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Going outside and playing with other kids is "diverse" because it's unstructured time. What do you do with the time? It's up to you to decide. Do you build a fort? Egg cars? Sell plants? It's an activity that requires some amount of creativity, and it's outside the normal zone of operation (home/school/etc). The only reason I could see this as a negative is if you wish your children to grow up as cogs and automatons who are unable to think for themselves and find their own place within social structures.

As far as getting a job, I have to say it benefited me quite a bit. I was already tinkering at home (I've been programming since I was 8) but getting a job before I left home did many things for me. I got to see how things are for a lot of people in the world around me. Some people need this shitty job. I was lucky enough to be able to do it because my parents mandated it, not because I needed to make ends meet. That gave me an enormous amount of perspective and humility. "This is how things could be for you." It gave me the drive to want to do better than working in fast food, and it gave me compassion for the people who are in that situation. Compassion that, to be frank, a lot of people I've met who have not done customer service or shitty jobs lack quite a bit. Secondly, I had to get that job myself. My parents didn't pull strings, they made me go out into the world, do applications, "sell" myself, etc. It was a growth experience. The world isn't going to bend to your whim, you are going to have to do things you don't like, and you are going to have to compromise.

TL;DR: playing outside: independence + creativity. Job: independence + compromise + humility + compassion.

None of that you learn by doing homework.



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