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Thank you for taking the time to help me understand your point of view. You and I have clearly led very different lives, causing us to focus on different concer

Thank you for taking the time to help me understand your point of view. You and I have clearly led very different lives, causing us to focus on different concerns about our children's futures: but I appreciate the sense of responsibility your thinking shows. For my part, I know what long commutes do to me, and I am certain my eleven-year-old is better off with a happy, engaged, lively papa they get to spend a lot of time with, instead of the tired, often-absent grouch I'd be if we moved to the suburbs. Neither my wife nor I have pursued the kind of competitive, ladder-climbing career maximization you describe in our own lives, so that's not a focus in our child-raising either. While we are trying to ensure that horizons remain broad and options remain open, we see our responsibility as less about building some specific path to success and more about supporting our child while they grow the skills they need to pursue whatever kind of life it is they will come to value.

alephnerd 3y ago
Thanks for the compliment. And I agree with you - as a parent being close to you kids is critical. Also, the experiences I wrote about come from being Asian American in the Bay Area, where there are no "average" school districts anymore - everything is either underfunded with horrible success rates or hypercompetitive districts that rank in the top 500 nationally (a lot of this was racially driven - Cupertino's school district saw a massive white flight when Asian parents started moving in, and the HS I went to saw the same thing). Also our public higher education system is defunded, so it's often harder to get into CS@UC Davis than it is to get into EECS@Mich. I've had good friends get rejected from UCD and get into MIT. Hell, I got rejected from UCLA and still got into a T10 national university. Living outside of CA and Washington (they face the same issues as CA due to rapid population growth in 20 years but almost no change in funding) you don't need to make the same kind of hard decisions that I mentioned above - there are still decent average school districts with engaged staff and little to no rat race, so you could work as an sofrware engineer at Cummins or Honeywell and still have a 9-5 and send your kids to a decent public school district.

alephnerd 3y ago

Thanks for the compliment. And I agree with you - as a parent being close to you kids is critical. Also, the experiences I wrote about come from being Asian American in the Bay Area, where there are no "average" school districts anymore - everything is either underfunded with horrible success rates or hypercompetitive districts that rank in the top 500 nationally (a lot of this was racially driven - Cupertino's school district saw a massive white flight when Asian parents started moving in, and the HS I went to saw the same thing). Also our public higher education system is defunded, so it's often harder to get into CS@UC Davis than it is to get into EECS@Mich. I've had good friends get rejected from UCD and get into MIT. Hell, I got rejected from UCLA and still got into a T10 national university. Living outside of CA and Washington (they face the same issues as CA due to rapid population growth in 20 years but almost no change in funding) you don't need to make the same kind of hard decisions that I mentioned above - there are still decent average school districts with engaged staff and little to no rat race, so you could work as an sofrware engineer at Cummins or Honeywell and still have a 9-5 and send your kids to a decent public school district.