kids want to program" comes up on sites like this.

This isn't a commentary on your parenting, just a general observation.

GP didn’t state the gender of kids, maybe they are daughters. Then given what research found about typical difference in interests by each gender, the end result here wouldn’t be surprising.

My grandfather was an engineer and my father (at 87) still is. I don't think I was ever going to do anything else.

Still have strong memories of making PCBs and machining metal parts with my grandfather when I was a kid.

The world is larger than tech. I think it's perfectly fine for kids to have interests that aren't tech-related :)

Every time I hear about someone changing careers into "tech" I feel like I'm running out of options. There is nothing wrong with my current career right now but what about the future? If everyone is running away from their old career to tech then what is the guy who started out in tech going to do once it's his turn to run?

Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of work fixing stuff made by people who “got into tech”.

Start a small holding

Look at it as opportunity. As I said elsewhere, there are many industries and vocations that could truly benefit from the skills and practices honed in the technology world (this is obviously true in both directions as well). Pick a domain that you are interested in and start investigating. Look for the little sidebar discussions about what practitioners hate about their day jobs and go from there.

Lately I wonder if I would be better socialized at young age (I went to a kindergarten just for a one year before school), would I pick up something else. I find now in myself much more extroversion, some art sensibilities, but still with a problem solving drive. I think I possibly would struggle financially for longer, but eventually I would be at a happier place. Probably it's a classic the grass is greener on the other side situation.

Nowadays I don't wish this trade to my young child. Programming is a very good skill, but it's better tied with something entirely different to not be a blue collar worker in a golden cage. I want to study now something totally outside of technology to see if I can marry it with being a very proficient computer user.

>Nowadays I don't wish this trade to my young child. Programming is a very good skill, but it's better tied with something entirely different to not be a blue collar worker in a golden cage. I want to study now something totally outside of technology to see if I can marry it with being a very proficient computer user.

I feel like there is massively untapped potential in this. Pick any industry or vocation and examine it closely. Get a job for a few years...become a member of the community and understand what really would improve their lives and outcomes...then start applying that tech skill. You won't become the next Zuck or Bezos helping zoos use ML to help detect sick animals, for example, but you'll do just fine financially and have a very rewarding career as well.

IMO this is really the purpose of software engineering. It's a support for other jobs. I got my start in professional software engineering by making tools for my job in customer support. I've since talked to friends in food service and non-profit marketing about the challenges they have which could potentially be solved with code (if I was willing to give up my job, actually working alongside them would be preferable so I could experience it firsthand).

People say software's eating the world, but we haven't seen anything yet.

That's actually why I want to get a masters degree even though I am in a good job. I feel that if I don't master a domain, my impact would be limited.

That's the luxury of first world countries - one can enjoy a comfortable life outside tech, being a school teacher or an artist. In most countries that would mean starvation.

If being a school teacher in most countries means starvation, do most countries not have teachers? What are you basing this on?

Read - live in poverty. In those countries usually people live in extended, several generation families, supporting each other.

What are you basing that on? Is living with elderly parents and your children poverty?

Something I've been thinking about is what happens once the market for software developers becomes saturated. I think the answer is something along the lines of blending traditionally off-line skills (illustration, etc), domain knowledge, and software together. The ability to leverage the scale of the internet is still a form of tech-thinking, even if the software engineering part is not the main focus.

I think software alone has relatively fewer problems left to solve compared to solutions that require multi-domain thinking. So for the situation you've outlined, I think there is tremendous value in blending healthcare and software, or art and software. There are people who have found a niche in blending these ideas together [0], and I think the trend will continue.

So you shouldn't despair that your kids are not interested in "tech" now. It could be that once they are comfortable with their first domain choice, they will recognize the value in tech-enabled growth. You can then be there to help them realize that value by introducing system and algorithmic thinking, as well as tooling like vi or emacs.

[0] https://maggieappleton.com/

    what happens once the market
    for software developers 
    becomes saturated.

This was being predicted for as long as I can remember (at least since the 90s).

And yet despite short term fluctuations there has only been more and more demand of programmers for decades now.

There has also not seem to have ever been saturation for electrical engineers despite this being a much older profession.

How about LEGO? I think playful introductions might inspire the best. I doubt tuning kids to certain interest really works, but they might be inspired by what they like. Computer games could work too. Kids love them but parents often don't. Even those that completely disregarded their own parents on the exact same issue.

I feel your pain. I have similar challenges, my kids are not as old, so I still hold hope, but wonder where did my genes end up and what to do to fire them up.

VI all the way!

Why is this a pain?

I would be very unhappy if my kids would become something to please me but don't like it themselves.

The most successful kid/adult/human is the one who loves others and brings happiness to them, while being loved himself. It doesn't matter if he's a Nobel laureate or a Walmart cashier. Likewise, a person like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Robert_Schrieffer who killed someone while driving on a suspended license, is a zero in my book.

I agree with the core of your message. But the suspended license isn’t the problem here. He fell asleep. Do you think that if his license weren’t suspended that he wouldn’t have fallen asleep?

I'm not sure this is a fair take. In regards to his conviction, his colleagues described Schrieffer as a cautious person.

"This is not the Bob I worked with," said Brown University (search) professor Leon Cooper, who with Schrieffer and John Bardeen was awarded the Nobel in physics in 1972. "This is not the Bob that I knew."

Based on what I've read, it sounds like he had some kind of psychiatric or medical issue at an advanced age that changed his personality, perhaps Alzheimer's. People rarely change personality that much for non-medical reasons.

I don't have enough evidence to make a strong case, but if my hypothesis is valid, it seems unfair to sum up his entire life as a "zero".

Your comment resonated with this quote:

It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.

Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

Have you shown them how to do basic games in scratch?

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