11 ms·

I went to a school where a number of friends were not academic in the slightest. They left as soon as they could often with no qualifications but gradually lear

I went to a school where a number of friends were not academic in the slightest. They left as soon as they could often with no qualifications but gradually learnt trades. Many now have their own businesses (one is a plasterer, another a builder) and they earn good money, own their own homes, and have no student debt. The reason? They had supportive parents. Many of the people who are falling into despair tragically come from very broken families.

emodendroket 9y ago
I'm guessing the successful people you're describing do not have severe learning disabilities. And I find it at least questionable that parenting has gotten markedly less supportive in the past few decades.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  He didn't say that parenting had got less supportive, he said that many people with severe structural disadvantages come from badly broken families.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    He said that in the context of a discussion of deteriorating conditions, so I think it's fair to bring it up.
- posguy 9y ago
  In a way, parents can support their kids less today. Wages have stagnated and stratified heavily, leaving the median home with less effective income, meanwhile the cost of college has gone from free (at public institutions) and nominal at private schools ($400/yr adjusted) to over $10k a year minimum. Housing rising in cost is only dog piling on and exacerbating the issue.
- will_brown 9y ago
  >And I find it at least questionable that parenting has gotten markedly less supportive in the past few decades. Look at the trends of the past few decades: divorce; single parent; and dual income households. There is in fact remarkedly less two parent, supported by single income households, meaning it's a rareity for a child to simply have a parent at home when they return from school to fix them a healthy snack, ask how their day was, or help with homework. Certainly it's not a single cause, but stability in the home is indisputably tied to mental well being of the child.
  - curveship 9y ago
    US divorce rate is lower than it's been for 40 years.
    - jdmichal 9y ago
      You're discussing the derivative (rate of change) of the actual issue. The issue isn't how fast divorced households are growing; the issue is that they exist at all. Even if the divorce rate was zero, there would still be existent divorced households. And broken households don't do any favors for children, even if the parents do their best to make it seem amicable.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > You're discussing the derivative (rate of change) of the actual issue. The rate of change is the rate of new divorces minus the rate at which divorcee households are ending (if the concern is divorced parents with children, by death of the parent, child, or the child leaving the household.) > Even if the divorce rate was zero, there would still be existent divorced households. A declining, eventually to zero, number of them.
        jdmichal 9y ago
        Of course I'm not taking a stance that the rate of change is not important. And of course it would need to drop in order to reduce and eventually eliminate occurrence... I was instead pointing out that simply bring up a reduced rate is not really a counterpoint. Especially when, as you accurately point out, the divorce rate is not even the entire picture for the rate-of-change of divorced households. See also Arizhel's sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150694 But hey, will_brown did a better job of making the same point and defending himself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150843
- DamagedProperty 9y ago
  I am an example of one of those people. I DID have a learning disability (officially tested for and documented). Failed high school and now I am middle aged, have my own business making mobile games for clients. Also went back to college late 2000's and 3.8 GPA. (I would have had a 4.0 for my BS like I did for my Associates but got struck with H1N1 virus).
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
anigbrowl 9y ago
I help to look after someone with developmental difficulties similar to what the gp describes, and while I don't want to project my knowledge of one person onto the other, I can tell you that my disabled friend is never going to make it any skilled trade. Look all these 'you can make it other parts of the system, I know someone who had a disadvantage and went onto a great success' is nice, but it's also platitudinous. It's a way of saying 'I don't want to deal with your problems.' Yes, there are successful people who didn't finish school or had learning difficulties, but they often had other advantages or had the good luck to grow up in a time or region where there was greater economic opportunity and fewer barriers to entry. Someone who can't handle very basic things like multiplication tables is structurally fucked, to put it bluntly. That's more than not being good at math or not being bookish, that's not being able to work out the relationship between the stuff in your grocery cart, the bill, and the amount of money left in your bank account. And not in a way that you can you screw up a few times and then get the hang of, but possibly permanently and unalterably barring major advances in our understanding of the brain, which I guarantee you will go to poor and disabled people last rather than first. That level of disability falls far short of normal adult competence and raises serious questions about whether the individual will ever achieve economic independence. People who are not very competent or who are incapable of financial independence are systematically treated like shit in this society and generally forced into the humiliation of relying on charity, which is inherently unpredictable and unreliable and antithetical to any kind of long-term stability. I apologize for putting this so bluntly as it will be painful to read for the gp, but we need to acknowledge the reality of these problems rather than wish them away with a fairy-tale about enterprise and a can-do attitude. Life outcomes are more than simply a matter of high or low expectations, and insisting that everything stems from the expectations one has of someone's potential is an implicit abdication of responsibility for dealing with tricky social problems through public policy. All these examples of being a plumber, electrician, or similar skilled tradesperson - which are often trotted out on HN - are basically restatements of what the various posters would do if you told them they had to work some sort of manual job. How the hell is someone who can't do multiplication at age 15 and has trouble putting a sentence together going to succeed as a plumber or electrician? Would you trust your home's electrical wiring to someone who can't work out Ohm's law to figure out what sort of fuse you need, or trust your plumbing to someone who won't be able to remember what sort of pipe to use for what purpose? Of course you won't, you hire a tradesperson because you assume they're certified and competent to work with sometimes-dangerous tools and procedures. A person like that described in the gp may have many qualities, but intellectual disabilities like that are going to bar them from any sort of safety-critical work that might pay well. The friend that I mentioned at the top of this post has the intellectual and emotional development of a 9 or 10 year old. She's already a legal adult and her capacities are unlikely to improve significantly. That doesn't mean the world is a closed book to her or that she will never be able to develop herself, but it does impose a pretty solid ceiling on her economic prospects because there ain't a whole lot of jobs for adult-sized 10 year olds with personality problems. She wants to be a videogame character artist and I give her help and encouragement with anything that might advance that goal, but we're talking about someone who can't handle a busy shift at a Taco Bell and spends several weeks of every year in a secure psychiatric unit. She's almost certainly not going to go on to enjoy the rewarding careers people are talking about here, but very likely to end up homeless or in jail. These are problems that we need to start talking about instead of wishing away because there are a lot of people who have a lot of problems, nothing much to lose, and little motivation to keep trying in a society that treats them as dispensable or ignores their existence altogether.
sbierwagen 9y ago
Apraxia is a motor disorder caused by damage to the brain (specifically the posterior parietal cortex), in which the individual has difficulty with the motor planning to perform tasks or movements when asked, provided that the request or command is understood and he/she is willing to perform the task. I'm sure he would do great as a tradesman.
- sbardle 9y ago
  I didn't appreciate the severity of the condition. My apologies if I come across as insensitive, I should have paid more attention to the original post.
morbidhawk 9y ago
Did you reply to the wrong thread? Your reply would make a whole lot more sense in a completely different context.
mustacheemperor 9y ago
There is such a vast difference between someone "not academic in the slightest" and someone who is actively limited by severe learning disabilities. I'm sure you mean well by this statement, but I feel like it leads to the attitude that even the disabled just aren't trying hard enough, and if they'd only pull themselves up by their bootstraps the problems in the article would go away. I find it borderline condescending that so many comments below are just handwaving this as "he should just be a plumber!" as if plumbers don't need to take training classes or remember specific technical details. If you're reading this thread and wondering why manual trades are undervalued in the US and also suggesting gp's son become an electrician, you're part of the problem. >despite putting forth his best effort because he simply can't remember anything Acting like this person should apprentice as a programmer as some have suggested is wishing the problem away.
- sbardle 9y ago
  I certainly don't think "the disabled just aren't trying hard enough", I think you are extrapolating quite wildly there and I find the implication quite offensive. The point I was trying to make is that having supportive parents can really help, and the poster is obviously very supportive of his son. Every situation is different though.

emodendroket 9y ago

I'm guessing the successful people you're describing do not have severe learning disabilities. And I find it at least questionable that parenting has gotten markedly less supportive in the past few decades.

anigbrowl 9y ago
He didn't say that parenting had got less supportive, he said that many people with severe structural disadvantages come from badly broken families.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  He said that in the context of a discussion of deteriorating conditions, so I think it's fair to bring it up.
posguy 9y ago
In a way, parents can support their kids less today. Wages have stagnated and stratified heavily, leaving the median home with less effective income, meanwhile the cost of college has gone from free (at public institutions) and nominal at private schools ($400/yr adjusted) to over $10k a year minimum. Housing rising in cost is only dog piling on and exacerbating the issue.
will_brown 9y ago
>And I find it at least questionable that parenting has gotten markedly less supportive in the past few decades. Look at the trends of the past few decades: divorce; single parent; and dual income households. There is in fact remarkedly less two parent, supported by single income households, meaning it's a rareity for a child to simply have a parent at home when they return from school to fix them a healthy snack, ask how their day was, or help with homework. Certainly it's not a single cause, but stability in the home is indisputably tied to mental well being of the child.
- curveship 9y ago
  US divorce rate is lower than it's been for 40 years.
  - jdmichal 9y ago
    You're discussing the derivative (rate of change) of the actual issue. The issue isn't how fast divorced households are growing; the issue is that they exist at all. Even if the divorce rate was zero, there would still be existent divorced households. And broken households don't do any favors for children, even if the parents do their best to make it seem amicable.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > You're discussing the derivative (rate of change) of the actual issue. The rate of change is the rate of new divorces minus the rate at which divorcee households are ending (if the concern is divorced parents with children, by death of the parent, child, or the child leaving the household.) > Even if the divorce rate was zero, there would still be existent divorced households. A declining, eventually to zero, number of them.
      - jdmichal 9y ago
        Of course I'm not taking a stance that the rate of change is not important. And of course it would need to drop in order to reduce and eventually eliminate occurrence... I was instead pointing out that simply bring up a reduced rate is not really a counterpoint. Especially when, as you accurately point out, the divorce rate is not even the entire picture for the rate-of-change of divorced households. See also Arizhel's sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150694 But hey, will_brown did a better job of making the same point and defending himself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150843
DamagedProperty 9y ago
I am an example of one of those people. I DID have a learning disability (officially tested for and documented). Failed high school and now I am middle aged, have my own business making mobile games for clients. Also went back to college late 2000's and 3.8 GPA. (I would have had a 4.0 for my BS like I did for my Associates but got struck with H1N1 virus).

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

anigbrowl 9y ago

I help to look after someone with developmental difficulties similar to what the gp describes, and while I don't want to project my knowledge of one person onto the other, I can tell you that my disabled friend is never going to make it any skilled trade. Look all these 'you can make it other parts of the system, I know someone who had a disadvantage and went onto a great success' is nice, but it's also platitudinous. It's a way of saying 'I don't want to deal with your problems.' Yes, there are successful people who didn't finish school or had learning difficulties, but they often had other advantages or had the good luck to grow up in a time or region where there was greater economic opportunity and fewer barriers to entry. Someone who can't handle very basic things like multiplication tables is structurally fucked, to put it bluntly. That's more than not being good at math or not being bookish, that's not being able to work out the relationship between the stuff in your grocery cart, the bill, and the amount of money left in your bank account. And not in a way that you can you screw up a few times and then get the hang of, but possibly permanently and unalterably barring major advances in our understanding of the brain, which I guarantee you will go to poor and disabled people last rather than first. That level of disability falls far short of normal adult competence and raises serious questions about whether the individual will ever achieve economic independence. People who are not very competent or who are incapable of financial independence are systematically treated like shit in this society and generally forced into the humiliation of relying on charity, which is inherently unpredictable and unreliable and antithetical to any kind of long-term stability. I apologize for putting this so bluntly as it will be painful to read for the gp, but we need to acknowledge the reality of these problems rather than wish them away with a fairy-tale about enterprise and a can-do attitude. Life outcomes are more than simply a matter of high or low expectations, and insisting that everything stems from the expectations one has of someone's potential is an implicit abdication of responsibility for dealing with tricky social problems through public policy. All these examples of being a plumber, electrician, or similar skilled tradesperson - which are often trotted out on HN - are basically restatements of what the various posters would do if you told them they had to work some sort of manual job. How the hell is someone who can't do multiplication at age 15 and has trouble putting a sentence together going to succeed as a plumber or electrician? Would you trust your home's electrical wiring to someone who can't work out Ohm's law to figure out what sort of fuse you need, or trust your plumbing to someone who won't be able to remember what sort of pipe to use for what purpose? Of course you won't, you hire a tradesperson because you assume they're certified and competent to work with sometimes-dangerous tools and procedures. A person like that described in the gp may have many qualities, but intellectual disabilities like that are going to bar them from any sort of safety-critical work that might pay well. The friend that I mentioned at the top of this post has the intellectual and emotional development of a 9 or 10 year old. She's already a legal adult and her capacities are unlikely to improve significantly. That doesn't mean the world is a closed book to her or that she will never be able to develop herself, but it does impose a pretty solid ceiling on her economic prospects because there ain't a whole lot of jobs for adult-sized 10 year olds with personality problems. She wants to be a videogame character artist and I give her help and encouragement with anything that might advance that goal, but we're talking about someone who can't handle a busy shift at a Taco Bell and spends several weeks of every year in a secure psychiatric unit. She's almost certainly not going to go on to enjoy the rewarding careers people are talking about here, but very likely to end up homeless or in jail. These are problems that we need to start talking about instead of wishing away because there are a lot of people who have a lot of problems, nothing much to lose, and little motivation to keep trying in a society that treats them as dispensable or ignores their existence altogether.

sbierwagen 9y ago

Apraxia is a motor disorder caused by damage to the brain (specifically the posterior parietal cortex), in which the individual has difficulty with the motor planning to perform tasks or movements when asked, provided that the request or command is understood and he/she is willing to perform the task. I'm sure he would do great as a tradesman.

sbardle 9y ago
I didn't appreciate the severity of the condition. My apologies if I come across as insensitive, I should have paid more attention to the original post.

morbidhawk 9y ago

Did you reply to the wrong thread? Your reply would make a whole lot more sense in a completely different context.

mustacheemperor 9y ago

There is such a vast difference between someone "not academic in the slightest" and someone who is actively limited by severe learning disabilities. I'm sure you mean well by this statement, but I feel like it leads to the attitude that even the disabled just aren't trying hard enough, and if they'd only pull themselves up by their bootstraps the problems in the article would go away. I find it borderline condescending that so many comments below are just handwaving this as "he should just be a plumber!" as if plumbers don't need to take training classes or remember specific technical details. If you're reading this thread and wondering why manual trades are undervalued in the US and also suggesting gp's son become an electrician, you're part of the problem. >despite putting forth his best effort because he simply can't remember anything Acting like this person should apprentice as a programmer as some have suggested is wishing the problem away.

sbardle 9y ago
I certainly don't think "the disabled just aren't trying hard enough", I think you are extrapolating quite wildly there and I find the implication quite offensive. The point I was trying to make is that having supportive parents can really help, and the poster is obviously very supportive of his son. Every situation is different though.