I came across this WaPo article yesterday:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-do/?tid=sm_tw

I read parts of it with goosebumps. It read EXACTLY like the life and education guidelines and planning I had received from my parents in the mid-70's. Whatever, the guy was quoting their words in verbatim.

I, too, went through very extensive additional homeschooling with a number of tutors. I was absolutely expected to ace through all the tests and exams with straight 'As'. Once some test results started to come in percentage points, I was expected to get 100 pc. It was fine to go down to 98 pc occasionally in order to show that I, too, had a human side attached to me.

Best of all, I used to believe that this was absolutely fine. And frankly, I have never had any problem with it. Those were the facts of life, and I was simply doing my best to live with them.

The critical difference here was that hardly anyone ever mentioned the option of failure at any time. Yup, in theory, one thing or the other may have gone wrong. This was to be expected. So, you'd stand up, brush off the the dust, and give it a better try. I was trained to understand the concept of trial and error, and accept the fact that the errors, too, came with the territory. Yet the notion that an error committed during the cognitive process or while going through a very steep learning curve was a failure never occurred in any way.

Yet, another very different bit was that both my parents and the extended family expected me to achieve all of the above purely because they saw themselves as business and political leaders who believed that the only possible way for us to continue on their pre-set path was, well, to lead by example.

In other words, all that effort I was putting in really had very little to do with me securing my future. It was much more about their prestige and reputation than anything else. My background alone was supposed to secure my future.
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'Everybody has a plan...' or so they say. The plans of my family really did not work out as they had envisioned them...

But my 'tiger youth' worked out for me just fine. I never saw life as anything else but a constant and very hard struggle to succeed. My business partners usually say, 'Release him. He is deadly!'

With the doubtless benefit of the hindsight, I now understand that some of it had to do with my desire to secure (or over-secure) my life in an age where being openly gay was not really an option.

KD

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Very interesting article - and very true of today's kids. You look at sports - everyone gets a trophy. They grew up with Mr. Rogers telling them everyone and everything they did was great. Their heroes are often picked for the money or power they have not what they have accomplished.

I grew up in a middle class family - comfortable and never wanting (at least as far as we knew as kids) but Dad had many careers over the years - changing fields and companies - there was never ONE answer that had to be achieved.

These days you read about kids getting caught cheating and the parents, rather than coming down on the kids, fighting with the teacher because if it goes on the student record that one incident could "ruin my child's life".

We grew up knowing we had to work hard - but not with the feeling that if you make any mistake it can ruin you. Mistakes were what you learned from. And if everyone was getting an "A"? Well that meant the class was too easy and the teacher would make it more challenging.

The article talks about drug and alcohol use and suicide among kids. Well that is because they were told that any screw-up, even as a kid, could ruin your life. So if you do make a mistake well why not kill yourself, your life is ruined anyway.

One part of the article I really liked...

We need to teach our kids to be the best they can be. Not all of them will be doctors or lawyers - but maybe they will be the best mechanic or even the best trash man....

And how often do the parents talk to their kids about their own mistakes?

As the income gap grows and the ability to live a comfortable middle class life gets harder and harder to obtain we need to have the next generation be survivors not be brought up to expect they will always be the best and always succeed at everything.

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