When Family Doubts Your Tech Dream: Conversations That Help

Before you get frustrated with your family, consider where their doubt comes from. It is not malice. It is experience.

Your parents grew up in a Kenya where the path to a good life was clear: perform well in school, go to university, study something respected (medicine, law, engineering, teaching, accounting), get a government job or a corporate position, build a house in your rural home. This path worked for their generation. It produced visible results.

"I want to learn coding" does not fit into this map. They cannot picture what a coder does all day. They do not know anyone who earns a living from it. The word "freelance" sounds like "unemployed with extra steps." A bootcamp sounds like the correspondence colleges that advertised on radio in the 1990s and produced nothing.

Their doubt is not about your ability. It is about their visibility. They cannot see the destination you are pointing at because nobody they know has been there. So they default to what they can see: your cousin the accountant who drives a nice car, your neighbour's child who got placed at UoN to study law.

Understanding this does not make the conversations easier. But it makes them less personal. Your parents are not attacking your dream. They are protecting you from what looks, to them, like a risk without a clear payoff.

You could spend an hour explaining what a software developer does, how much they earn, and why the tech industry is growing. Your parents will nod politely and then ask if you have applied for that banking job your aunt mentioned.

Or you could pull out your phone, show them a website you built, and say "the business that owns this paid me KES 20,000 to build it." Watch their expression change.

Kenyan parents, like most people, are persuaded by evidence, not arguments. Specifically, they are persuaded by three things:

1. Money. Not the promise of money. Actual money. An M-Pesa statement showing payments from clients. A bank deposit from a freelance platform. The moment tech produces visible income, the doubt begins to dissolve.

2. Tangible output. A website they can see on their phone. An app they can click through. Something physical, or at least visible, that they can point to and say "my child built that." Abstract concepts like "I am learning React" mean nothing. "This website that you are looking at, I made it" means everything.

3. Other people's success. If you can show them someone from a background similar to yours who is now earning well in tech, the proof becomes real. "This person studied the same way I am studying and now earns KES 150,000 per month" is more convincing than any industry report.

These are not magic words. They are frameworks that reduce conflict and plant seeds.

When they say "is coding a real job?"

Try: "Yes. Companies like Safaricom, Equity Bank, and hundreds of startups in Nairobi hire developers. The starting salary for a junior developer is between KES 40,000 and KES 80,000 per month. I am building the skills they hire for."

When they say "why not just finish your degree first?"

Try: "I am not abandoning my degree. I am adding a skill to it. Business graduates who can also code get hired faster and earn more. I am doing both." (If this is true. If you are genuinely choosing coding over a degree, be honest about it.)

When they compare you to your cousin the accountant:

Try: "Cousin David is doing well, and I am happy for him. Accounting is a good career. But there are many paths to a good income, and tech is one of the fastest-growing. I am not against accounting. I am pursuing what fits my skills."

When they say "you are wasting time on that computer:"

Try: "Let me show you what I built this week." Then show them. Every time. Make showing evidence a habit. Over months, the accumulation of evidence is more convincing than any single argument.

Keep your tone respectful. Defensive arguments escalate. Calm evidence de-escalates. You are not trying to win a debate. You are trying to build trust, and trust is built through consistent, visible results.

There is a phenomenon in Kenyan families: your parents will dismiss your words and accept the exact same words from someone else. A teacher. A pastor. An uncle with a government job. A neighbour who "seems successful."

Use this. Find someone your parents respect who understands or works in tech. Ask them to have a brief conversation with your parents about what tech careers look like. One 10-minute phone call from someone your parents trust can do more than six months of your explanations.

Options for proxy voices:

• A relative or family friend who works in IT, banking technology, or telecommunications.
• A pastor or community leader who has seen young people succeed through tech training.
• A mentor from your coding programme who can speak to what graduates go on to do.
• A news article or TV segment about young Kenyans succeeding in tech (parents trust media).

This is not manipulation. It is communication through a channel your parents trust. You are translating your message into a language they receive more easily.

Some families will not come around through conversation. They will come around through results, and only results.

If your parents are deeply sceptical and no amount of talking changes their mind, the path is quiet consistency. Keep learning. Keep building. Keep earning when you can. Do not argue. Do not defend. Just produce evidence week after week, month after month.

At some point, the evidence becomes undeniable. You show them your first KES 10,000 from a client. They are cautiously interested. You show them your third client. They stop asking about the banking job. You show them consistent monthly income from freelancing. They start telling their friends "my son builds websites for companies."

This takes time. Sometimes six months. Sometimes a year. The timeline is frustrating. But the alternative, abandoning a path that excites you because your family does not yet understand it, is more costly in the long run.

Be patient with your parents. They are not your enemies. They are people who love you and are scared of a path they cannot see. Show them the path by walking it, and eventually they will stop worrying and start watching with pride.