DON’T OBSESS ABOUT THE LIFE YOU THINK YOUR KIDS HAVE TO HAVE

Since the dawn of time, parents have wanted the best for their kids. They are our link to the future beyond our own time here on earth. But more importantly, we feel a connection with our kids, a visceral bond. When they’re happy, we feel delight; when they hurt, we feel pain. When they succeed, we feel proud; when they fail, we feel the loss.

It’s natural to want good things for our kids. We want them to grow into strong, good people; we want them to have work they love that enables them to live well; we want them to find good friends and a wonderful mate with whom they can grow a wonderful, loving life. We want them to succeed.

There is an expression of this natural sentiment, though, that I’m seeing more of and it troubles me. I’m sure that among a certain percentage of families there has always been a sort of obsession with a path through the Ivy League universities, and toward the social and political elite; but I think this same obsession has been taking hold across a larger spectrum of our population, and that’s worrisome.

There are certain colleges that are supposedly the doorway to success, and those colleges are very difficult to get into – largely because so very many people are vying for so few openings. Then there are certain High Schools that are the doorway to getting into those colleges; certain Jr. High Schools and Elementary Schools that are the doorway to those High Schools.

There are even places where there are top pre-schools and kindergartens that you must attend if you are going to get into the top elementary school.

On one level, that’s understandable – competition motivates people to do their best and all, and we all want our kids to get a good education. On the other hand, by putting all this pressure on young kids in this certain direction, it puts the focus on an external standard, and can draw people away from what they genuinely love and aspire to, and from their own unique path to success.

This popular obsession creates a very small window through which only a few can pass, while multitudes are faced with a sense of failure that is not merited by the challenge.

The intense pressure and expectations that are being placed on kids to follow a certain path: excel in school, get straight "A"s, get near perfect SAT scores, engage in extracurricular activities for the express purpose of pleasing and impressing the admissions department of Harvard, or Yale, or Stanford, etc. has an all or nothing, perfectionistic quality to it.

Go through this labyrinth of intense scrutiny and graduate from an Ivy League school, and then you’ll be successful. If you don’t, then you’re a failure… and you’ll have to make do with some second rate dreams.

I have talked with people who are freaking out because their 5 year old isn’t measuring up, or their 10 year old might not be able to get into the top preparatory Jr. High School that will feed into the top preparatory High School that will get them into the top university.

It’s not that these parents see certain talents in their kids, and support them to do their best and to flourish. It’s different than that. These people are anxious. They’re scared. And they’re working like crazy to be able to afford and groom their little ones for this particular path – and they’re also anxious and scared that their little ones won’t measure up.

This is not about flourishing, or living a happy, successful life; it’s obsessing about getting into a club. And, I fear, more accurately, that this club is a particularly seductive and dangerous one: I fear that these parents and their kids are getting into a position to become part of what has become more like a Royal Court.

This is not the mindset that has characterized most of America for most of her existence. America was founded by brilliant and very well educated folks, in part. But she was also founded by self-taught geniuses like Benjamin Franklin, and self-formed men like George Washington.

We are a culture of pioneers, and the ethic of self-reliance and rugged individualism that have forged our national culture are granite pillars of a great country.

The idea that there is one path to success, I believe, reflects the growing power of our more greatly centralized government. The road to great success increasingly runs toward Washington, DC. And that is not a positive development.

It’s not a positive development because it is an illusion, and so brings those entranced by the vision further from reality. The truth is, we are all very different. Sure we have plenty in common, but if you were to somehow find yourself within another person’s experience, it would freak you out. All of the mental structures and premises that you hold to would be gone, and you would have theirs instead. You would be unfathomably disoriented.

So the idea that there is but one path to success is intrinsically false, because we are intrinsically so very different.

It is also false in practice. In the real world, a Harvard education may be a help… or it may be a hindrance. An acquaintance of mine years ago told me how he made a fortune in business, then when he sold his business, he took some time off to attend Harvard’s MBA program. And he was never able to make a successful business since!

Ronald Reagan graduated from Eureka College in Illinois. Harry Truman never attended college at all. Had I been a student of the classics, I would have learned infinitely more from Victor Davis Hanson’s program at Fresno State, than from any Ivy League program.

If there’s one point that I want to get across here to parents, grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, and anyone else who cares for, teaches, or encourages kids, It is… relax.

Love your kids, enjoy your kids, encourage your kids to do their very best. Hold high expectations for them personally, but in doing this, pay attention to who they are, not what you, or anyone else, wants them to be.

And in doing so, you will support them to be who they are; and you will become their greatest champion. The draw to get through the labyrinth of elite schooling is only a cultural dance; it is a fashion, like getting the coolest tennis shoes, or the latest iphone.

What matters is not the steps of this particular cultural dance. What matters is that we learn to move with grace and style, to live with integrity and dignity. What matters is that we live from the best of who we are.

That’s not something we usually learn in college. It’s something we can be inspired to strive for, and we can find that inspiration anywhere – from a loving parent to a dedicated coach to a devoted professor. We can find that inspiration at our first job, or building a fence with our dad. That inspiration can find deep roots when we have our own children, or commit deeply to a meaningful path.

A life of success, integrity, grace, and dignity is not something we are gifted with through following any rote path – even a very high powered one. It is not an entitlement of royalty.

Living well, with all that this means, is something each of us, from our deepest sense of our unique being, must decide to do.

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