I was raised in a relatively high wealth family. Not personal jet rich, but still rich enough that we were going on vacation to fancy places a lot, dad had pretty cars, a big house, we went on ski trips, and played golf, etc. My wife was raised by a single mother with a more or less absentee father, working where she could to raise her two girls.
I already knew I was lucky and privileged, my parents kept telling my siblings and I, but it never really registered to me just how much. The skill I learned a lot about is empathy, I think.
That I’m allowed to have boundaries and a good partner won’t cross them.
Not a girlfriend, but a date (that ultimately didn’t go anywhere). She was a teacher and I mentioned despite being a software engineer and having to take up to Calc 2 in university, I never actually learned long division. So, she taught me.
Only up to calc 2?! Why did they make me take Calc 3, Numerical Analysis, Discrete Math, and Sets and Logic?!
Some of those I understand complaining about but honestly Sets & Logic is a great class for a programmer. I wish that was in the standard math path so that everyone got a little of it in high school, the closest I got was doing proofs in geometry which while that is a sort of logic training it doesn’t really teach you how to make use of anything.
Also, depending what you’re building exactly, advanced Calc and Numerical Analysis may be very useful and/or required to perform. Especially if you’re trying to accurately model something that happens in meatspace.
To press my index fingers and thumbs together to make a tiny aperture so you can see stars clearer at night.
My wife taught me to cook and that I was allowed to have feelings. I taught her a bunch of computer stuff and that she was allowed to have feelings.
