There are a couple of interesting fascets to this question. First, his parents didn't actually tell him anything; they simply had their own interests and ignored the subjects that had no appeal. And he DID develop his own interests - he played baseball and was a baseball fan, in spite of the fact that his parents didn't seem to feel sports were important. ("My parents didn't dismiss sports and athleticism as unworthy; but such things didn't matter to them.")
The other interesting thing to me is that while he seemed to love and appreciate his parent, he also seemed to blame them for the things he saw as failings in himself.
So, I don't think his parents did him a disservice, but I think he believes they did.
I do think parents accidentally instill a sort of predisposition in their children for some things. In my household it was music, and both my sister and I majored in the subject at college. Reading, too, was important, particularly to my dad. They never mentioned either as important - that's just the way things were. But there were other things that I developed independently from my parents - for example I was very religious when literally no one else in the family had an interest in spirituality.