I love to watch award shows. It doesn't matter what they're for; country music, college sports, the Academy Awards. They're fun because during every show, someone gets up and tells the audience that he's been dreaming of this his whole life. A little girl gave acceptance speeches with her hairbrush as a microphone, in front of the full-length mirror in her closet. And then one day, there she is at the Academy Awards picking up a statue.
I once heard a story about JK McKay Jr. and Pat Hayden. JK was the son of USC Football Coach John McKay. JK and Pat played football in high school and were best friends. Pat's family was moving and Pat was devastated at having to go to another school his senior year. The McKay family offer to let Pat live with them during the school year so the boys could finish together. JK and Pat had this dream; they'd had it since they were small boys. JK was going to throw a bomb to Pat at the end of the fourth quarter. Pat would catch it in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown and that would prove to be the winning score. They practiced constantly and when they got to USC they knew that there would be many scenarios in which games could be won - or lost. But they never lost that dream. And one sunny day in January, JK McKay through a long pass to Pat Hayden who caught it in the end zone. It was the winning touchdown in the Rose Bowl.
Tara Lipinski was about 2 when she stood on her mother's Tupperware bowl turned upside down and imagined she was getting an Olympic gold medal for figure skating. Twelve years later, Tara became the youngest woman to win the gold medal in Women's Figure Skating. Everyone knew that Tara was too young to win, everyone that is except Tara. Everyone else knew Michelle Kwan would win the gold. So Tara just went out and skated the best she could. And that was good enough. She took home the gold medal.
Everything in our lives starts out with a dream. Little boys may dream at first of being police officers or firefighters, and some keep those dreams. Others dream of being pilots, athletes, singers, actors, dancers, captains of industry. Whatever those dreams, they start out in a fragile state, like the bubbles that children blow from a plastic wand. If the dreams are nurtured, they flourish; if they are mocked and stepped upon, the dreams, just like bubbles, pop.
We all have a responsibility to ourselves and to our children. Those of us who have made our lives successful want our children to be equally successful. Our children may not choose careers based on their parents' successes, but whatever they choose needs support and nourishment. If our lives have not been quite what we'd hoped for, we have reason to want our children to have better lives. But a better life does not necessarily mean the life that our father wanted or that our mother missed having. Parents cannot live their lives again by living through their children. We live our lives by celebrating the success that our children make of their lives. Whatever they do, their success is an extension of the love and support and nurturing they received when those dreams were fragile as bubbles.
Frequently, we dismiss our children's early dreams because we know how difficult it will be for them to reach their goals. Your daughter may love to write but will writing ever pay her a living. Will any publisher ever offer her a contract. Will her name ever be on the New York Times Best Seller List. While the odds may seem against her, someone is going to write another great American novel. Someone will be on the New York Times Best Seller List. Some publisher will offer a writer a contract. Is it so impossible that that child could ever be your daughter? Are you so certain that she is not the one?
It is so easy to give love and support and takes so much energy to denounce and denigrate, it's amazing that more parents are not more supportive. Perhaps that stems from the parents' own insecurities. “I'm not that smart; how could my daughter do something like write a best-selling novel.” “I could never swim that fast. Why does my son think he'll be the next Michael Phelps.
It's time to lock away our own insecurities; our own fears and our own fear of failure. Be the best booster your child ever saw. Support his ideals and his dreams as much as possible. Give your children wings and watch them fly. And if by some chance, they should fall, give them your arms to lean on for support. There is no shame in losing, the only shame is in never having tried.
