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My most upvoted comment on HN was when I made reference to fact that I had grown up in African village. I was totally unaware that this was a something worth sh

My most upvoted comment on HN was when I made reference to fact that I had grown up in African village. I was totally unaware that this was a something worth sharing but it seemed to pique people's interest. As I didn't know any better at the time, I never felt that I lacked anything. I had two parents, grand parents and many cousins around. We spent the whole time playing, "exploring" and "hunting". Not once did it occur to me that we didn't have running water or flushig toilets and hence I was worse off. We had chores, looking after the livestock and helping out with the harvest. We had at most three pairs of clothing and hardly wore shoes. We moved to town and my siblings were born in town. To this day me and my older brother, the village kids have always been more independent. During the time I was in school my parents didn't glance at my homework. Later on when my younger brother who is 11 years younger than I am was in school my mother had "learnt" that good mothers help their kids with homework. To this day my little brother cannot do anything on his own without help (accept poetic license for the sake of being brief). I read somewhere though, I think one of those decade long Harvard studies that having chores when young was the biggest factor in how successful people became. I presume poor kids have to play a bigger role, hence have more chores in ensuring that household is fed and clothed.

phakding 8y ago
My story is not too different. I grew up in a dirt poor Asian village. We didn't have running water and for first few years of my life, not even a toilet. Parents taking active part in kids education was not common. I remember my parents bought be one toy when I was in second or third grade, and that was it. We used to get one pair of new clothes once every year during festivals. That's about it. Nobody ever celebrated birthdays. I don't even think I remembered my own birthday growing up. On top of that my parents fought like cats and dogs almost everyday. The only thing that helped me survive and succeed was my competitive nature and perseverance. I worked hard, and still do, for things I want. I am not trying to brag, but starting in abject poverty and then ending up in a one of the biggest American cities making $200k is surreal.
- mmsimanga 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading your comment. I am genuinely glad it all worked out for you. I can identify with not celebrating birthdays and the lack of toys. As a result it feels awkward when people wish me happy birthday. I see the term surviorship bias quite a lot on HN and I sometimes feel it applies to me. When debates happen on Africa and poverty I tend not to be as sympathetic. I get impatient and rather want Africans to discuss how we can start building our own electric cars and solar power stations. Which is interesting because most of my cousins are still in the village and running water and healthcare are their biggest concerns. Having ended up in technology and living in a fairly modern city I have to consciously change mindset between understanding the latest features on Postgresql and applying my mind to getting basics such as runnning water to my village. I "made" it because I am stubborn, had parents who believe in education and because I hate being beholden to someone. I am beholden to by boss but hey we can't have everything.
  - phakding 8y ago
    Thank you. I appreciate your sentiments. There's definitely a survivorship bias. It worked out for me with lot of hard work and few strokes of luck here and there. I know bunch of my classmates from grade school who couldn't do much with their lives because they lacked resources and opportunities. I understand your impatience with your countrymen, but without enough resources and opportunities, it's hard to make any progress for vast majority. I know Americans like to tell their less fortunate to pick themselves up with their bootstraps, but that's an almost impossible task, literally and figuratively.
  - tkmunzwa 8y ago
    > I "made" it because I am stubborn, had parents who believe in education and because I hate being beholden to someone. ...and lucky. One African to another: it took me hard work, determination, and a whole lot of luck. It wasn't just one thing - but a chain of fortuitous events. My path is certainly not repeatable, so I'm certain my story is that of survivorship bias. I know lots of smarter/more hard-working people who didn't catch the same break that I did. Can you honestly say that you're that much better than your cousins?
anonymous_fun 8y ago
Growing up hungry, with worn out second hand clothes, and dysfunctional families happens also in post-industrial societies. The hunger for knowledge and escape drove me to the library and the outdoors. I remember being young and thinking, if I can get $1500 dollars together, I will have made it. Every decade it seems to get another zero on the end of where I think I can be successful, and I continue to love to goto work. In contrast, many of the people I work with went to elite universities and had curated upbringings. I see them also be successful and start at a much higher footing in life. I put my kids in the second camp, for better or worse. Growing up hungry shapes me to this day decades later.
- madeuptempacct 8y ago
  I think part of it is that if you grow up poor you see a rise, where is a lot of people you are working with are happy where they are, although others perceive them as successful. At risk of sounding pretentious, as you move through the economic strata of society, you realize that most people don't move - they are just where their initial socio-economic status put them. So as a poor kid moving, you understand the ability to move up at a deeper level, and you are also capable of making moves. I do find that the higher I move, the harder it is to compete. Anyway, that's my rant. P.S. I am not implying I am somewhere high in life - far from it, but took a lot of little jumps to get even here, which is kind of depressing.
- mmsimanga 8y ago
  You bring up so three points that I think about quite a lot. First point, I often wonder what impact the curated upbringing I am giving my daugther will have on her future outlook on life. I know I can't possibly know and she will ber her own person but I am a parent and I do wonder. Doing what you love was an alien concept to me and my peers. It was a case of doing what needed to be done. Fullstop. I ended up doing Computer Science because that is what was available. I probably would have prefered civil engineering but I had to make do with what I got (no I am not complaining). I don't know how to be the parent/person that says do what you love. I always have done what needed to be done. On definition of success and adding another zero to your income. I don't hold an idealist view of village people. Having grown up with them I see them as normal people. You get happy village people you get vindictive villagers and your get carefree villagers. Having said that I have to conceed that village people seem to be less stressed than city people. They own less whether it is clothes, cars, bicycles ... and they worry less. I often look at how much we have in the cities compared to the villagers and intrigued by how much we have is still not enough. I guess we measure ourselves againsts our city neighbours and our "needs" grow with time. It seems the more we have the more we want and the more taxes we pay. I always make it point to visit the village once a year. Sit around, do nothing, with no urgency. It gives one more perspective on life. The final point you touch on is how we may have started our journeys in different places and positions but we end up in similar positions (yes I know surviorship bias comes in here). Some of my colleagues come from gang ridden townships, some had a silver spoon and went to the best schools. You would never be able to tell listening to our conversations. We all discussing the Soccer World Cup, our kids coming birthday parties, corrupt politians, our bosses and the rising taxes. We all just people.
saalweachter 8y ago
I didn't really have a childhood that could be described as "difficult", but having grown up on a farm and having ended up workin' in the big city for a tech company, I suspect we have at least one common experience. Do you ever sit and think sometimes how weird it is, to know all these things and have all these skills from your earlier life that have, like, no relevance or use in your current life? It's weird to me how much I know about pigs, tractors and corn/soybeans/wheat that just doesn't come up much when you're sitting at a computer typing all day. (Hay bales should be stacked "sideways", to allow air to flow up through them, so that they will dry safely and not spontaneously combust. With straw it is fine to stack it any which way; some people prefer to stack it with the wires up so that it is easier to walk on, others the same as hay for consistency.)
- mmsimanga 8y ago
  :-). I totally agree. I keep an eye on rainfall totals because that determines how good the harvest with be. Nevermind the fact that I buy all my food from the shop. I don't see cow dung or any farm animal dung as being dirty. We used to use it as binding agent for the mud huts and spread it on the floor, to make the floor. I often terrorise my city slicker friends with cow dung. I can make cars out of wire. When I see wires I often find myself visualisng the cars I could make. We used to milk cows and goats, plough with cows, pull carts with the donkeys, fish with home made hooks and nets. None of this useful when trying to tune my SQL queries.
  - zafka 8y ago
    I grew up rather privileged,but I share a lot of the same sentiments, having paid a lot of attention to my father who was raised on a farm. I love knowing about farms/nature and still hope to continue learning more.
- BigChiefSmokem 8y ago
  I just learned that hay and straw are different things. Thanks!
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
rdsubhas 8y ago
> I read somewhere though, I think one of those decade long Harvard studies that having chores when young was the biggest factor in how successful people became. That seems to make sense. > I presume poor kids have to play a bigger role, hence have more chores in ensuring that household is fed and clothed. But this seems to imply that poor kids are more successful because they do a lot of chores by virtue of being poor.
- gascan 8y ago
  I would wonder if it was something more like: having chores when young was the biggest factor (after we controlled for wealth, class, race, etc)
- mmsimanga 8y ago
  I suppose you could put it like that. There two other angles to it. Poor people cannot afford what more well-off people can afford. To supplement our food, we always had chickens and a vegetable patch. Someone had to water the vegetables and feed the chickens else we wouldn't have enough food. The other side of the coin is that planting vegetables and growing chickens gives you a sense of achievement and self-confidence. You learn that if you water plants every day in a few months you will have food. This lesson and confidence can be applied to other fields. So you know that if you apply yourself to something every day you will reap what you sowed. This is why then these kids would be successful. I don't think you have to be poor to learn these lessons.
madeuptempacct 8y ago
I don't buy that - my chores were a waste of ing time. I spent a lot of my childhood picking weeds, removing Colarado bugs from potatoes, etc. Could have learned so much instead. Edit: I think the main benefit I got from it is time to think about other stuff and some apathy to comforts/luxuries which a lot of my peers don't seem to be able to related to.
bvc35 8y ago
Thank you for sharing your experiences.
mendelsd 8y ago
> To this day my little brother cannot do anything on his own without help This may be due to factors other than having been helped with his homework. Beware the narrative fallacy.
- mmsimanga 8y ago
  Agreed, I was taking poetic license. My little brother is the coolest barman you will ever meet.
tomcam 8y ago
Astounding achievements. You rock. I would love to hear more.
js2 8y ago
> having chores when young was the biggest factor in how successful people became A couple related articles from NPR: - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/09/616928895/how-to-get-your-kids-to-do-chores-without-resenting-it https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/09/6169288... - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/21/621752789/a-lost-secret-how-to-get-kids-to-pay-attention https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/21/6217527... The first article was discussed on HN: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280710
RobertRoberts 8y ago
I think you have hit on the difference between real hardship and simply being poor. Hardship can happen at any economic level. We weren't poor, but all of us kids were abused in my family. I got the worst of it, so I hit bottom first. But I bounced back quicker than my siblings, all of whom ended up dealing with drugs, alcohol problems, social problems, abusive relationships (they caused, and were afflicted by), and they are all in their 30s and 40s now. I really wanted a peaceful childhood, but even today I struggle with the affects of it. Chores to us were more like punishment. When you knew you were going to get beaten, who can care if the house is clean? We would get beat whether we tried hard or not, so why try hard, better to try and have fun when you can... which is recipe for disaster and failure in adulthood.
- mmsimanga 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing your experience. I am glad you bounced back and all the best to your siblings. It always warms my heart when I read heartfelt comments on real life.
  - RobertRoberts 8y ago
    I did want to add that it's good to hear about people being happy despite living in poverty. Sometimes poverty makes a bad situation worse, sometimes it doesn't affect anything, so maybe having good family and parents, maybe a safe community and similar things are what really matter?

phakding 8y ago

My story is not too different. I grew up in a dirt poor Asian village. We didn't have running water and for first few years of my life, not even a toilet. Parents taking active part in kids education was not common. I remember my parents bought be one toy when I was in second or third grade, and that was it. We used to get one pair of new clothes once every year during festivals. That's about it. Nobody ever celebrated birthdays. I don't even think I remembered my own birthday growing up. On top of that my parents fought like cats and dogs almost everyday. The only thing that helped me survive and succeed was my competitive nature and perseverance. I worked hard, and still do, for things I want. I am not trying to brag, but starting in abject poverty and then ending up in a one of the biggest American cities making $200k is surreal.

mmsimanga 8y ago
Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading your comment. I am genuinely glad it all worked out for you. I can identify with not celebrating birthdays and the lack of toys. As a result it feels awkward when people wish me happy birthday. I see the term surviorship bias quite a lot on HN and I sometimes feel it applies to me. When debates happen on Africa and poverty I tend not to be as sympathetic. I get impatient and rather want Africans to discuss how we can start building our own electric cars and solar power stations. Which is interesting because most of my cousins are still in the village and running water and healthcare are their biggest concerns. Having ended up in technology and living in a fairly modern city I have to consciously change mindset between understanding the latest features on Postgresql and applying my mind to getting basics such as runnning water to my village. I "made" it because I am stubborn, had parents who believe in education and because I hate being beholden to someone. I am beholden to by boss but hey we can't have everything.
- phakding 8y ago
  Thank you. I appreciate your sentiments. There's definitely a survivorship bias. It worked out for me with lot of hard work and few strokes of luck here and there. I know bunch of my classmates from grade school who couldn't do much with their lives because they lacked resources and opportunities. I understand your impatience with your countrymen, but without enough resources and opportunities, it's hard to make any progress for vast majority. I know Americans like to tell their less fortunate to pick themselves up with their bootstraps, but that's an almost impossible task, literally and figuratively.
- tkmunzwa 8y ago
  > I "made" it because I am stubborn, had parents who believe in education and because I hate being beholden to someone. ...and lucky. One African to another: it took me hard work, determination, and a whole lot of luck. It wasn't just one thing - but a chain of fortuitous events. My path is certainly not repeatable, so I'm certain my story is that of survivorship bias. I know lots of smarter/more hard-working people who didn't catch the same break that I did. Can you honestly say that you're that much better than your cousins?

anonymous_fun 8y ago

Growing up hungry, with worn out second hand clothes, and dysfunctional families happens also in post-industrial societies. The hunger for knowledge and escape drove me to the library and the outdoors. I remember being young and thinking, if I can get $1500 dollars together, I will have made it. Every decade it seems to get another zero on the end of where I think I can be successful, and I continue to love to goto work. In contrast, many of the people I work with went to elite universities and had curated upbringings. I see them also be successful and start at a much higher footing in life. I put my kids in the second camp, for better or worse. Growing up hungry shapes me to this day decades later.

madeuptempacct 8y ago
I think part of it is that if you grow up poor you see a rise, where is a lot of people you are working with are happy where they are, although others perceive them as successful. At risk of sounding pretentious, as you move through the economic strata of society, you realize that most people don't move - they are just where their initial socio-economic status put them. So as a poor kid moving, you understand the ability to move up at a deeper level, and you are also capable of making moves. I do find that the higher I move, the harder it is to compete. Anyway, that's my rant. P.S. I am not implying I am somewhere high in life - far from it, but took a lot of little jumps to get even here, which is kind of depressing.
mmsimanga 8y ago
You bring up so three points that I think about quite a lot. First point, I often wonder what impact the curated upbringing I am giving my daugther will have on her future outlook on life. I know I can't possibly know and she will ber her own person but I am a parent and I do wonder. Doing what you love was an alien concept to me and my peers. It was a case of doing what needed to be done. Fullstop. I ended up doing Computer Science because that is what was available. I probably would have prefered civil engineering but I had to make do with what I got (no I am not complaining). I don't know how to be the parent/person that says do what you love. I always have done what needed to be done. On definition of success and adding another zero to your income. I don't hold an idealist view of village people. Having grown up with them I see them as normal people. You get happy village people you get vindictive villagers and your get carefree villagers. Having said that I have to conceed that village people seem to be less stressed than city people. They own less whether it is clothes, cars, bicycles ... and they worry less. I often look at how much we have in the cities compared to the villagers and intrigued by how much we have is still not enough. I guess we measure ourselves againsts our city neighbours and our "needs" grow with time. It seems the more we have the more we want and the more taxes we pay. I always make it point to visit the village once a year. Sit around, do nothing, with no urgency. It gives one more perspective on life. The final point you touch on is how we may have started our journeys in different places and positions but we end up in similar positions (yes I know surviorship bias comes in here). Some of my colleagues come from gang ridden townships, some had a silver spoon and went to the best schools. You would never be able to tell listening to our conversations. We all discussing the Soccer World Cup, our kids coming birthday parties, corrupt politians, our bosses and the rising taxes. We all just people.

saalweachter 8y ago

I didn't really have a childhood that could be described as "difficult", but having grown up on a farm and having ended up workin' in the big city for a tech company, I suspect we have at least one common experience. Do you ever sit and think sometimes how weird it is, to know all these things and have all these skills from your earlier life that have, like, no relevance or use in your current life? It's weird to me how much I know about pigs, tractors and corn/soybeans/wheat that just doesn't come up much when you're sitting at a computer typing all day. (Hay bales should be stacked "sideways", to allow air to flow up through them, so that they will dry safely and not spontaneously combust. With straw it is fine to stack it any which way; some people prefer to stack it with the wires up so that it is easier to walk on, others the same as hay for consistency.)

mmsimanga 8y ago
:-). I totally agree. I keep an eye on rainfall totals because that determines how good the harvest with be. Nevermind the fact that I buy all my food from the shop. I don't see cow dung or any farm animal dung as being dirty. We used to use it as binding agent for the mud huts and spread it on the floor, to make the floor. I often terrorise my city slicker friends with cow dung. I can make cars out of wire. When I see wires I often find myself visualisng the cars I could make. We used to milk cows and goats, plough with cows, pull carts with the donkeys, fish with home made hooks and nets. None of this useful when trying to tune my SQL queries.
- zafka 8y ago
  I grew up rather privileged,but I share a lot of the same sentiments, having paid a lot of attention to my father who was raised on a farm. I love knowing about farms/nature and still hope to continue learning more.
BigChiefSmokem 8y ago
I just learned that hay and straw are different things. Thanks!
lifeisstillgood 8y ago

rdsubhas 8y ago

> I read somewhere though, I think one of those decade long Harvard studies that having chores when young was the biggest factor in how successful people became. That seems to make sense. > I presume poor kids have to play a bigger role, hence have more chores in ensuring that household is fed and clothed. But this seems to imply that poor kids are more successful because they do a lot of chores by virtue of being poor.

gascan 8y ago
I would wonder if it was something more like: having chores when young was the biggest factor (after we controlled for wealth, class, race, etc)
mmsimanga 8y ago
I suppose you could put it like that. There two other angles to it. Poor people cannot afford what more well-off people can afford. To supplement our food, we always had chickens and a vegetable patch. Someone had to water the vegetables and feed the chickens else we wouldn't have enough food. The other side of the coin is that planting vegetables and growing chickens gives you a sense of achievement and self-confidence. You learn that if you water plants every day in a few months you will have food. This lesson and confidence can be applied to other fields. So you know that if you apply yourself to something every day you will reap what you sowed. This is why then these kids would be successful. I don't think you have to be poor to learn these lessons.

madeuptempacct 8y ago

I don't buy that - my chores were a waste of ing time. I spent a lot of my childhood picking weeds, removing Colarado bugs from potatoes, etc. Could have learned so much instead. Edit: I think the main benefit I got from it is time to think about other stuff and some apathy to comforts/luxuries which a lot of my peers don't seem to be able to related to.

bvc35 8y ago

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

mendelsd 8y ago

> To this day my little brother cannot do anything on his own without help This may be due to factors other than having been helped with his homework. Beware the narrative fallacy.

mmsimanga 8y ago
Agreed, I was taking poetic license. My little brother is the coolest barman you will ever meet.

tomcam 8y ago

Astounding achievements. You rock. I would love to hear more.

js2 8y ago

> having chores when young was the biggest factor in how successful people became A couple related articles from NPR: - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/09/616928895/how-to-get-your-kids-to-do-chores-without-resenting-it https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/09/6169288... - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/21/621752789/a-lost-secret-how-to-get-kids-to-pay-attention https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/21/6217527... The first article was discussed on HN: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280710

RobertRoberts 8y ago

I think you have hit on the difference between real hardship and simply being poor. Hardship can happen at any economic level. We weren't poor, but all of us kids were abused in my family. I got the worst of it, so I hit bottom first. But I bounced back quicker than my siblings, all of whom ended up dealing with drugs, alcohol problems, social problems, abusive relationships (they caused, and were afflicted by), and they are all in their 30s and 40s now. I really wanted a peaceful childhood, but even today I struggle with the affects of it. Chores to us were more like punishment. When you knew you were going to get beaten, who can care if the house is clean? We would get beat whether we tried hard or not, so why try hard, better to try and have fun when you can... which is recipe for disaster and failure in adulthood.

mmsimanga 8y ago
Thanks for sharing your experience. I am glad you bounced back and all the best to your siblings. It always warms my heart when I read heartfelt comments on real life.
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  I did want to add that it's good to hear about people being happy despite living in poverty. Sometimes poverty makes a bad situation worse, sometimes it doesn't affect anything, so maybe having good family and parents, maybe a safe community and similar things are what really matter?