My answer to the fourth question is very short and simple: no. I see no reason that prep for a future career should be different for sons than daughters. But a problem I have with this entire question, is the assumption that it's on parents to get their kids on a trajectory to a good career. One reason kids struggle is that today's parents make their every decision until they're in college. A less obvious thing is that a childhood spent watching screens saps initiative. I thanked my mother many times for depriving us of TV till I was twelve; my kids have thanked me for doing the same, but unfortunately my son and daughter-in-law both work and my grandkids spend a lot of time with screens. Our society now inflicts on kids a schizophrenic mix of overprotection and abuse: every schoolchild knows that his or her classroom could be the next to host a school shooter, and no laws can be made to reduce the incidence of this horrifying crime--yet a parent can get a teacher removed for mentioning some historical fact or using language that is disturbing to the child. Even college professors. There are "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" but every kid also knows that the world is careening toward dystopia by climate change, biodiversity loss, potentially nuclear war, and nothing that would impede the profits of weapons companies or fossil fuel companies can be done, so nothing is done.
Hi Mary, and thanks for your comment. The "difference between sons and daughters" part is just a mix of provocation and curiosity on my side, nothing more.
About the "assumption that it's on parents to get their kids on a trajectory to a good career. One reason kids struggle is that today's parents make their every decision until they're in college"
Speaking of trajectories, my position, which I really hope IS clear throughout the whole post, is that the smartest way to "get one's kids on a trajectory to a good career" is to give them a good, COMPLETE education to make them able to think, decide etc... WITHOUT worrying at all about the "career" part, as that is a decision that has to be left to the kids.
On the rest of your comment, all I can say is that I'm probably going to quote several parts of it in future posts on the same topics, because I AGREE. Thanks!
But there's another thing. We can't assume that the twentieth-century world, which has stretched into our times with an increasingly discordant note, will continue into our children's adulthood and later years. Breakdown of one sort or another seems more likely and it's impossible to predict when or how. So along with "how to think" a good education for my grandchildren would include martial arts (I'm pleased to see they're looking into that), gardening (which they can learn from me), hunting and fishing, cobbling (which they can learn from my son, a mechanic and engineer who can figure out how to make something work when you don't have the proper parts or tools) and conflict management. And first aid.
Hi again Mary, and again, yes. If you read your comment side by side with the two paragraphs of the post that start with "Moving to the second question, I am quite confident that..." down to "e "brains cry out for more multisensory work", you may notice that I make exactly the same point as you, albeit much less explicitly (for lack of space, the post was already long)
EVERY single point I made in this post is true in India, maybe even more than elsewhere, according to Bloomberg:
Worthless Degrees Are Creating an Unemployable Generation in India
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-17/india-s-worthless-college-degrees-undercut-world-s-fastest-growing-major-economy
oh boy... check out this great confirmation, just in from Wired, of many of the points I made in this article: https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-tech-layoffs-reveal-americas-unhealthy-obsession-with-work/
My answer to the fourth question is very short and simple: no. I see no reason that prep for a future career should be different for sons than daughters. But a problem I have with this entire question, is the assumption that it's on parents to get their kids on a trajectory to a good career. One reason kids struggle is that today's parents make their every decision until they're in college. A less obvious thing is that a childhood spent watching screens saps initiative. I thanked my mother many times for depriving us of TV till I was twelve; my kids have thanked me for doing the same, but unfortunately my son and daughter-in-law both work and my grandkids spend a lot of time with screens. Our society now inflicts on kids a schizophrenic mix of overprotection and abuse: every schoolchild knows that his or her classroom could be the next to host a school shooter, and no laws can be made to reduce the incidence of this horrifying crime--yet a parent can get a teacher removed for mentioning some historical fact or using language that is disturbing to the child. Even college professors. There are "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" but every kid also knows that the world is careening toward dystopia by climate change, biodiversity loss, potentially nuclear war, and nothing that would impede the profits of weapons companies or fossil fuel companies can be done, so nothing is done.
Hi Mary, and thanks for your comment. The "difference between sons and daughters" part is just a mix of provocation and curiosity on my side, nothing more.
About the "assumption that it's on parents to get their kids on a trajectory to a good career. One reason kids struggle is that today's parents make their every decision until they're in college"
Starting from the end, on the reason kids struggle, I completely agree. Have you seen the "facilitate unsupervised childhood" of my last post, just yesterday? https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/the-city-reboot-for-2070-that-we-122
Speaking of trajectories, my position, which I really hope IS clear throughout the whole post, is that the smartest way to "get one's kids on a trajectory to a good career" is to give them a good, COMPLETE education to make them able to think, decide etc... WITHOUT worrying at all about the "career" part, as that is a decision that has to be left to the kids.
On the rest of your comment, all I can say is that I'm probably going to quote several parts of it in future posts on the same topics, because I AGREE. Thanks!
But there's another thing. We can't assume that the twentieth-century world, which has stretched into our times with an increasingly discordant note, will continue into our children's adulthood and later years. Breakdown of one sort or another seems more likely and it's impossible to predict when or how. So along with "how to think" a good education for my grandchildren would include martial arts (I'm pleased to see they're looking into that), gardening (which they can learn from me), hunting and fishing, cobbling (which they can learn from my son, a mechanic and engineer who can figure out how to make something work when you don't have the proper parts or tools) and conflict management. And first aid.
Hi again Mary, and again, yes. If you read your comment side by side with the two paragraphs of the post that start with "Moving to the second question, I am quite confident that..." down to "e "brains cry out for more multisensory work", you may notice that I make exactly the same point as you, albeit much less explicitly (for lack of space, the post was already long)