Helping my dad learn to code from scratch
Over 50 yet finally excited to learn how to code
My parents, although no longer together, lived similarly difficult childhoods. Both born in Cuba. Brought here on someone else’s yacht, courtesy of the Cuban government during El Mariel. Alongside many criminals as a two for one deal by Cuba. With only one parent each, no English speaker, and no where to call home.
During that time many refuges were brought to the Freedom Towers in Miami as step one. After some documentation was completed, they would sleep in the Orange Bowl and receive 50 bucks or so and a bus ticket anywhere. Both of my parents, independently, found themselves in Jersey. Many winters later, they would drive down to Miami. Hialeah to be exact.
Although they both have similar stories, lets focus in on my dad’s.
Single parent immigrants face an even steeper uphill battle than usual. One person cannot handle a families worth of problems in most scenarios. Especially without the language. This led to my dad working since he was 11. Getting kicked out of school for working in his teens. Forcing him to get his GED and search for what is next fast. A family friend mentioned working in Insurance while he was finally enrolled in an associates degree. The pay was too good to pass up. He never finished school, he became a licensed insurance agent. Worked in that for 30 years, until he couldn’t.
Now what?
He did not choose insurance. And for most of my adulthood he seemed bored. His job was too easy for him.
But how could he know that before he started?
All he knew is that the pay was more than he currently made. How could he know the pay would stay stagnant? Or that he would spend the next 30 years of his life in that field.
At first the work was enjoyable because he could help people out of a jam. 1000s of contacts in his phone would call him throughout the day. Mostly for insurance related help but sometimes for car related help.
I can only imagine a good few also called him to chat. He could never turn down a nice conversation.
But as time went by the field became less tolerant of his connections. One acquisition led to him losing all of his contacts. Forwarding the people he helped for years to a commission hungry associate. There was no room for humanity in his job anymore.
For 20 of those years his kids were home and exhaustingly active, in a good way I guess. Once we left, with no one to help, he grew bored. Unknowingly though, that is just how life was for him.
Fight to get the bills paid. Enjoy the little time you’re children give you. Try to have fun when you can.
For most of those years he did not even receive proper holidays.
Weekends? Nope.
Christmas? Nope
New years? Not even the lunar one.
Insurance was brutal on his schedule.
I say this not to argue against work. Cultural battles around work are misplaced sometimes. Humans need mental stimulation, alongside a lot more. My dad needed more interesting, fulfilling, and higher level mental stimulation. But he was not born into a situation where he could find it early.
I was on the other hand. We were not well off growing up but I was a kid for 18 years. Thanks to my parents. I became a software engineer and helped out where I could. But after 5 years I decided to buy some of my own time and go home. Helping where I could while learning something new. Coincidentally, my dad gained some free time while I still had the bandwidth to spend time with him.
At first he was going mad. With good reason, free time is more a curse than a gift to someone who has never had it. At first. It gives you almost the opposite of imposter syndrome. You wonder if you fit in with the people that do not help others. Lazy. Broken. Vagabundo as my family quips from time to time.
Either way, I tried to find my dad a project to help fill his free time. After 2 months of searching I asked my dad if he would give coding a chance. As a software engineer, I have heard and said “learn to code” one too many times. This time, I asked him if he was interested.
Heard his main fear: what if I cannot understand it? Then proceeded to give him a real world example of how organizing people, a thing he knows how to do, is about as hard as his first computer science class would be.
We chatted about search and sort options for ABC order. The ABCs of coding. But we double clicked on anything he let me. Reaching an English version of merge sort. Merge sort is basically how you can get a group of items in order by first grouping the items into pairs. Making sure the pairs are in order. Then grouping those pairs until you have one group, of fully in order things.
Lastly, we found a person in the alphabetized list by asking the middle person if they were before or after the name we were looking for.
Coding, to me, is a language. People teach it with typing, visual GUIs, etc. But what my little human centered example did was expel the myth that coding is solely a thing done with computers. Understanding what you want to do comes first. Picky computer language come second.
Soon after our chat, he started Code Academy Coding Foundations. I chose it because it isolates learning for now. Later I will set my dad up with real world projects, but I am taking it slower this time. My promise to him is that I will unblock him if he gets stuck. Give it a shot first but no matter what I will help you through it. The same advice I give to any of my reports.
He is learning to code from scratch. Literally 0 preparation. He does not type well. Within a week his computer broke. I gave him my old one. Which he did not know how to turn off or on.
My dad is going from struggling to change his Netflix password to coding.
It will take a while. I will patiently be there to help guide him through it. My goal is to help him learn how to learn on his own. Each time he gets stuck, I share tips and tricks on how to debug and use resources to get around it for next time.
After he completed his first course. Coding foundations in about two weeks. He told me something I could relate with. He started dreaming again. It had been years, but finally, when he slept at night he would dream.
I lost my ability to dream when most of my time aligned with something that I was already good at or hated. Sometimes both. It is an efficient life, but not a fulfilling one. Productivity has its place, but novelty nurtures the soul more than big wins. At least for me. And I guess my dad too.
Keep exploring.
Eddie
P.S. If you are thinking about learning how to code I strongly encourage you to. Comment below any of my articles if you get stuck and need some advice. It may lead to a job, it may not. Regardless, it will unlock creativity and help you better understand how digital products work. Like the program you are reading this from.