Hacker News Reader

> My parents had a hard time explaining my dad's job to me, so they just told me he was a scientist because he had a masters in physics (he was a diplomat).

I'm just curious about when you found out what he really did, and if you had known earlier if you would have been a diplomat today rather than a scientist.

View on HN

I was able to understand it roughly around when I entered my teens, in part because he was transferred to another country, where the embassy was a lot smaller and the country more insular, so it was common to get kids involved in embassy stuff to get the otherwise lacking sense of community.

It's hard to say if I would've been a diplomat if I had known earlier. I feel like being a diplomat is harder to innocently romanticize and turn into hobbies for a child in the way that 'scientist' can be.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com