How Not to Raise Your Kids!
There are so many things that as an adult, I, should remember with crystal clarity about my childhood. Why are some of the clearest memories, painful? Why do I struggle to remember the good times, but the bad times come easily and in droves?
As a kid, I loved math. That right there set me apart from many of my classmates. Dad always said that it meant that I was brighter and smarter than my dumb farmer classmates. Thinking back on that, that memory stings. I am not that person, today. I do not disparage anybody for their position in society, in culture, in education, period. And I am embarrassed by a father who did.
Geometry Class — Junior High School
One vivid memory from Junior High School, which still makes my palms sweat when I think about it, was from Geometry class. We were learning about spheres. The teacher gave us an assignment for extra credit — calculate the volume of the earth. I was all over that as soon as I got home. I was like Ralphie from the Christmas Story trying to decode the Ovaltine secret message. I did everything right. There was no Internet in the early 1970s, so I opened the encyclopedia to figure out the size of the Earth, and then applied what I learned in class to calculate the volume of the Earth. When Dad got home from work, he explained how my answer was completely wrong — silly even. The first problem is that “the earth isn’t a sphere, it’s an ellipsoid.” And then he and I spent the rest of the night — well past 3 am — working out the volume of an ellipsoid Earth and taking the height of the mountains around the globe into account. I tried desperately to explain that we were studying spheres and my answer was right. But he would not hear of it. How could his son come up with the right answer on his own?
Ultimately, we came up with a really big number. But when I turned in my extra credit assignment, the teacher quietly explained to me “we’re studying spheres, your answer is wrong.” I did not get any extra credit.
When Dad got home that night, he wanted to know about my assignment. Did I get the extra credit? “No Dad, he wanted the volume of the Earth as if it was a sphere — which is what we were studying”. My answer was wrong. Dad says…it does not matter, “you should have the satisfaction that you had the right answer”. Seriously Dad? Ugh. I was 13. And when I think back to my childhood, THIS is what I remember most? Ugh.
See? Dad is always right. And if that is not true, then he changes the rules to make it true. I did not get the wrong answer because the teacher did not understand what the right answer was. Ugh.
High School Chemistry class
In high school, I took a Chemistry class. The teacher assigned each student an experiment that we could do at home and then bring it in and demonstrate it in front of the class. My assigned experiment involved combining a couple of common household chemicals in a jar to cause a chemical reaction and produce oxygen. To demonstrate the presence of oxygen, I was supposed to light a match, blow it out, and then stick it into the jar and watch it re-light the match, proving the existence of a highly flammable gas — oxygen in that case — in the jar.
When I got home, I started to experiment. But when Dad got home, he proclaimed that I was doing it wrong. And since we had lots of different chemicals around the house — the advantage of having a research scientist living there — and laboratory glassware, Dad would make sure I did it right. Dad swapped out the chemicals that the teacher told me to use for some others that he had at home. My experiment in front of the whole class was much more dramatic than the assignment would have been, but it was not the assignment. The assignment was specific. Although my demonstration did a much better job of demonstrating the presence of oxygen by creating buckets of oxygen instead of just a little bit, I got a D on the homework because I did not do what the teacher assigned. And then I had to face Dad with a D. Dad’s answer? “You did it right, even if your teacher didn’t know that. If he were worth a damn, he would not be a teacher.” Seriously Dad? Ugh. I was 15.
Do you see a trend here? I did not see that trend for 40 years. I was just a kid, trying to live up to his father’s expectations. And failing miserably.
Dad not only told me that I was doing it wrong but then he would disparage the teacher for being a teacher and explain that the teacher was wrong too. This proved Dad’s superiority over my teachers.
Reading when I was 8 or 9
These are examples that I remember 45 years after the fact. My palms are achy and sweaty as I write this and proofread it. But he did this kind of thing constantly.
Once when I was young — grade school-young — I was reading a series of Star Trek books. Dad thought it would be a good idea to race me. For every book I read, Dad would read four. It was not long before he caught up and passed me declaring himself the winner. Then he would tell me all about what I was missing in the books beyond the book I was reading. I never finished that series of books. Instead, I switched to another series of science fiction books. Dad did it again. He finished the Star Trek series and started racing me in the series I was reading, and then telling me all about the things going on in the books that I had not read yet.
Heaven forbid that you, as a parent, teach your kid how to read faster or just be happy that your grade-school-aged kid wants to read. To this day, I do not read books for enjoyment. I have my own Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Mathematics, which is proof that I CAN read. I just do not enjoy it.
Artificial Intelligence example, College Senior project
In college, I was studying artificial intelligence — a new concept in 1981. I wrote a program on the (original) Apple II to demonstrate simple machine learning. It was a simple demonstration because 1) it was an Apple II, and 2) it was written in Basic. But it was 1981. The original Apple II and the Commodore Pet were the only computers available in the marketplace for home use. It was, also, the basis for my senior year project for my Computer Science degree.
I was home on a weekend. Mom & Dad had a few other couples over for a dinner party. Dad was bragging about his son, studying Computer Science, and nearing graduation. About 2 am the men had all moved to the Apple II computer and were marveling over its design and capabilities when Dad pulled out an early version of my machine learning demonstration to show his friends. When he could not get it to work, he came into my bedroom, woke me up, and insisted that I demonstrate it for his friends. I protested because it was not the latest bug-free version. But he insisted. I went out to the computer, loaded up the software, and as I predicted, it did not work. Dad told me to go back to bed, HE would get it to work because HE knew how to use it better than I did.
“Dad, it’s software, I wrote it. I know what it does. Better than you.”
Dad: “no you don’t. Go back to bed.”
It was 1981. I was 21. I was nearing graduation with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science with Mathematics supporting. And Dad, who had never studied or learned anything about computers or software, who could not write a single line of code, proclaimed in front of me and his friends that he knew more about a program that I wrote than I did. In the end, he failed to get it to work, and I got yelled at the next day for embarrassing him in front of his friends. He spent the rest of the day fuming over the computer, trying to make my broken software work, without changing even a single line of code. He never got it working and I was sent back to school earlier on Sunday than I had originally planned. He did not want me there any longer.