Parents, it seems, have an almost Olympian persistence when it comes to suggesting more secure and lucrative lines of work for their children who have the notion that writing is an actual profession. I say this from experience.

Orlean wryly captures a familiar tension between artistic vocation and conventional ideas of stability. By calling parents’ advice “Olympian,” she suggests a godlike, unyielding authority—well-intentioned but remote from the lived reality of a would-be writer. The line acknowledges how writing is often treated as a hobby or impractical dream, prompting families to steer children toward safer, better-paid careers. Her final sentence—“I say this from experience”—grounds the observation in autobiography, implying she has faced (and resisted) such pressure herself. The humor softens the critique while affirming writing as legitimate work despite social skepticism.