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Comment by poulpy123 | Hacker News Reader

I disagree with you on the general but agree on the specific here. I think parents need to be reasonably involved with their children even when they are students, but here the child seems to do well so there is no reason to worry

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> I think parents need to be reasonably involved with their children even when they are students, but here the child seems to do well so there is no reason to worry

OP is talking about a full grown adult. Not a child.

Indeed, the adult child of the parent. The word child in English can refer to a very young person, but also commonly refers to the progeny of a person, as in the comment you were responding to, where child was used in reference to the parent that was also referred to in the comment.

English is not my native language, what word should I have used ?

It's not an incorrect word, but it can be possibly misconstrued as being infantilizing, because "child" somewhat implies a young person. But I can't think of a better word!

Perhaps it could have been more a bit more tactful to reword to avoid saying "child", like saying "your son is doing well" in this case.

Son or daughter avoids the possibility of infantalizing an adult child.

An adult child is still the kid of her parents.

Without further context, "his child was in an accident" suggests a child of ~1-12/16/18. (Younger than ~1 and we should say "baby".)

"His son was in an accident" could equally refer to an adult.

That’s what I said. Unfortunate that there is no obvious way to make it gender neutral.

saying 'his child' wouldn't imply child-age as much as 'the child' does

To a parent, they will always be their child.

> OP is talking about a full grown adult. Not a child.

This is an interesting tangent to me. What makes a full grown adult? Is it being able to drive a car? Being able to serve in the military? Being able to drink? Vote? In the state where I grew up, these were all different ages.

And then there’s the scientific notion of when the brain is “finished” developing and maturing in the mid- to late-20s.

In the context of the original ask, I would say "legally allowed to make their own gd decisions about what to study". No idea why OP feels the need to insert himself into that process.

That's fair, but certainly not my definition of a full grown adult.

Johnny, your Algorithms 360 professor is telling me you're falling behind, but I see you're studying nothing but Databases 413, in which you had 97% in the midterm.

Maybe we have to reprioritize your focus.

Sigh, you know, it's the same old story like back in kindergarten.

I was very pleased when my parents wrote to my tutor, but she replied saying the Data Protection Act (predecessor to the GDPR) did not permit her to discuss anything.

I tend to agree with you. Hard to unpack all this nuance in an HN comment. I've found that there's a middle ground between "making" a child do something and being involved in their life.

Posting on forums about whether your adult child is tinkering or not is probably past that middle ground, to be honest.

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