No one encouraged me to be an engineer either (doctor? yes. lawyer? yes. engineer? no.). I'd wager that many people here were actively discouraged in some way from going down the path of technology or entrepreneurship.

Most nontechnical parents who see their son or daughter spending countless hours on a computer just think that he or she is wasting his or her time.

(That last sentence would be a good place for those mythical gender-neutral English pronouns.)