One day in January this year, at lunch time at work, I was bragging about my son (as I often do about my kids), I told my boss and my colleagues how my son once had beaten me in a programming challenge for a job interview, and how he often, just for fun, did programming challenges on the web. My boss knows me well, and got curious about my son that at the time was 19. We talked a little about how he had helped me doing consultancy jobs a few years back, and that I once in a while brought him with me to work when I had a chance. Actually from a pretty young age my son has been used to work with programming, edit videos, and even record videos at work with me.

A few weeks later I was talking to my boss about how we were in need of new programmers at work, and he asked about my son. I was surprised actually, because my son was 19 at the time and I thought that maybe my boss would think he was a little young and unexperienced. Anyway I said that I could invite him to join us at work for lunch the following Friday. My boss looked like he had second thoughts, and I told him that this would just be a visit, and that he would have no obligation to hire my son whatsoever. 

I went home, and asked my son if he was interested. He was, and we spent the following days on getting him up to speed in programming with my company’s tools, and discuss what kind of work we were doing there. 

Friday came, my boss absolutely loved my son, and hired him that afternoon to start the following Monday. Before long my son was involved in a lot of projects and he is now alternating between visiting two very large customers every second week, in Denmark and in Sweden, he got a raise a little while back and is making good money.

I am sitting at the bar at the hotel, where we just came back from working at a clients offices for the last few days, my son was tired and went to the room to take a nab. 

You might have guessed that one of the reasons for me writing this, is that I am proud. Yes, true, I am very proud. I think the strongest feeling I have is the feeling of being thankful. Thankful thankful for experiencing going home from work with my son, feeling that we both did a a great job and thankful for the experience which is precious. Most of the time we do not work together, but recently, we have been at this client together. And I can tell you that there is nothing more satisfying than to experience firsthand how your kids are doing in their life. 

I don’t know what the future will bring, I am pretty sure that our working together will be for only a short while, but that feeling of very gently having helped by giving him a hand in getting him introduced to work life, and also having been able to give him a chance to work at a level that corresponded to his abilities even at a very young age, is extremely satisfying. 

Your kids need to lead a life of their own, without the interference of their parents. Otherwise they can not grow up to become real independent humans, but that does not mean that you can not give them a hand. Actually on the contrary, if you do they will be much better prepared for life on their own.