17 ms·

I've often thought the same thing about becoming an adult, especially a parent, in general. There are so many choices that I harshly judged older people for mak

I've often thought the same thing about becoming an adult, especially a parent, in general. There are so many choices that I harshly judged older people for making (how to allocate their time and money, where to live, what to allow or not allow the kids to do, how to behave at work, etc.) that I now find myself making as a married guy in my mid-30s with four kids. It makes me sad, but on each point I'm like, "Oh, now I get it." I fear that this pattern could continue until I become my father in my 50s and 60s. I try not to judge people so much anymore. Anyway, I appreciate the article as someone who will soon try my hand at teaching. I will have a lot to learn.

germinalphrase 5y ago
I may not make the same problems I judge my parents for, but I will certainly make new mistakes my children will judge me for. Just trying to be better.
- bckr 5y ago
  That might be true, but I think there is a threshold called "good enough" that every parent can reach with some effort.
sturgill 5y ago
I frequently say that 16 y/o Chris would be very disappointed in 40 y/o Chris. But 16 y/o Chris was an idiot. As you touched on, the fun twist is when you abstract the learning so it’s not just “I was wrong about X” but “I should be much more accepting of contrarian views.”
- swayvil 5y ago
  Larry Niven. Protector. Human eats mutagenic yam. Among various changes, it greatly augments intelligence. The first thought of a Protector, just awakened from his mutative trance, is, "Wow, I have been really really dumb".
- VeninVidiaVicii 5y ago
  Don’t judge your former self too harshly either. It’s easy to forget why you were an idiot at 16.
  - andi999 5y ago
    Make that 25.
    - jfengel 5y ago
      50
- ZYinMD 5y ago
  I remember reading Harry Potter on Kindle, and Dumbledore had a line "Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young", and Kindle has this feature to show how many other readers have highlighted a sentence, and this sentence were highlighted by thousands. I guess they're all teenagers.
  - lupire 5y ago
    Harry Potter on Kindle readers are probably young adults.
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      Amazon probably has the exact demographics.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      I’m reading it out loud to my family (every character has a different voice). It’s a very mixed group with lots of discussions.
      - rybosome 5y ago
        I am really looking forward to doing that as well with my daughter when she is older. Narrating books well with distinct character voices is a lot of fun!
    - vishnugupta 5y ago
      HP on Kindle is my go-to-sleep-at-night book. I’m in early 40s.
- adverbly 5y ago
  > the fun twist is when you abstract the learning so it’s not just “I was wrong about X” but “I should be much more accepting of contrarian views.” Yup. Until people abstract over their previous experiences they will continue to find themselves in situations where they have had and discarded 5 different previous viewpoints only to think to themselves: "I've got it right this time, and anyone that disagrees is stupid". Some would call this "Wisdom". Also interesting that learning this lesson does not make your current understanding any more accurate - it just reduces your confidence in it. Wisdom != Ability to understand.
- sershe 5y ago
  I am in my late 30ies and was recently thinking something like that about my 24 year old self... but sometimes I think, what if 3X-year old me is the one who's the idiot? Your brain has to go downhill at some point... judgment too, probably, even if the brain is not going downhill yet. How does one know it didn't start happening at 25/35/...? Like, I was much more excited about tinkering with tech when I was 25. I know I was, I know it made me happy, I know that is what got me where I am now in terms of money/etc., but I can rarely summon these feelings now. That is clearly degradation, if I could swap some "wisdom" or whatever that I gained for enthusiasm I would do it. What else has degraded? Let's consider a more ambivalent one, I was excited when Facebook/etc. came out but I think TikTok/Snapchat etc. are stupid gimmicks... am I wiser, or just older and more boring? Etc.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
What’s wrong with doing the things that your more mature, logical self actually wants instead of what your younger, uninformed self thought you’d want? There’s nothing stopping you from eating ice cream for breakfast, spending all of your money on Lamborghinis, and playing video games all day. As an adult you realize that those things won’t actually bring you true happiness and those decisions will cause significant negative consequences in the future that you’d rather avoid. I don’t see what’s sad about that, other than maybe the disappointment of losing naiveté.
- ElFitz 5y ago
  It’s still nice to finally have that ice cream for breakfast every now and then.
  - brabel 5y ago
    If it's fine now, it was fine back then also.
    - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
      the # if people in the US with glucose monitors says differently.
      - brabel 5y ago
        what you're saying is just that maybe it's not fine now as it was not fine then (as usual, this depends on the particular person).
      - filoleg 5y ago
        There is a difference between "for breakfast every now and then" and "all day every day". I have a feeling that those who would be putting themselves under the risk of using glucose monitors tend to fall more into the latter group.
        5y ago
Swizec 5y ago
"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years." Always loved that quote. Unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way. Parents can also get worse as you age and learn that some actions or behaviors are inexcusable. But as a younger person you either didn't understand the context or thought it was okay.
- bckr 5y ago
  > Parents can also get worse as you age and learn that some actions or behaviors are inexcusable Indeed, many would envy those in this thread who seem to have avoided having the truly stupid/insane/wicked adults in their lives. > I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. I actually interpret this as Twain saying that his father was a jerk, but that said father managed to mature with time. But he's written it in a way that the average person would chuckle and say "ah, see, his father wasn't a jerk all along!". Either that, or he's just written a perfect magic mirror.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    The quote isn't about his temperament but his knowledge, so I think that interpretation is a bit of a stretch. I think the same kind of quote would absolutely apply in exactly the same way to temperament though. The 14 year old thought his dad was a jerk who mellowed out by the time he was 21, the reality again being that the biggest change was actually the child's temperament.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      Or it could have the same tongue in cheek sentiment. It's a lot harder to beat the crap out of a 21 year old than a 14 year old.
brightball 5y ago
Yep. Your point of view as a parent is often very different than as a teen/20-ager. Different priorities. You’re suddenly aware of all of the things in society influencing your kids. You’re very aware when things your read online don’t match up with reality and especially with math. It’s just life experience. I don’t know many parents who look back at their younger years thinking, “I had it all figured out back then.” And the longer you watch it the more aware you become of the people trying to influence kids for different reasons specifically because those kids don’t look at it and call BS immediately.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  As a parent it becomes super apparent how many interested parties, especially child-less interested parties, are interested in capturing the minds of your kids. Be it to make a buck, to further their political cause or for something sexual/nefarious. Or even usurping their minds and psyche into something destructive as an ignorant and unintended consequence. Then all the "stupid" authoritarian, seemingly arbitrary and maybe even paranoid shit your parents pulled all of a sudden comes into focus and understanding. You, more easily see, how irrational panics happen/occur and sometimes when those panics aren't entirely unjustified
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Adults don't look at it and call it BS immediately, either. If anything kids are better at it. e.g. we all knew that the moral panic over violent video games was a bunch of BS.
  - svnt 5y ago
    I think these are two different classes of issues you’re comparing. Kids are perhaps often intuitively good at evaluating the severity of unintended consequences. Adults are much better at being aware of deliberate efforts to take advantage of developmental stages and tendencies.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  More age, and requisite life-experience, changes you as a parent. In some ways it's better, in some ways it's worse. I've been a better parent and a worse parent for my younger children - IMO 30-32 is/was the right age to get balance in these things. I expect that differs by cultural setting, nationality, etc.. Couple of examples: I'm less hot-headed as I age; I'm less physically able (much more than I expected).
tchalla 5y ago
Chesterton’s Fence is a nice mental model to ensure we don’t harshly judge choices https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/
temp8964 5y ago
There's an author I read a lot who repeatedly makes a point in this writing: there are things in my writing you won't be able to understand before you get older, there is just no way. I have to say, it is so true. There are layers of layers I can only see when I get older. Remember when you are a teenage in high school and teachers explain subtle messages in the reading? You and all your classmates are like: this is bs, totally made up by the teacher, even the author didn't think of those. Then after you get older and you may realize: those subtle messages are just so obvious and they just can't be explained to people without life experiences.
- skybrian 5y ago
  Which author?
  - b3morales 5y ago
    I don't know if this is who parent meant, but it's certainly one of C.S. Lewis's not-so-subtle themes in the Chronicles of Narnia.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  I don’t know even in hindsight there were plenty of “sometimes a door is just a door” moments with my teachers haha. Jokes aside, totally agree with you. Definitely something you learn with age
- zafka 5y ago
  Indeed- Which author?
- Hendrikto 5y ago
  > You and all your classmates are like: this is bs, totally made up by the teacher, even the author didn't think of those. Then after you get older and you may realize: those subtle messages are just so obvious I think about this a lot. When consuming media, I constantly notice these kinds of messages. As you said: It’s almost impossible not to. But back in school, I was convinced that 95% was made up.
agumonkey 5y ago
I wonder if there's a way to reduce and soften the classic generational gap you describe. Just like you I find myself constantly realizing most of my intuitions were wrong from being partially informed (and too keen on believing my perspective and intuitions) On the other hand, our elders were young hot heads too at some point. They know we don't. :)
dionidium 5y ago
I just had my first child at age 40 and of course my experience is similar to yours. I can't help but wonder if delaying (or eschewing) having children is contributing to what seems to be a broadening generational gap. I'm learning lessons in early middle-age that previous generations learned in their early twenties. I could have used some of this new empathy I'm feeling for my parents and their generation 15-20 years ago.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Same boat, same feeling. But I also think there are mistakes we aren’t making, a maturity that will lead to perhaps enhanced outcomes for our kids even if not for us.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Which mistakes?
    - bckr 5y ago
      Not GP, but I suspect that increased emotional maturity would prevent one from lashing out, overreacting, underreacting, being unable to emotionally support one's child, etc.
    - andi999 5y ago
      You dont have to live your dreams through your kids (happens to ppl with unfinished potential due to early parenthood)
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Even kids have less responsibility and more oversight today than generations ago. I wonder if that contributes to speed of maturation.
- xoserr 5y ago
  For sure. Not to mention someone like me who is child free and never going to learn these lessons.
Forgeties79 5y ago
On the other hand (as a father of two) I find myself thinking about how my dad handled situations, comparing how I just handled it, and going, “wow did he have that backwards” haha. Not all the time of course and like you I have definitely come to appreciate how tough it is to make the “right” call, but we certainly have learned some things. One thing Boomer parents were really bad about - at least in my experience - was building a healthy relationship with food and meals in general. So much punishment and reward centers around food, it’s quite upsetting when you really think about it. I’ve had quite a few friends in my life - men and women - with eating disorders of all shapes and sizes. You can almost always find stories involving their parents at the core of them. Making everyone sit at the table until the last person has finished their plate, the old “starving children in Africa” line we’ve all heard at least secondhand, forcing toddlers to eat everything and then they get dessert as a direct reward (which often ignores teaching them how to read signs that they’re full). The list goes on.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  I think the Boomer "Eat all the food on your plate" meme came from their parents, who lived through the Great Depression and food insecurity. Mindlessly passed down from a time of scarcity to a time of abundance. They just repeated it, but this time with gigantic, obesity-levels of food on their kids' plates. We usually just ask our kid how much she wants to eat. It seems to work a lot better than the way my parents did it, with a lot less drama, and she's not growing up with an antagonistic and/or compulsive attitude towards food.
  - flycaliguy 5y ago
    Speaking of dinner time, the negative effects of all the boomer moms and their trendy diets on young girls at the time. Weight Watchers. Just the phrase “Weight Watchers” being in the house and in the air.
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      No kidding. My wife talks about this a lot actually - how basically every mom she was around constantly talked about diets, losing weight, I need to fit in x or y outfit, etc. Just constant (usually negative) body talk all the time by adult women.
Clubber 5y ago
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” ― Mark Twain
jhanschoo 5y ago
On the other hand, this observation must be qualified as not necessarily generalizable to all teenagers and parents. Sometimes a person may grow up and realize that their parents were indeed quite lacking, and be right in that assessment. I think this other circumstance is important to at least mention because children of objectively lacking parents can have doubts in their mind about their own judgment. In part because of this common trope of teenagers growing up and reflecting that they were foolish and their parents were wiser than they expected, in part because familial norms are so private that it's difficult for one to know what's abnormal for families in a harmful way. Sometimes, what underlies painful experiences for children aren't parents actually making a wise decision, but plain bad judgment on their part.
- warner25 5y ago
  True, and I wouldn't limit this to only be about my own parents, but more broadly about all kinds of people like teachers, coaches, aunts and uncles, older co-workers, people in the news... even slightly older siblings who had kids a few years before I did.
- notriddle 5y ago
  Older people knowing better than younger people is one of those heuristics that's almost always right [1]. It's hard to tell the difference between a stupid kid and a stupid parent, because stupid parents are rare. Yet people keep searching for stupid parents, because it's really important to find them when they exist. There's a constant rate of kids pulling false alarms on their parents, but you don't want to ignore them, because if one of them is for real, you don't want to be the asshole that ignored all the warning signs. [1]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/heuristics-that-almost-always-work https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/heuristics-that-almost...
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Maybe I was just unlucky, but that isn't my retroactive judgement on my childhood at all. My experience was one of mostly adults making me do something that is really down to subjective preference because that was their preference. And now that I'm an adult and can make my own choices I'm much happier about it.
derbOac 5y ago
My grandfather, when he was in his mid 80s, once said something to me like "you never stop being his dad, and he never stops being your son", when talking about his own father, who was in his 50s or something at that point. He wasn't being sentimental, he was saying that he was always in the role of trying to provide advice to his son, being older, and his son was always in the position of going to him for advice and looking to him for help. I guess your comments reminded me of that in the sense that you always have something to learn from people who went before you. Sometimes they have made mistakes you don't want to repeat, and sometimes you all collectively face things no one has faced before, but usually people who are experienced have some wisdom to impart. Sometimes I think agism is partly a sign that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of assuming everything we do is new. The Chesterton's Fence analogy in the original post is apt in this regard.
antishatter 5y ago
I like myself.
Bayart 5y ago
> I fear that this pattern could continue until I become my father in my 50s and 60s. I try not to judge people so much anymore. I'm getting to the same age but I don't have kids yet. Still, I've grown to come to the same realisation as you did somewhere in my mid to late 20s (older people were, for the most part, right and I must have been an inssufferable twerp). I just thought it was something that came naturally to everybody with age.
sdeframond 5y ago
Sometimes I wonder how much we just repeat what our parents did instead of trying to find a better way, just because that's what we already know...
swat535 5y ago
You clearly haven't had incompetent parents. I'll give you a personal example: both my parents _completely_ failed to manage their finances, they kept on borrowing money, refinancing the house 3-4 times. Since the age of 17, as a young software engineer, I was constantly asked to help with the payments. Now that my mom has passed away, my dad has 0 income, he didn't bother to plan anything for his retirement and thus, we are forced to sell the house and both my brother and I have to forgo our share of the money so that he can survive. In addition, I _still_ have to give help him financially and he refused to put his money in an investment account so that he can at least profit from the returns.. now he will basically eat every single dollar and then my brother and I have to yet again provide for him few years down the line. Not only I got no support from them, I had to _on top of it_ fight my way through an uphill battle (they didn't even want me to study CS) and provide for them. They took all the child tax benefit money and ate it.. when I wanted to move at 20, I left with nothing, I just took my clothes. Sure, parents are wise when it's about "not eating ice cream before dinner", but don't tell me they actually make good decisions.
- oblio 5y ago
  I'm always amazed how these kinds of folks survive. Do they luck out into well paying jobs? What do they even spend the money on? Don't they noticed the bad patterns after a while? Soooo many questions :-)
  - Trasmatta 5y ago
    > how these kinds of folks survive By getting into massive amounts of debt
    - oblio 5y ago
      Debt has to be repaid and at some point you can't.
- kelnos 5y ago
  I think most of what you are talking about here is your parents being incompetent people. Even if they hadn't had kids, they still would have been in financial trouble their entire lives. I don't even think this is due to a lack of financial education on their part. Feels more like compulsive spending, something a therapist might have been able to help them through had they been willing to talk to one. Either way, it really sucks that you and your brother had to suffer so much for their failures.
fungiblecog 5y ago
Maybe I'm weird. I've brought up my kids without applying the dumb rules i hated as a kid and they're both happy and well adjusted. And i'm happier too because i've avoided all the usual stupid family arguments that would otherwise result. I see other parents repeatedly inflicting on their kids rules and behaviours that are completely unnecessary but they think it's "the right thing" i see this as truly stupid and a great way to sour your relationship with your kids when they get older and don't have to take it anymore
- kelnos 5y ago
  I'm not a parent, but this really resonated with me. My childhood was full of dumb rules that I hated. After complaining, my parents would feed me platitudes like "you'll understand and appreciate this when you're older" (sometimes with "... and have your own kids" appended to the end). Today (at age 40) I still believe these rules were dumb and pointless, and actively harmful to my childhood development. I do expect that, not being a parent myself, I might be judging some of these things more harshly than I otherwise would. But certainly not all things, and I certainly would have turned out just as ok (and possibly more ok-er) had many of these dumb rules not existed in the first place. (Don't get me wrong, I still have a fairly good impression of my childhood, and I don't think these dumb rules did any permanent damage. But they were still dumb, and created more strife between my parents and me than was necessary when I was young.)
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  Now this is a feel-good comment. Do you mind sharing one of the dumb rules that you might have been tempted to apply but decided against?
  - hahajk 5y ago
    Saying “because I said so.” Or “stop it,” out of frustration. Family members have babysat my kids, and this is a mistake I see all the time. If you tell kids not to do something, always tell them why. And be honest about it. It’s kids’ job to learn about the world, and it’s your job as a parent to teach them about it.
rayiner 5y ago
Why should you feel bad about it? You’re learning from your life experience. I too cringe at stuff I believed before I was mid-30s and married with three kids. I’m also slowly becoming my dad. A lot of that’s due to having seen a lot of things that made me realize my worldview when I was young had been limited. (Freedom of choice and freedom from norms sounds great when you’re young and feel invincible and think you’re in control of your destiny, but less so when you live life and see tons of people making all sorts of bad decisions that you managed to avoid because you did what your square parents told you to do.) That’s life.
- oblio 5y ago
  > Freedom of choice and freedom from norms I like to put it as: you give up some lower level freedoms (you have to wear a seatbelt) to gain other higher level ones (freedom to not die as an idiot on the way and to get to enjoy your trip to Disneyland).
madrox 5y ago
I don't know if you've ever read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, but I get something different out of it at every stage of my life and your comment made me think of this book.
- AvocadoPanic 5y ago
  I'm already the river.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
I am definitely in the same boat. For 30 years, I had a very specific vision of how I'm going to be different. Whether in serious relationships or single, I was not really buying into my parents' generation OR my own generation ideas. Then: 1. I met "The One" 2. We had kids And now I'm living a fairly stereotypical North American lifestyle. And not... begrudgingly or resentfully or bitterly so! It's just that nothing could prepare me or give me true empathetic understanding of how my priorities, goals, and lifestyle would change. An extremely superficial example is vehicle; I always had sport small hatchbacks. I used to have endless debates with my SUV-loving friends about how unsafe and overly large they are. I now have a minivan. I love it. It's not a necessity, it's a luxury, but it's a luxury I WANT as a married parent of kids in North American suburb who loves to travel with extended family. Myriad other things about raising kids too; e.g. I will never ever again judge another human being when their kid misbehaves in public, or how they're handling it. I'm humbled with deeper understanding of how little of a clue I have as to their relationship, parenting style, or what long long LOOONG chain of events precipitated the outburst and what may be the right way to handle it given the background... or, what the parent's energy levels and day are like.
hodgesrm 5y ago
There's a great quote about being a parent that's often attributed to Mark Twain: > When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. It's unlikely he personally said it, because his father died when he was about 11. But it sounds like something that he would have said in one of his books. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Clemens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Clemens
kirso 5y ago
This is a bit paradoxical because it also works the other way around. I definitely have the same resonance in terms of understanding, but I am also feeling like "Gosh, they had no clue what they were doing when they [game me this advice], [prevented me to do this], [scolded me for doing that] etc. etc.
wavegeek 5y ago
It is interesting but I had the opposite experience. I think two things led to this. 1. In ante-natal classes the person took us through child development and what children are capable of at different ages. In particular, newborns to about 6-8 months do not even have a concept of themselves as separate people. All they can learn at that time is whether the world is a good place where their needs have a chance of being met. They are incapable of e.g. deliberately crying in order to get picked up. If you do not respond to their suffering you are just going to create a needy and insecure child. So we dodged that bullet. 2. The book "Parent Effectiveness Training" which was a revelation to me. The basic idea is that children own their lives and the consequences of their decisions. Of course there is a limit - you don't let a 3 year old run into traffic. But as far as possible let children make their own decisions. They learn really fast that way. If you micro-manage their lives you end up with 18 year old children. This does not mean you do not have rules in your house. You are not allowed to play drums at 3am, but that would apply to everyone. So many parents impose their own choices and preferences on their children for no good reason, and it creates resentment and stops children from learning from their own decisions. As one example, I have lactose intolerance but I was forced to drink milk, with resulting stomach aches, etc, for many years. I literally knew better than my parents and school in this matter. Similarly if you think you know better than your children in every matter, may I suggest contemplating the spectacle of a 15 year old dressed for a party by Mom. After our daughter turned 12 we only overrode her on two things - becoming a vegatarian (not allowed until she completed her growth) and a change of school. In both cases we carefully listened to her point of view and considered it, and explained why on these rare occasions we overruled her. Because this was so rare, and handled in a respectful manner, she accepted the decisions. My own mother waited with great anticipation for the teen rebellion that she had forced her own children into, but it never came with my daughter. Why rebel when there is no need? She never lost the love of learning and ended up with a PhD in a hard science. One other comment on the OP. There seems to be a wider issue here. If you let children not work, and fail, then the first time there will be a commotion. But if teachers did this consistently, word would get around and it would be accepted. Students whose life goals required passing the test would do the work. But in fact many school subjects are useless to many people and not studying is a rational response to being taught irrelevant nonsense.
cycomanic 5y ago
While I see some truth in your argument I disagree one the whole. I am a parent and a teacher and I think the process is very different. Yes I sometimes differ from how I thought I would raise my children, but only in the details. Now with teaching the problem is that you have to deal with all the kids/adults that were raised in ways that you strongly disagree with.

germinalphrase 5y ago

I may not make the same problems I judge my parents for, but I will certainly make new mistakes my children will judge me for. Just trying to be better.

bckr 5y ago
That might be true, but I think there is a threshold called "good enough" that every parent can reach with some effort.

sturgill 5y ago

I frequently say that 16 y/o Chris would be very disappointed in 40 y/o Chris. But 16 y/o Chris was an idiot. As you touched on, the fun twist is when you abstract the learning so it’s not just “I was wrong about X” but “I should be much more accepting of contrarian views.”

swayvil 5y ago
Larry Niven. Protector. Human eats mutagenic yam. Among various changes, it greatly augments intelligence. The first thought of a Protector, just awakened from his mutative trance, is, "Wow, I have been really really dumb".
VeninVidiaVicii 5y ago
Don’t judge your former self too harshly either. It’s easy to forget why you were an idiot at 16.
- andi999 5y ago
  Make that 25.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    50
ZYinMD 5y ago
I remember reading Harry Potter on Kindle, and Dumbledore had a line "Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young", and Kindle has this feature to show how many other readers have highlighted a sentence, and this sentence were highlighted by thousands. I guess they're all teenagers.
- lupire 5y ago
  Harry Potter on Kindle readers are probably young adults.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    Amazon probably has the exact demographics.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    I’m reading it out loud to my family (every character has a different voice). It’s a very mixed group with lots of discussions.
    - rybosome 5y ago
      I am really looking forward to doing that as well with my daughter when she is older. Narrating books well with distinct character voices is a lot of fun!
  - vishnugupta 5y ago
    HP on Kindle is my go-to-sleep-at-night book. I’m in early 40s.
adverbly 5y ago
> the fun twist is when you abstract the learning so it’s not just “I was wrong about X” but “I should be much more accepting of contrarian views.” Yup. Until people abstract over their previous experiences they will continue to find themselves in situations where they have had and discarded 5 different previous viewpoints only to think to themselves: "I've got it right this time, and anyone that disagrees is stupid". Some would call this "Wisdom". Also interesting that learning this lesson does not make your current understanding any more accurate - it just reduces your confidence in it. Wisdom != Ability to understand.
sershe 5y ago
I am in my late 30ies and was recently thinking something like that about my 24 year old self... but sometimes I think, what if 3X-year old me is the one who's the idiot? Your brain has to go downhill at some point... judgment too, probably, even if the brain is not going downhill yet. How does one know it didn't start happening at 25/35/...? Like, I was much more excited about tinkering with tech when I was 25. I know I was, I know it made me happy, I know that is what got me where I am now in terms of money/etc., but I can rarely summon these feelings now. That is clearly degradation, if I could swap some "wisdom" or whatever that I gained for enthusiasm I would do it. What else has degraded? Let's consider a more ambivalent one, I was excited when Facebook/etc. came out but I think TikTok/Snapchat etc. are stupid gimmicks... am I wiser, or just older and more boring? Etc.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

What’s wrong with doing the things that your more mature, logical self actually wants instead of what your younger, uninformed self thought you’d want? There’s nothing stopping you from eating ice cream for breakfast, spending all of your money on Lamborghinis, and playing video games all day. As an adult you realize that those things won’t actually bring you true happiness and those decisions will cause significant negative consequences in the future that you’d rather avoid. I don’t see what’s sad about that, other than maybe the disappointment of losing naiveté.

ElFitz 5y ago
It’s still nice to finally have that ice cream for breakfast every now and then.
- brabel 5y ago
  If it's fine now, it was fine back then also.
  - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
    the # if people in the US with glucose monitors says differently.
    - brabel 5y ago
      what you're saying is just that maybe it's not fine now as it was not fine then (as usual, this depends on the particular person).
    - filoleg 5y ago
      There is a difference between "for breakfast every now and then" and "all day every day". I have a feeling that those who would be putting themselves under the risk of using glucose monitors tend to fall more into the latter group.
      - 5y ago

Swizec 5y ago

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years." Always loved that quote. Unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way. Parents can also get worse as you age and learn that some actions or behaviors are inexcusable. But as a younger person you either didn't understand the context or thought it was okay.

bckr 5y ago
> Parents can also get worse as you age and learn that some actions or behaviors are inexcusable Indeed, many would envy those in this thread who seem to have avoided having the truly stupid/insane/wicked adults in their lives. > I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. I actually interpret this as Twain saying that his father was a jerk, but that said father managed to mature with time. But he's written it in a way that the average person would chuckle and say "ah, see, his father wasn't a jerk all along!". Either that, or he's just written a perfect magic mirror.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  The quote isn't about his temperament but his knowledge, so I think that interpretation is a bit of a stretch. I think the same kind of quote would absolutely apply in exactly the same way to temperament though. The 14 year old thought his dad was a jerk who mellowed out by the time he was 21, the reality again being that the biggest change was actually the child's temperament.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Or it could have the same tongue in cheek sentiment. It's a lot harder to beat the crap out of a 21 year old than a 14 year old.

brightball 5y ago

Yep. Your point of view as a parent is often very different than as a teen/20-ager. Different priorities. You’re suddenly aware of all of the things in society influencing your kids. You’re very aware when things your read online don’t match up with reality and especially with math. It’s just life experience. I don’t know many parents who look back at their younger years thinking, “I had it all figured out back then.” And the longer you watch it the more aware you become of the people trying to influence kids for different reasons specifically because those kids don’t look at it and call BS immediately.

loudtieblahblah 5y ago
As a parent it becomes super apparent how many interested parties, especially child-less interested parties, are interested in capturing the minds of your kids. Be it to make a buck, to further their political cause or for something sexual/nefarious. Or even usurping their minds and psyche into something destructive as an ignorant and unintended consequence. Then all the "stupid" authoritarian, seemingly arbitrary and maybe even paranoid shit your parents pulled all of a sudden comes into focus and understanding. You, more easily see, how irrational panics happen/occur and sometimes when those panics aren't entirely unjustified
fallingknife 5y ago
Adults don't look at it and call it BS immediately, either. If anything kids are better at it. e.g. we all knew that the moral panic over violent video games was a bunch of BS.
- svnt 5y ago
  I think these are two different classes of issues you’re comparing. Kids are perhaps often intuitively good at evaluating the severity of unintended consequences. Adults are much better at being aware of deliberate efforts to take advantage of developmental stages and tendencies.
pbhjpbhj 5y ago
More age, and requisite life-experience, changes you as a parent. In some ways it's better, in some ways it's worse. I've been a better parent and a worse parent for my younger children - IMO 30-32 is/was the right age to get balance in these things. I expect that differs by cultural setting, nationality, etc.. Couple of examples: I'm less hot-headed as I age; I'm less physically able (much more than I expected).

tchalla 5y ago

Chesterton’s Fence is a nice mental model to ensure we don’t harshly judge choices https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/

temp8964 5y ago

There's an author I read a lot who repeatedly makes a point in this writing: there are things in my writing you won't be able to understand before you get older, there is just no way. I have to say, it is so true. There are layers of layers I can only see when I get older. Remember when you are a teenage in high school and teachers explain subtle messages in the reading? You and all your classmates are like: this is bs, totally made up by the teacher, even the author didn't think of those. Then after you get older and you may realize: those subtle messages are just so obvious and they just can't be explained to people without life experiences.

skybrian 5y ago
Which author?
- b3morales 5y ago
  I don't know if this is who parent meant, but it's certainly one of C.S. Lewis's not-so-subtle themes in the Chronicles of Narnia.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Forgeties79 5y ago
I don’t know even in hindsight there were plenty of “sometimes a door is just a door” moments with my teachers haha. Jokes aside, totally agree with you. Definitely something you learn with age
zafka 5y ago
Indeed- Which author?
Hendrikto 5y ago
> You and all your classmates are like: this is bs, totally made up by the teacher, even the author didn't think of those. Then after you get older and you may realize: those subtle messages are just so obvious I think about this a lot. When consuming media, I constantly notice these kinds of messages. As you said: It’s almost impossible not to. But back in school, I was convinced that 95% was made up.

agumonkey 5y ago

I wonder if there's a way to reduce and soften the classic generational gap you describe. Just like you I find myself constantly realizing most of my intuitions were wrong from being partially informed (and too keen on believing my perspective and intuitions) On the other hand, our elders were young hot heads too at some point. They know we don't. :)

dionidium 5y ago

I just had my first child at age 40 and of course my experience is similar to yours. I can't help but wonder if delaying (or eschewing) having children is contributing to what seems to be a broadening generational gap. I'm learning lessons in early middle-age that previous generations learned in their early twenties. I could have used some of this new empathy I'm feeling for my parents and their generation 15-20 years ago.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Same boat, same feeling. But I also think there are mistakes we aren’t making, a maturity that will lead to perhaps enhanced outcomes for our kids even if not for us.
- nradov 5y ago
  Which mistakes?
  - bckr 5y ago
    Not GP, but I suspect that increased emotional maturity would prevent one from lashing out, overreacting, underreacting, being unable to emotionally support one's child, etc.
  - andi999 5y ago
    You dont have to live your dreams through your kids (happens to ppl with unfinished potential due to early parenthood)
- giantg2 5y ago
  Even kids have less responsibility and more oversight today than generations ago. I wonder if that contributes to speed of maturation.
xoserr 5y ago
For sure. Not to mention someone like me who is child free and never going to learn these lessons.

Forgeties79 5y ago

On the other hand (as a father of two) I find myself thinking about how my dad handled situations, comparing how I just handled it, and going, “wow did he have that backwards” haha. Not all the time of course and like you I have definitely come to appreciate how tough it is to make the “right” call, but we certainly have learned some things. One thing Boomer parents were really bad about - at least in my experience - was building a healthy relationship with food and meals in general. So much punishment and reward centers around food, it’s quite upsetting when you really think about it. I’ve had quite a few friends in my life - men and women - with eating disorders of all shapes and sizes. You can almost always find stories involving their parents at the core of them. Making everyone sit at the table until the last person has finished their plate, the old “starving children in Africa” line we’ve all heard at least secondhand, forcing toddlers to eat everything and then they get dessert as a direct reward (which often ignores teaching them how to read signs that they’re full). The list goes on.

ryandrake 5y ago
I think the Boomer "Eat all the food on your plate" meme came from their parents, who lived through the Great Depression and food insecurity. Mindlessly passed down from a time of scarcity to a time of abundance. They just repeated it, but this time with gigantic, obesity-levels of food on their kids' plates. We usually just ask our kid how much she wants to eat. It seems to work a lot better than the way my parents did it, with a lot less drama, and she's not growing up with an antagonistic and/or compulsive attitude towards food.
- flycaliguy 5y ago
  Speaking of dinner time, the negative effects of all the boomer moms and their trendy diets on young girls at the time. Weight Watchers. Just the phrase “Weight Watchers” being in the house and in the air.
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    No kidding. My wife talks about this a lot actually - how basically every mom she was around constantly talked about diets, losing weight, I need to fit in x or y outfit, etc. Just constant (usually negative) body talk all the time by adult women.

Clubber 5y ago

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” ― Mark Twain

jhanschoo 5y ago

On the other hand, this observation must be qualified as not necessarily generalizable to all teenagers and parents. Sometimes a person may grow up and realize that their parents were indeed quite lacking, and be right in that assessment. I think this other circumstance is important to at least mention because children of objectively lacking parents can have doubts in their mind about their own judgment. In part because of this common trope of teenagers growing up and reflecting that they were foolish and their parents were wiser than they expected, in part because familial norms are so private that it's difficult for one to know what's abnormal for families in a harmful way. Sometimes, what underlies painful experiences for children aren't parents actually making a wise decision, but plain bad judgment on their part.

warner25 5y ago
True, and I wouldn't limit this to only be about my own parents, but more broadly about all kinds of people like teachers, coaches, aunts and uncles, older co-workers, people in the news... even slightly older siblings who had kids a few years before I did.
notriddle 5y ago
Older people knowing better than younger people is one of those heuristics that's almost always right [1]. It's hard to tell the difference between a stupid kid and a stupid parent, because stupid parents are rare. Yet people keep searching for stupid parents, because it's really important to find them when they exist. There's a constant rate of kids pulling false alarms on their parents, but you don't want to ignore them, because if one of them is for real, you don't want to be the asshole that ignored all the warning signs. [1]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/heuristics-that-almost-always-work https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/heuristics-that-almost...
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Maybe I was just unlucky, but that isn't my retroactive judgement on my childhood at all. My experience was one of mostly adults making me do something that is really down to subjective preference because that was their preference. And now that I'm an adult and can make my own choices I'm much happier about it.

derbOac 5y ago

My grandfather, when he was in his mid 80s, once said something to me like "you never stop being his dad, and he never stops being your son", when talking about his own father, who was in his 50s or something at that point. He wasn't being sentimental, he was saying that he was always in the role of trying to provide advice to his son, being older, and his son was always in the position of going to him for advice and looking to him for help. I guess your comments reminded me of that in the sense that you always have something to learn from people who went before you. Sometimes they have made mistakes you don't want to repeat, and sometimes you all collectively face things no one has faced before, but usually people who are experienced have some wisdom to impart. Sometimes I think agism is partly a sign that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of assuming everything we do is new. The Chesterton's Fence analogy in the original post is apt in this regard.

antishatter 5y ago

I like myself.

Bayart 5y ago

> I fear that this pattern could continue until I become my father in my 50s and 60s. I try not to judge people so much anymore. I'm getting to the same age but I don't have kids yet. Still, I've grown to come to the same realisation as you did somewhere in my mid to late 20s (older people were, for the most part, right and I must have been an inssufferable twerp). I just thought it was something that came naturally to everybody with age.

sdeframond 5y ago

Sometimes I wonder how much we just repeat what our parents did instead of trying to find a better way, just because that's what we already know...

swat535 5y ago

You clearly haven't had incompetent parents. I'll give you a personal example: both my parents _completely_ failed to manage their finances, they kept on borrowing money, refinancing the house 3-4 times. Since the age of 17, as a young software engineer, I was constantly asked to help with the payments. Now that my mom has passed away, my dad has 0 income, he didn't bother to plan anything for his retirement and thus, we are forced to sell the house and both my brother and I have to forgo our share of the money so that he can survive. In addition, I _still_ have to give help him financially and he refused to put his money in an investment account so that he can at least profit from the returns.. now he will basically eat every single dollar and then my brother and I have to yet again provide for him few years down the line. Not only I got no support from them, I had to _on top of it_ fight my way through an uphill battle (they didn't even want me to study CS) and provide for them. They took all the child tax benefit money and ate it.. when I wanted to move at 20, I left with nothing, I just took my clothes. Sure, parents are wise when it's about "not eating ice cream before dinner", but don't tell me they actually make good decisions.

oblio 5y ago
I'm always amazed how these kinds of folks survive. Do they luck out into well paying jobs? What do they even spend the money on? Don't they noticed the bad patterns after a while? Soooo many questions :-)
- Trasmatta 5y ago
  > how these kinds of folks survive By getting into massive amounts of debt
  - oblio 5y ago
    Debt has to be repaid and at some point you can't.
kelnos 5y ago
I think most of what you are talking about here is your parents being incompetent people. Even if they hadn't had kids, they still would have been in financial trouble their entire lives. I don't even think this is due to a lack of financial education on their part. Feels more like compulsive spending, something a therapist might have been able to help them through had they been willing to talk to one. Either way, it really sucks that you and your brother had to suffer so much for their failures.

fungiblecog 5y ago

Maybe I'm weird. I've brought up my kids without applying the dumb rules i hated as a kid and they're both happy and well adjusted. And i'm happier too because i've avoided all the usual stupid family arguments that would otherwise result. I see other parents repeatedly inflicting on their kids rules and behaviours that are completely unnecessary but they think it's "the right thing" i see this as truly stupid and a great way to sour your relationship with your kids when they get older and don't have to take it anymore

kelnos 5y ago
I'm not a parent, but this really resonated with me. My childhood was full of dumb rules that I hated. After complaining, my parents would feed me platitudes like "you'll understand and appreciate this when you're older" (sometimes with "... and have your own kids" appended to the end). Today (at age 40) I still believe these rules were dumb and pointless, and actively harmful to my childhood development. I do expect that, not being a parent myself, I might be judging some of these things more harshly than I otherwise would. But certainly not all things, and I certainly would have turned out just as ok (and possibly more ok-er) had many of these dumb rules not existed in the first place. (Don't get me wrong, I still have a fairly good impression of my childhood, and I don't think these dumb rules did any permanent damage. But they were still dumb, and created more strife between my parents and me than was necessary when I was young.)
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
Now this is a feel-good comment. Do you mind sharing one of the dumb rules that you might have been tempted to apply but decided against?
- hahajk 5y ago
  Saying “because I said so.” Or “stop it,” out of frustration. Family members have babysat my kids, and this is a mistake I see all the time. If you tell kids not to do something, always tell them why. And be honest about it. It’s kids’ job to learn about the world, and it’s your job as a parent to teach them about it.

rayiner 5y ago

Why should you feel bad about it? You’re learning from your life experience. I too cringe at stuff I believed before I was mid-30s and married with three kids. I’m also slowly becoming my dad. A lot of that’s due to having seen a lot of things that made me realize my worldview when I was young had been limited. (Freedom of choice and freedom from norms sounds great when you’re young and feel invincible and think you’re in control of your destiny, but less so when you live life and see tons of people making all sorts of bad decisions that you managed to avoid because you did what your square parents told you to do.) That’s life.

oblio 5y ago
> Freedom of choice and freedom from norms I like to put it as: you give up some lower level freedoms (you have to wear a seatbelt) to gain other higher level ones (freedom to not die as an idiot on the way and to get to enjoy your trip to Disneyland).

madrox 5y ago

I don't know if you've ever read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, but I get something different out of it at every stage of my life and your comment made me think of this book.

AvocadoPanic 5y ago
I'm already the river.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

I am definitely in the same boat. For 30 years, I had a very specific vision of how I'm going to be different. Whether in serious relationships or single, I was not really buying into my parents' generation OR my own generation ideas. Then: 1. I met "The One" 2. We had kids And now I'm living a fairly stereotypical North American lifestyle. And not... begrudgingly or resentfully or bitterly so! It's just that nothing could prepare me or give me true empathetic understanding of how my priorities, goals, and lifestyle would change. An extremely superficial example is vehicle; I always had sport small hatchbacks. I used to have endless debates with my SUV-loving friends about how unsafe and overly large they are. I now have a minivan. I love it. It's not a necessity, it's a luxury, but it's a luxury I WANT as a married parent of kids in North American suburb who loves to travel with extended family. Myriad other things about raising kids too; e.g. I will never ever again judge another human being when their kid misbehaves in public, or how they're handling it. I'm humbled with deeper understanding of how little of a clue I have as to their relationship, parenting style, or what long long LOOONG chain of events precipitated the outburst and what may be the right way to handle it given the background... or, what the parent's energy levels and day are like.

hodgesrm 5y ago

There's a great quote about being a parent that's often attributed to Mark Twain: > When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. It's unlikely he personally said it, because his father died when he was about 11. But it sounds like something that he would have said in one of his books. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Clemens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Clemens

kirso 5y ago

This is a bit paradoxical because it also works the other way around. I definitely have the same resonance in terms of understanding, but I am also feeling like "Gosh, they had no clue what they were doing when they [game me this advice], [prevented me to do this], [scolded me for doing that] etc. etc.

wavegeek 5y ago

It is interesting but I had the opposite experience. I think two things led to this. 1. In ante-natal classes the person took us through child development and what children are capable of at different ages. In particular, newborns to about 6-8 months do not even have a concept of themselves as separate people. All they can learn at that time is whether the world is a good place where their needs have a chance of being met. They are incapable of e.g. deliberately crying in order to get picked up. If you do not respond to their suffering you are just going to create a needy and insecure child. So we dodged that bullet. 2. The book "Parent Effectiveness Training" which was a revelation to me. The basic idea is that children own their lives and the consequences of their decisions. Of course there is a limit - you don't let a 3 year old run into traffic. But as far as possible let children make their own decisions. They learn really fast that way. If you micro-manage their lives you end up with 18 year old children. This does not mean you do not have rules in your house. You are not allowed to play drums at 3am, but that would apply to everyone. So many parents impose their own choices and preferences on their children for no good reason, and it creates resentment and stops children from learning from their own decisions. As one example, I have lactose intolerance but I was forced to drink milk, with resulting stomach aches, etc, for many years. I literally knew better than my parents and school in this matter. Similarly if you think you know better than your children in every matter, may I suggest contemplating the spectacle of a 15 year old dressed for a party by Mom. After our daughter turned 12 we only overrode her on two things - becoming a vegatarian (not allowed until she completed her growth) and a change of school. In both cases we carefully listened to her point of view and considered it, and explained why on these rare occasions we overruled her. Because this was so rare, and handled in a respectful manner, she accepted the decisions. My own mother waited with great anticipation for the teen rebellion that she had forced her own children into, but it never came with my daughter. Why rebel when there is no need? She never lost the love of learning and ended up with a PhD in a hard science. One other comment on the OP. There seems to be a wider issue here. If you let children not work, and fail, then the first time there will be a commotion. But if teachers did this consistently, word would get around and it would be accepted. Students whose life goals required passing the test would do the work. But in fact many school subjects are useless to many people and not studying is a rational response to being taught irrelevant nonsense.

cycomanic 5y ago

While I see some truth in your argument I disagree one the whole. I am a parent and a teacher and I think the process is very different. Yes I sometimes differ from how I thought I would raise my children, but only in the details. Now with teaching the problem is that you have to deal with all the kids/adults that were raised in ways that you strongly disagree with.