This really gets lost in the traditional nuclear family argument. From personal experience, having both biological parents in the same house doesn't mean a healthy family environment, and no amount of moralizing is going to wish it into being.

Also overlooked is the impact one can have through simple acts of support and empowerment.

Had a High School teacher that let me into a photojournalism class that was already full (the school admins denied my schedule transfer after we had moved to the 'correct' side of the street (literally) and into an upper middle class school district). This teacher simply allowed me to be socially-weird-awkward-me and set a basic structure to thrive in (eventually winning state and national awards with the school newspaper). By giving me (and others) a chance to show we belonged and could compete helped build my self-esteem after it had been consistently torn down at home.

Didn't know it then, and doubt that teacher has any idea, but it changed the course of my life. I think I'm more a practical realist or even a cynic about life and society than I am optimistic - still, that experience reminds me to try and build others up and pay that empowerment forward

The 'moralizing' is from those who want to equivocate.

This is also from deep life experience myself, with close family and colleagues.

In everything but the best scenarios: 'Everything Is Hard' in a single family household, whereas things 'Can Be Hard' in regular family scenarios.

I think a 'single mentor' can make a big difference, but nowhere near most of the other things put together.

And FYI I don't think parents provide very good 'professional mentorship' for the most part. They're there for other reasons.

i.e. if I found out that a mom was coming to pick up her kids laundry and leave some meals because 'Uni Exams' ... I will be $1000 immediately that kid will do well without knowing a single other thing about that family or situation. Not a guarantee of anything, but an easy bet.

I'd take the other side of that bet; in my experience, a parent who still feels the need to take on their adult child's domestic labor likely hasn't prepared them well for independence in other respects, such as managing their own education well enough to get good grades in university classes.

My native culture prizes gender equality and self-reliance; has washer-dryers in every home; and doesn't care about wrinkled clothes. If a grown man from my culture needed help with his laundry, it's probably because his life's a shambles - if you're struggling with depression or something, that ain't a good sign for your exam success.

On the other hand, someone from a more patriarchal culture; where white goods aren't in everyone's reach; and they like clothes that need to be carefully ironed? That might just indicate they have the support of their very traditional parents.

Nobodies 'native culture' prizes 'equality' to that extent, if you're from a culture we're all familiar with I'd fathom you're projecting pretty hard.

In some places in the world, there are some 'modern ideals' around those types of things, but it's more 'ideology' than 'culture'.

Students are not running around forlorn about not having their 'pressed khakis and dinner shirts needing pressing'. God forbid. The Mother who pops in with Rizotto & Scnitzel for their kid and her roommates, grabs their laundry, making sure they have their train ticket to 'Auntie Lucy and Uncle Chuck's Wedding' (because the date was changed!), gossips about their cousin who just got into Flight School in the Air Force. That's 'conscientious parenting' and extremely hard to do as a single parent at that level. 20-year-olds are barely adults, arguably, transitioning to adulthood.

In my experience teenagers are eager to establish their own identity, independent of their parents - to the point of being embarrassed, at some ages, to even be seen with their parents. Until they're grown enough that their relationship is more like one of equals. Most people over the age of 17 would be embarrassed if someone said they were merely transitioning to adulthood.

Leaving home means doing your own cooking, cleaning and laundry, and paying your own bills - in exchange for freedoms like exploring your sexuality; experimenting with drink and drugs; and occasionally staying in bed until noon.

Granted, some students choose a school close to home and some even keep living with their parents - but it's far more common to choose a school 2+ hours away from home. Having a parent drive two four-hour round trips to collect and return some laundry, to save their child 15 minutes loading and unloading the laundry machine would be very unusual.

Narrow bet, yes. But I'd put $100 on them having high risk of entitlement issues and being an overweight office stinker who is a loner, because they never learned to wash, cook and manage their time. Not certain, but this is a pattern with risks: kids need to learn self reliance in the ordinary.

Not sure where single parents come into this? I have no strong opinion on it one way or another. I was referring to the the argument for having both biological parents in the house, that it doesn't automatically mean the home environment is healthy. It doesn't mean that having both biological parents in the home automatically equals support for the child. That is what is lost on that argument, that the actual physical and mental well being and support of the child is not automatically granted just because it's traditional nuclear family home.

There are other family structures that can more than provide for the physical, monetary, and mental health of the child. Coming from a traditional (US) Southern up-bring, the moralizing I heard is how all the social problems can easily be solved if the parents would just "work out" their problems. At that time, and still in places today, it was code for the wife to shut up and obey her husband - and if he beats her, what did she do to upset him? if he sexually assaults her, wait, just kidding, he cant because providing sex was her on-demand-duty. Is he beating, berating or sexually abusing the children? No one will ever know because if it's happening, the wife is socially blamed (if it leaks out) for failing her duties and no-one dares talk about it. Mostly the same for the wife treating a child in this way, except this time the blame and responsibility is rightfully hers, if it ever gets out. Having women work outside of the house really messed up this racket, thats a lot of self-serving control to lose for those that have lost it, or the promise of it, and the moralizing I hear because of it got louder. My point being, obviously our experiences of childhood and family are all different - however, this is the lens I, and many others, view through

Reach out to him and let him know. It's these kinds of feedback that can really, really make a person's day, and it's what every engaged teacher dreams of/works for.

Maybe it worked out better this way, it keeps me honest - like the lack of closure keeps me from storing it away and forgetting the lesson in it.

I almost cried reading this sentence. I've never realized how my precocious adulting wasn't healthy: every adult compliments you about how "mature" and "responsible" you are. You're actually just anxious because you paternal responsibility on yourself: I had to basically raise myself. The cost of this "independence" has been that, at 27 I feel like a 50 years old with multiple regrets: as a simple, non threatening example, I watched an anime episode or played a video game for the first time as a 25 years old. I've never learned how to relax, or how to have faith in the future for that matter. And it hasn't been positive: life is becoming more and more heavy on my shoulders.

Wishing you the best.

26 years old with a father with Asperger's (with the anger issues and emotional non-understanding that comes with it), an over-bearing mother who sheltered me from pretty much everything crippling my social and personal skills growing up preventing me from getting help when I needed it - now I'm playing perpetual catch-up with both my personal life (social/romantic relationships), and the untreated mental problems I've been suffering from - I'm finally realizing the problems I've been beating myself up about through my whole life are not really my fault and I should have gotten help with my issues much much earlier.

I can only wonder what life would have been like if I would have stood up for myself much earlier and gotten the help I need - despite the repeated claims from both parents that I'd ruin the family and rip everybody apart if I did try to get help.

> The extra years of "streetwise"

Let's acknowledge exactly what "streetwise" is... it's the ability to operate in unsafe and not ideal environments in a way that maximizes personal safety.

It's a privilege to not have to be "streetwise" in regards to your parents/upbringing. So many kids are just out there trying not to get their asses beat only to get steamrolled by a crippled education system that has no resources to help them.

The setback that comes along with "streetwise" is immense

Interesting. I was nodding in somewhat agreement until this, because as a city kid I don’t see it as a set back, just another tool in the utility belt of life.

That said, if all one has are ‘street-smarts’ (just like if all one has is ‘book-learning’) well, it may just mean the pivot point is they’re just gonna have a different calculus for getting by, than someone on the opposite end.

When it is a constant in your life to stay "street-smart" it is a setback because it drowns out other intelligence - this happens with abusive parents.

Although related, I am not referring to the traditional city kid's need for some "street smarts" - I'm referring to unsafe environments at home/with parenting which I specifically stated in parent comment:

> Let's acknowledge exactly what "streetwise" is... it's the ability to operate in unsafe and not ideal environments in a way that maximizes personal safety.

> "streetwise" in regards to your parents/upbringing

---

My overall point is if one has to get "street-smart" because of what is happening at home... that's heinous because children should be safe, and I 100% see it as a setback inflicted on the child.

The downside is I don’t know how to turn that off. Or to put it in other terms, I don’t have the capacity to choose whether I track other people’s emotional state or not. Tracking people’s emotional state all the time is exhausting, and distracting. When I’m doing that I’m not in touch with what I want or need in that moment. Growing up for me (with the help of a good therapist) currently involves learning to put that down. And it’s terrifying.

Basically every survival strategy also gives us superpowers. But it’s ok - we get to keep those superpowers even after we’ve healed those wounds.

I think we all know what we're talking about when we use terms like "street smarts" and "streetwise" instead of "common sense" or "vigilance" or "poise". So, then, I'm hoping that there's clarity with regards to the kinds of policies the above statements, if accepted, should lead us to support. I'm trying not to state them directly because their utterance tends to lead to a kneejerk reaction; let's see if some rhetorical remove is helpful in quelling passions.

Chess is a more extreme example. Grandmasters regularly play their best games in their late 20s for a reason. Super grandmasters all started playing around the same age.

Even a lot of people with seemingly 'good jobs', I would argue, are not necessarily providing a ton of material value.

For example, I'm coming to the point where I believe the vast majority of 'Data Science' is 'Business Academia' and a giant pile of over-optimization and busy work.

The surpluses are concentrated in groups that have power, but those dollars are not necessarily used to maintain or support those systems directly, rather, they become applied R&D shops.

There is certainly a lot of busy work in DS like there is a lot of busy work in any non-critical pockets of operations, software engineering included.

I don't know what "over-optimization" means. If it means that, for instance, that the accuracy provided by the models is greater than the business needs, sometimes that's true and I agree. But are other parts of the business at fault for not being, broadly speaking, responsive enough or it is an "over-optimization" problem?

There are few business that have the kind scale in which a lot of that will be hugely useful (at high degrees of sophistication), let alone, afford the teams of researchers. Most of the optimizations are low hanging fruit which can be achieved via some kind of basic algorithm.

I believe you could nuke Snowflake and all their giant lakes of historical data and the world would not skip a beat.

I try to explain.

Recommender systems add tremendous value, millions when not billions in revenue, to any retail business, streaming business. Is it by chance that all the online retailers had to set up a recommender system?

A/B tests are not needed? If A/B testing and actions taken looking the results would not be useful, don't you think that business would know it?

Forecasts in business are nearly irrelevant, or rubbish, you say. Like in the sense that in complex systems is irrelevant to know what's going to happen next, that is better just to play it along at best? Having worked in companies in media, retail, healthcare, and telco for which forecasting is crucial for planning the use of resources, negotiation of contracts etc., this comment is off-base.

Going from abstract to practical, I have worked recently with one telco giant on one of the services they offer. Their forecast of subscribers done by drawing a straight line that follows the latest data is making them leave tens of millions on the table each year. I proposed to make some A/B testing on their "coupon" strategy and they were not interested, preferring to send a "coupon" to everybody and their grandfather because they did not want to study for a week how to set up an experiment. It is mostly laziness. Clearly to know if A/B testing is working or not (say increase engagement, revenue etc.), one has to try it. But they don't, because they are mentally lazy.

One thing I agree with is that most legacy business are not ready to adopt a data-driven modern way of doing business, due to stiff processes, old-timers that would like to go on with their business like they were doing 30 years ago, and general fear of changing.

The fact that the legacy businesses are still "working" may give the impression that all these data-driven "baloney" is subtracting rather than adding to the business. Why do we need forecasts, they say, I cannot believe that these people want to use data, isn't our expertise enough? Don't you see we are the still among the 5 top companies that do what we do?

But their position in the market is not due to sound business practices, but due to their dominant position in the market. But then the dominant position goes away and the old-timers finally recognize that A/B testing, forecasting etc. combined with domain-knowledge are a plus for the business.

Maybe you don't need 1,000 DS, maybe you need 20 (practitioners, not "researchers"), that depends on the business. Clearly the mom and pop business does not need any data science.

I think it's definitely a starting handicap, no doubt about it. But I'd be very wary in telling those people - if any are reading this - that they're just not going to be successful.

Without getting too touchy feely - I definitely had un-supportive, unstable, conditionally-loving parents. Was it a setback? Yes. Would I be financially ahead of where I am now had they been better? Probably. But you know what, I'm doing alright. Maybe not by HN silicon valley standards well ahead of the curve in my little first world country. Never lost ambition even if I stumbled a lot along the way.

So yeah if you're younger, and reading this, and a bad childhood is still messing with your mind - please don't think all hope is lost. It will be harder but not impossible.

If they're reading this, they're already the type of person trying to find success. It's important to remember that a lot of these results about families and finances are _statistical_. There are a myriad of other factors, whether known or not, that lead to success and anyone reading this who thinks they aren't cut out for success should never let that get to them.

I also grew up in a similar family to you, but (other than the crazy amount of times I've gotten lucky) I distinguished myself from my peers in my income-depressed area by being excited and interested in trying to get out of my circumstances. Most didn't. So if you're reading this and worried you aren't as far ahead as your peers, don't. The fact that you're worried will go a long way.

There are a lot of people who are "excited and interested" and never amount to anything because of the above mentioned "circumstances" that you were able to overcome, given a series of factors: natural predisposition, hard work, luck, gravity of the initial conditions and so on. Textbook survivorship bias.

A good work ethic isn't "luck". If someone has a good work ethic it's because the people in their life when they were growing up worked their butts off to give it to them. People don't escape poverty because of luck (look at lottery winner outcomes). They escape poverty after about three decades of hard work toward that goal, usually spread across multiple generations.

>Textbook survivorship bias.

Textbook "doesn't fit my narrative, find a way to discount it" bias.

> "Where does personal agency end and circumstances begin?"

If it's "I choose to work harder", it's personal agency. If it's "we're voting away support systems because I turned out OK and you should just work harder" it's not.

Not having to worry about that stuff, whether it's immediately after graduating from high school or college or when thinking about taking all your money and investing it in yourself/your new business venture is liberating.

Of course, this require two things of the parents, to put forth the effort like you say, and also to have the means to support a dependent.

Do you mean their career success, or their personalities in general?

Positive upbringings helped those folks navigate everything in life better from simple chores like laundry, to relationships, to school, to careers... etc.

People are more healthy when they're in an environment that promotes emotional/educational growth vs. when they're forced into a survival mentality. Those who had the opportunity to grow in safety have an easier time socially vs. those who had to navigate turbulent childhoods.

Much of it is just trust

> Much of it is just trust

You are absolutely right. There was so much trust between the kids and the parent. You could tell from the way they act and talk around each other. That experience was very enlightening for me.

Presumably there are many factors. One worth considering could be "frustration tolerance" as a construct or capability.

The friends with troubled upbringing often do find success in one area of life, but they seem unstable overall and often crash or stall in multiple other areas.

Yes, "can". Because we are not clones of our parents. It doesn't mean that conscientiousness hasn't something like 60-80%of hereditability.