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> My father rushed over from his job at Philco (you can still see the building on 101 in Palo Alto). He took a couple of days to make the necessary arrangements

> My father rushed over from his job at Philco (you can still see the building on 101 in Palo Alto). He took a couple of days to make the necessary arrangements, passed me off to my grandmother’s care, then went back to work. He had a deadline. This story is a good reminder to me to continue to live within my means. In this situation, fuck deadlines! I'm taking my son to a ball game and helping him grieve the loss of his sister. You deserved more OP, your father was a coward in this situation and failed to step up.

shard 5y ago
I think there is a bit of a lack of empathy in your response. First, not everyone has learned how to express affection, especially some of the previous generations. The author even wrote that the father wanted to be involved in his child's life, but did not have practice or models for being the kind of father the author wanted. It does not indicate cowardice. It could be very difficult to switch one's frame of view to something that seems alien. It might have been just as difficult for the author's father to become an affectionate and involved parent, which you see as something he should be able to achieve, as it would be for a typical modern man to accept that plants have the same rights as people, which some future version of humanity might consider to be an obvious given. Second, people grieve in different ways. Some might engage in self-destructive behavior. Others might fall into a deep depression and have trouble getting out of bed. The father might have found comfort with the routine of work where he could pretend everything was fine. He was at least aware enough to make sure his children were care for, by passing them to the grandmother. He might find seeing his wife or child too much to bear, as they remind him too much of his daughter. There is a reason why couples often separate if a child dies. He might not have the skills to deal with his grief, might not have had help, might not know where to get help, might not have even know he needed help. Third, there are several different ways of parenting. One of which is what you mentioned, making sure the family has modest needs so that they can live within those means, reducing the burden on the parents to have to constantly strive for ever increasing wages. There are also parents who want to provide as much as possible for their children, the healthiest foods, the best medical care, exposure to many ideas and activities and cultures, which necessitates a tradeoff between effort put into work and direct time with family. It might be easy to agree that the extremes of the spectrum are poor choices, but harder to say where along the middle of the spectrum is the optimum. Which is the main point of the article, whether you agree or not.
- chasd00 5y ago
  > The author even wrote that the father wanted to be involved in his child's life, but did not have practice or models for being the kind of father the author wanted. then the author's father should have figured it out. i don't have a lot of sympathy for people in problem solving fields that, for the life of them, somehow can't solve for family. You read the docs (books), figure it out, and seek SME's for guidance. Just like everything else.
  - WJW 5y ago
    Perhaps. Not everyone can learn everything, and blaming the father for his shortcomings because he was apparently smart in other fields ("in a problem solving field") is just callous. Yes, the world would have been slightly better if he could have done it. But sometimes the world is not as great as we would like, and people inside it do not live up to our (or even their own) expectations. They deserve empathy, not to be called cowards in internet comments by people who never knew them.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      Where do you draw the line? It seems like any shortcoming can be traced back to some mix of nature or nurture, is it just universally unfair to expect things from other humans? Of course even flawed people deserve some level of empathy, but there's a difference between empathy and immunity from responsibility or criticism.
  - shard 5y ago
    > You read the docs (books), figure it out, and seek SME's for guidance. Just like everything else. Going a little beyond the case of the article, for something like interpersonal relationships, there are as many methods as there are practitioners, many of them diametrically opposed to each other. What's considered best varies by culture, by demographics, fades in and out like fashion, works for some personalities and relationships and not others, might be harmful in ways not currently understood. It's not like math where there are empirically correct answers that can be logically proven. Certainly one can do what one considers best based on the current situation and general consensus, but I don't think it would be surprising if some people find that their best intentions are considered strange or unacceptable some time down the road, as society changes. Getting back to the article, the author did not mention whether they talked to the father about their needs and wants. It is possible that the father thought he was solving for family quite adequately. We don't have both sides of the story.

shard 5y ago

I think there is a bit of a lack of empathy in your response. First, not everyone has learned how to express affection, especially some of the previous generations. The author even wrote that the father wanted to be involved in his child's life, but did not have practice or models for being the kind of father the author wanted. It does not indicate cowardice. It could be very difficult to switch one's frame of view to something that seems alien. It might have been just as difficult for the author's father to become an affectionate and involved parent, which you see as something he should be able to achieve, as it would be for a typical modern man to accept that plants have the same rights as people, which some future version of humanity might consider to be an obvious given. Second, people grieve in different ways. Some might engage in self-destructive behavior. Others might fall into a deep depression and have trouble getting out of bed. The father might have found comfort with the routine of work where he could pretend everything was fine. He was at least aware enough to make sure his children were care for, by passing them to the grandmother. He might find seeing his wife or child too much to bear, as they remind him too much of his daughter. There is a reason why couples often separate if a child dies. He might not have the skills to deal with his grief, might not have had help, might not know where to get help, might not have even know he needed help. Third, there are several different ways of parenting. One of which is what you mentioned, making sure the family has modest needs so that they can live within those means, reducing the burden on the parents to have to constantly strive for ever increasing wages. There are also parents who want to provide as much as possible for their children, the healthiest foods, the best medical care, exposure to many ideas and activities and cultures, which necessitates a tradeoff between effort put into work and direct time with family. It might be easy to agree that the extremes of the spectrum are poor choices, but harder to say where along the middle of the spectrum is the optimum. Which is the main point of the article, whether you agree or not.

chasd00 5y ago
> The author even wrote that the father wanted to be involved in his child's life, but did not have practice or models for being the kind of father the author wanted. then the author's father should have figured it out. i don't have a lot of sympathy for people in problem solving fields that, for the life of them, somehow can't solve for family. You read the docs (books), figure it out, and seek SME's for guidance. Just like everything else.
- WJW 5y ago
  Perhaps. Not everyone can learn everything, and blaming the father for his shortcomings because he was apparently smart in other fields ("in a problem solving field") is just callous. Yes, the world would have been slightly better if he could have done it. But sometimes the world is not as great as we would like, and people inside it do not live up to our (or even their own) expectations. They deserve empathy, not to be called cowards in internet comments by people who never knew them.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    Where do you draw the line? It seems like any shortcoming can be traced back to some mix of nature or nurture, is it just universally unfair to expect things from other humans? Of course even flawed people deserve some level of empathy, but there's a difference between empathy and immunity from responsibility or criticism.
- shard 5y ago
  > You read the docs (books), figure it out, and seek SME's for guidance. Just like everything else. Going a little beyond the case of the article, for something like interpersonal relationships, there are as many methods as there are practitioners, many of them diametrically opposed to each other. What's considered best varies by culture, by demographics, fades in and out like fashion, works for some personalities and relationships and not others, might be harmful in ways not currently understood. It's not like math where there are empirically correct answers that can be logically proven. Certainly one can do what one considers best based on the current situation and general consensus, but I don't think it would be surprising if some people find that their best intentions are considered strange or unacceptable some time down the road, as society changes. Getting back to the article, the author did not mention whether they talked to the father about their needs and wants. It is possible that the father thought he was solving for family quite adequately. We don't have both sides of the story.