If you like to start in a hard way (also I do it in the hard way...), of course you can start with C or even C++, but you can start also with the easy way. With my students I prefer to do the easy way. If you start with C++ is like like you start to dig in the middle of the pit in the middle of the night. But with my students I prefer to learn ABC in a very abstract language, and then to dig deeper and deeper to understand how a low level programming language works.