Comment by richardjordan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by richardjordan | Hacker News Reader

I don't have any answers, just commenting anecdotally. I have an eight year old daughter. I'm a Physicist by education and nowadays I work in software startups in Silicon Valley. She loves sciences, because Daddy loves sciences. We get the telescope out on clear nights, she has a picture of her holding a camera obscura image of the recent eclipse, we got out of bed to watch the Space Station fly overhead. Right now she's in the other room on her Chromebook playing VIM Adventures to familiarize herself with the hand movements for VIM.

I go on all the school trips. The trips to the tech museum see lots of the little boys running around, fascinated by the science. Most of her female peers... meh. Given that they all have the same classroom experience it seems to me that the explanation is outside of the classroom, and it starts early.

Gender role reinforcement is still very big in US culture. Girls are steered in the direction of !science repeatedly by parents, by TV, by media role models.

Like I say, I don't have an answer, but it saddens me and I desperately hope that as she moves towards middle school, the peer pressure and anti-intellectualism that is teenage-girl-culture in the US doesn't overpower the decreasing influence I have as a parent.

Hi, I hope this isn't too random, but your comment made me smile—please keep doing what you're doing. I was raised by a medical doctor father and a "geeky" older brother—dad was always sharing cool science things with me, and my brother got me into pursuits like chess, video games, etc. I was a dorky girl in a rural mountain town but my family still drove me five hours to computer camp every summer, where I first started learning to program, because fostering my dorky interests mattered that much to them. Now I'm 22, nearing graduation in a great computer science program, headed to a fabulous startup next year, and I couldn't be happier—I don't think I'd be here if I hadn't had such great encouragement at home.

Most of the cartoons I watched with my daughters have girls and women as scientists and doctors about 100% of the time. And exploit the trope of boys are stupid, fathers are bumbling.

These days, well for the past several decades, I would say TV encourages boys and girls to be high pressure, well dressed lawyers, or maybe high pressure, not perhaps not as well dressed doctors.

But even the Fringe like TV shows show scientists to be mostly dweebs represented by terribly beautiful and well dressed people with boxy bulky square hipster glass frames. (This is why I had to go into normal engineering and was always scared away from fringe pseudo-science science -- I wasn't as attractive and didn't have the wardrobe dollars or fashion sense.)

I certainly think it's true that popular culture has a disturbing fondness for making boys and men out to be bumbling idiots and Homer Simpsons.

But, sticking with a Simpsons theme, far more of our media projects female role models closer to Jessica than Lisa.

You should write more. Me and my wife are planning to have our first child this year and I'm having trouble finding info about how to raise one of our kind.

Last month I went to a little girl's birthday party. The invitation asked for a damn toy-stove for present. I bought a tablet, filled with nice content for kids and gave it instead. The father was not pleased at all, said that it was a girl and her 'femininity' should be cherished and if his daugher wanted a doll, she was getting a doll.

Your story is sadly something I have seen a lot in my daughter's eight years. I also have some horror stories of ex-in-laws in Texas and their pageant mommery (ugh, shivers).

I need to get back to blogging in general as I think there are plenty of anecdotes worth sharing of science & tech parenting and startup life.

Sounds like you're on the right track already.

The main thing is to answer questions honestly - even early. Don't feel you have to coddle or dumb them down too much. When I explain things I use scientifically accurate (though obviously simpler wordage) explanations. I talk to her about the wonder of science and its explanatory power. They're way more sophisticated in their thought processes very young than popular culture would have you believe and they're eager to learn.

I got the telescope while she was young and she marveled at the details on the moon (craters, rough edges), and how many more stars you could see. The microscope didn't capture her attention (not yet anyway) so I don't push it.

The solar eclipse was a great excuse to break out pinhole camera-ing and there's a great photo of her holding a piece of paper with the light disc of the sun on it with a big dark chunk bitten out of it by the moon. Took her to NASA for the transit of Venus so she got to see it through high powered cameras of enthusiasts.

Then mostly just followed her interests.

She had a couple of ideas for "Dad wouldn't it be good if..." websites/services. So I've promised her next hackathon that comes up she can come, and Daddy will build the product but she has to be the PM and tell me what goes where and how it works, and we'll practice her presentation in advance and she can be on stage to do the pitch (and if she backs out and gets anxious she doesn't have to, that's okay, because it's not about forcing her to do something if she doesn't want to).

Realized this is becoming a very long answer, but that's basically how I am dealing with it.

Wow, that's one lucky kid. Keep up the good work.

Am I misreading this? You bought a tablet for a little kid's birthday present?

I bet if I gave you one you wouldn't misread 'I bought a tablet'.

:D

If you haven't heard of these, may I suggest:

http://www.roominatetoy.com/ http://www.laurenipsum.org/

And, you know, a zillion other things, but these are the two I'm most familiar with at the moment for girls at your daughter's age.

Thanks for the links :-)

I am indeed familiar with lots of options for girls her age, and I work with her to keep her interest level high with this stuff. I think if you're an engaged parent it's easy to find ways to enjoy science and technology with a daughter and ensure she learns this isn't just "boys stuff".

But I also see her peers and their parents and I see a far bigger push towards less empowering role models and less science-minded interests.

Things like http://sugru.com and http://littlebits.cc are like the 21st-century equivalents of LEGO bricks. Lots of great stuff out there.

Wow, thanks for letting me know about VIM Adventures. I was just about to leave the office when I read your comment and got sidetracked playing it for half an hour! Perhaps I'll finally love using Vim.

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