Hacker News Reader

I want my children to be happy and fulfilled. Whether or not they're "like me" in doing so is of no importance.

But I do want them to learn from my mistakes (as well as the mistakes of everyone else they are exposed to). One of the things I've tried to instill in them is "Make your own mistakes, not someone else's".

View on HN

Having a child now makes wanting him to be "like me" seem like such a fools errand at this point. He's so obviously his own person that even if he decided to do things in a similar way to me his path to getting there would be so different that it wouldn't actually be the same at all.

I’m not entirely sure why someone would want their offspring to “be like them” aside from validating their life choices?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com