Going through our archives, we came across this great post by Dr. AnnMaria De Mars from June 6, 2016 “Success in Parenting Isn’t What You Think” that we wanted to share in case you missed it the first time around.
It’s been a good week for the darling daughters.
The Spoiled One graduated summa cum laude, also president of the senior class, and is heading to the east coast to attend a small liberal arts college where she has an academic scholarship and a spot on the soccer team.
The book co-authored by Darling Daughter One and Darling Daughter Three won International Sports Biography of the Year, and the two lovelies pictured above flew to London to receive the award.
The Perfect Jennifer has tenure now and is finishing out another year of being an outstanding teacher.
A couple of years ago, there was a book with the thesis that Chinese mothers are superior and all Americans are raising a bunch of lazy slackers. It irritated me and I wrote a blog with the title “Why American mothers are superior” because that seemed more professional than “Go F*** Yourself” . And no, in all seriousness, I really don’t think that one race or country has better mothers, but I also think the idea that if we don’t regiment our children lock-step for 18 years straight into MIT we are a bunch of losers is irritating as f***.
You might think this is my rubbing it in post to say, “How you like me now? My kids are doing awesome.”
You’d be wrong. To paraphrase Erma Bombeck yet again, no mother should ever be arrogant because she can’t be sure that at any moment the principal won’t call to tell her that one of her children rode a motorcycle through the gymnasium.
I wanted to talk about something different – definitions of success that Tiger Mom Lady probably would not understand at all.
A friend of mine has a son in his mid-twenties who lives at home. He earned a degree from a two-year college. He is not crushing it as a hedge fund manager, but rather, has a regular job with benefits. I’m sure Tiger Mom would be dismayed if he was her kid.
My friend was distraught over the situation at work. The company had been acquired and reorganized. Her new boss was a nightmare and she came home in tears more often than not. Despite over a decade of good performance, she was afraid she was going to be laid off and was becoming depressed and stressed. They couldn’t afford to make the payments on their house on one income, and they had already lost a home back in 2008 when the housing marketing imploded. They were the collateral damage of those hedge fund managers.
It was at this point that her son (remember him?) stepped up. He had been living at home to save money for a down payment on a house of his own. Since he is single, has no children and gets along well with his parents, it seemed like a good arrangement, and he was paying them rent, but  a lot less than it would cost to go out and get his own apartment. Plus, there were those home-cooked meals. He said something like this,
Look, you took care of me for 26 years. I make enough money now to cover the mortgage. If you are that unhappy about your job, quit. Even if you don’t quit your job, at least quit worrying about being laid off. I’ll pick up any slack. Between Dad and me, we got you covered.
Look at this family – they all love each other, the mom, dad and son. They get along well enough that he feels comfortable living at home to save money. Her son is hard-working and appreciates the fact that his parents have done what they could to support him. He can take the perspective of another person, see the stress his mother is experiencing and offer to do what he can to alleviate it out of appreciation for what they have done for him.
In my view, my friend is a success as a mother and her son is a success as a human being.
