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Comment by dhfbshfbu4u3 | Hacker News Reader

I grew up in the 70s and we spent most of our time outside because we weren’t allowed inside or our parents were at work. Everything was unsupervised and bit like Lord of the Flies, but we survived. I have a lot of memories of riding my bike, alone, pretty much anywhere I wanted in the city.

Seems great, and I think most of us enjoyed it, but the kids who really got ahead in life stayed inside studying.

Fast forward several decades, I raised some kids of my own and by and large we let them have a lot of a fun. That said, the stakes are so much higher these days that it is impractical to give kids total freedom. The long-term costs and lost opportunity is just way too high.

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> That said, the stakes are so much higher these days that it is impractical to give kids total freedom. The long-term costs and lost opportunity is just way too high.

I'm curious, could you expand on this? In what ways are the stakes higher?

Sure. The main thing is getting into college. In recent years, it has become incredibly competitive. Kids with SATs above say 1525 with above 4.0GPA and plenty of APs are ending up in their 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th choice schools. There is very low margin for error and the actual costs can be quite significant when you take into account the slip in position.

Plus, back then it wasn't as bimodal as today. A students tended to move on to good universities and then great jobs. B students would go to an OK state school and get a decent office job. C students could maybe go to community college or learn a trade and have a decent go at the middle class. D students could at least shape themselves up and learn a trade or join the military and have a remote shot at earning a living.

Now, there are pretty much two groups: 1. the top-top-top of both your class and your entire region, with above a 4.0GPA, with all the expected community service and extracurriculars, and so on, who end up in elite schools and prestigious careers, and 2. everyone else, who end up scrapping with each other over the lower-and-lower paying jobs and more tenuous future. There's no middle anymore.

On the other hand its probably better in the trades today than 25 years ago. I have met a lot of early 20 year old tradespeople in recent years. Many have all the toys you would not expect by their mid 20s like a newer car and property. Unions seem much stronger today as well.

Sure, but check back in on them in 30 years and see how well their bodies work. Tradework pays very well these days but you can’t avoid the physical toll.

Its not like the office workers sitting all day are faring better as they age.

At 53 and having lived both lives, I beg to differ.

Is that _really_ that big of a problem? As a non-American, I did not do my undergrad at a school as prestigious as the top ones in the USA. And yet, I am very happy with both my education and my career. (Probably more so than the average hacker news commenter, based on what I read here!)

To put this in American terms, is it really the end of the world to just earn your bachelor's at a solid but not necessarily elite public university? Thereby avoiding the need to "grind" so hard throughout your youth and adolescence? What are the stakes really?

The way I see it, if elite academics is the goal, graduate school is the time to be more selective because at that point one knows where to go based on one's research interests. If entrepreneurship is the dream, then the choice of school doesn't matter much at all! Otherwise, I think there are plenty of great jobs out there that don't require you to have gone to the #1 school in the country.

To be clear, I'm not American so I may just be completely misjudging the apparent importance of choice in school. Also, I likely have different personal priorities than you, so I'm not trying to deny your experience. I just question whether it is _really_ necessary "these days" to optimize childhood around getting into an elite university. I think it's really just a matter of priority.

30+ years ago, when I was just starting out, I thought the way you did. The environment was different too. You could just be a good programmer and pretty much write your own ticket.

A lot of things have changed since then. Requirements and competition for positions have increased exponentially just as salaries have skyrocketed in the more technical fields. No surprise there, but that competitive pedigree system has filtered all the way down to primary and secondary education (to say nothing of college systems).

So it is the end of the world? No. But it will cost you tens of thousands of dollars in the near term and perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime in lost potential earnings. Slipping out of the higher level schools can also make it extremely difficult to get into specific companies.

As for entrepreneurship, that’s also subject to the same issues. Sure, anyone can start a company if they want, but if you want to fund that company the path is much easier if you went to Stanford than say Oklahoma State.

>and lost opportunity is just way too high.

I think this is the reason for the childhood/teen mental health epidemic.

If you're not optimizing your child's life, they won't be competitive for jobs or college or whatever in the future.

It's exhausting.

Pretty much. We sought out a balance and by and large our kids are happier than their peers. However, they also paid the price when it came to school choice, scholarships, and the downstream opportunities that flow from the relentless pursuit of top honors. It is insane.

Any details on how that went? It’s certainly that secondary education is very competitive these days.

Sure. The typical path I see is that kids fail to lock in with a high level state school and either need to go private (assuming they get in) or out of state (which will welcome you because you’re paying 50% more). This happened with one of my kids and it has cost me upwards of $60-70K at a minimum to go out of state.

Another path I see are kids who just opt out entirely. They go to that 5th or 6th tier school and are totally unmotivated. This doesn’t hit them early but it will have a long term impact on job prospects and their career arc. This one is actually becoming more common from what I hear.

To me, the real disconnect is happening in high school here in the US where we are still educating kids like it is 1950 (or 1850). Teachers are overworked and underpaid, and the administration is apathetic. All of that can easily combine for a couple of poor grades or missed expectations in extracurricular activities which in turn cut your opportunities when you apply for college. Sounds extreme but that is how it is today and it is why so many parents are overprotective to the point of being manic.

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