Reminds me of “dance moms” or “cheer moms”, “football dads”, etc.
If you’re a parent, remember not to live your unfulfilled dreams through your children.
At 11 I was operating construction machinery, I had to hide from the inspectors on some jobs but on others I could talk to them. State vs. Federal I think: the State guys could be bribed.
At 16 software I had written (bid estimation) was selling for $2k a seat to earthwork contractors all over North America.
Anything I got paid went right to the parents to pay off "debts" they considered I owed them. They kept this up until I stopped letting them. At 35, I wanted to marry my wife and start a family, when I told my parents about this they were so happy they'd be getting another slave they started planning all the uses they could put her to in front of me. I realized that this proposed behavior was just as unacceptable applied to me, as it would be to her.
My Dad died a few years later, I had to help wind up his businesses, which was eye opening: I was President of one company and Treasurer of another (I'd never agreed to do either job, hadn't been aware of the one company at all). There were emails about how they could hide hundreds of thousands of dollars from me, contemporaneous with times when I had sold belongings and stretched my credit to keep "our" business running.
I'm (obviously) still dealing with all that. My child gets told to pursue self determination and never do business with blood relations.
Lots of non-technical jobs require you to sit at a computer all day. Why do you think they teach typing in school now? The ability to automate your tasks is a superpower that I would love my children to have regardless of what they do. I personally have had jobs that could probably be automated by a python script, although what I was doing them at the time I didn't know how python.
Besides professional reasons, basic programming skills can be the gateway to any number of hobbies. I build things for myself all the time and because it's a creative thing, and programs can be written to aid in creating artwork music, or even to generate these things completely from the software.
Most schools have art and music programs. They may even be a mandatory part of the curriculum. Because we recognize that there are benefits to learning these skills even though the majority of students will not go on to do these things professionally. Programming is the exact same thing.
It's different to make a kid take piano lessons than to force them to practice every day because you've decided their career should be piano virtuoso. I think it's the same with programming, it can be a very useful skill, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to teach it to your kids as long as you don't force them or make them miserable.
In the end, I learned a skill that has given me a lot of enjoyment in my adult life. Personally, the end was worth the means.
Kids spend a lot of time being forced to learn things in school. I didn’t perceive having to practice an instrument each day as worse than having to attend PE class.
Are there counter-examples? As a kid in that sphere I met many other kids who were very good at music. I never met any who hated playing music but I did meet many who were not that interested in the classical music they were playing. Many played other kinds of music in their “free time”.
I’d say it’s fine to teach your kid to be a piano virtuoso, as long as it’s the piano and not (say) the violin or cello, because cello virtuoso is a non-transferable skill, whereas piano can be transferred to whatever genre they eventually end up liking.