I like to tell a few stories about my kids here. But my wife and I want them to grow up outside of the public eye — so I leave details kind of fuzzy. And we want them to stand on their own — and while they are proud of what we do, they are succeeding on their own.
That said, as a parent, the greatest challenge their mom and I face are teaching them how to fail. It’s hard because they don’t fail. They’re very talented kids — and yes, I am very proud of them for that. But at this stage of their life, they have to know how to recover when they fall down. I didn’t learn it until college and afterwards. (Life has been giving me lots of opportunities to hone that skill since then). I nearly failed Accounting II in college and would have until I got a 92 on the final. I cleaned toilets for a year when I thought I’d be a cartoonist. I had never “failed” until then. I quickly learned that whining about it didn’t solve jack squat.
I had to get busy.
My kids have to learn that, too. They have to make mistakes and learn from them. And sometimes, it might be someone else’s fault that you face difficulty. But your reaction is all on you. They also have to understand that a failure is only truly a failure if you don’t learn from it. If the rules are stacked against you, you have to be so damn good that you can overcome that.
Life isn’t fair. But it’s darn good teacher. I hope I’m one as well. It’s the one time I truly can’t afford to fail.