I guess people are different, and my own experiences are by no means generally applicable, but if you had been my parent, I'm convinced that you had me done a m

I guess people are different, and my own experiences are by no means generally applicable, but if you had been my parent, I'm convinced that you had me done a massive disservice. I consider myself to be relatively successful, financially and otherwise. For example, I make significantly north of what you would consider a good salary even in the silicon valley (I do want to retire early), doing an interesting job that very few in the world have the opportunity to do, and have meaningful (and fun!) relationships to people. And I attribute a lot of this to the fact that I was able to be my own person and follow my own activities and passions in my childhood. My parents were fairly mundane German parents in that they did raise me, set limits, instilled morals, sent me to school and all that, so they were by no means anti-authoritative. But in my free time after school and on weekends for example, I was freely able to choose how to spend my own time. By that I don't mean that I was able to do whatever I want, but that, within the limits of what was considered acceptable behavior by my parents, I was pretty much completely free-ranging. On my own, I played inside and outside, I met with friends, sometimes I would just play video games for days, sometimes I would watch TV, and sometimes I would lock (not literally) myself in my room for days and tinker with computers or read technical stuff. I grew up discovering the world and having a great social life, with several deep-seated passions on top that shaped the life that I now have in my 30s. On the other hand, I saw plenty of people growing up for which it was painfully obvious that what they did was out of some sort of obligation instilled by their parents, and it really wasn't a guarantee for success. You are never going to outpace someone who does what they do because they really like to do it, and if you could, to what end? In my case, I am almost certain that your parenting would have make me hate the interests you force instead of thrive in them. But then I do realize that people are different. Some people, given the free time to do whatever they please, chose it to fill basically all of their life with World of Warcraft, so the correct answer for some person may not be the correct one for another one. In my case, though, I will take my childhood as a successful model and will make sure that while my child grows up to be a well-adjusted, moral and (sufficiently) disciplined person, they have the ability to grow into their own.