Parents who don't know their children, part 20

[icarus]

New tutoring student sat across the table from me. Getting a late start on SAT prep, but eager, asked a lot of questions.

Met with his father later:

"I need someone to motivate him."

"Uh. He's pretty motivated."

"He's never been motivated. I tried to get him started on this in ninth grade and he just wouldn't do it."

"Wellll, that was then. He asked me a lot of questions and is quite motivated now."

"So do you think you can motivate him? He won't listen to me."

*facepalm*

My boss explains to me that the kid is lazy and needs help with his college essays. "Oh, we got an entire first draft done."

"Really?"

The kid's mother looked pleased and shocked.

Yes, well, our "lazy" student didn't know what to write about ... until we unearthed the successful business he started in early high school repairing PS3s. He fixed his own, his friends', then put out a Craigslist ad to fix more at a hundred bucks a pop. He'd screen the clients, make sure the problem was something he could repair, beat Sony's prices and repair turnarounds but spent so much time on his business, his grades suffered and he didn't have time for fun either. He had to pull the plug but he was raking in a grand a week for a while there.

Um. Think colleges might want to hear about a high schooler's too-successful business?

Yeah. Real lazy kid you got there. A "lazy" kid whose real issue is that he doesn't know who he is. Hmm. Wonder how that happened....

Comments

[wrabbit]

Sounds like he'll be fine!

[icarus]

No kidding!

[margrave]

Wow.

That's fucking amazing. Like, shit, I have been involved in start up companies (big and small), and the amount of self motivation, perseverance and dedication it takes to succeed is insane. To turn a profit is more difficult, and the kid (14 at the time?) made a grand a week. Wow.

I don't understand. How does his parents not see how amazing that is?

[icarus]

As far as I can tell, they have a set idea of what he should be, and he falls outside those parameters.

My boss keeps telling me that "parents don't know their children." Though usually it means that parents have overly rosy pictures of their kids. Usually, the cynical parents know their kids quite well. Here, they're cynical and large parts if him seem to fall--quite unintentionally--outside their radar.

[senmut]

Oh I do hope that drive translates over, because he sounds like the right kind to DO THINGS.

[icarus]

He didn't know this was exceptional. He just said, "Well, a lot of people in my family run their own businesses and I learned why you would expand and need help...."

[julian_griffith]

I'm impressed with that kid! I was proud of mine (same age) for making back the startup costs and bringing in pocket-money profit on the Plushvengers Etsy business, but a grand a week? Whoa.

And yeah. Those parents. I suppose my general broke-ass condition means I know my kid better because we're in the same room a lot, and I see the Plushvengers getting made, and we read tumblr stuff out to each other? No idea.

[icarus]

I've learned that the kid's father lives a four hour drive away from him right now and that the parents are divorced. But doesn't that usually mean that one parent is in the know-? IDEK.

[julian_griffith]

If the parents are well-off enough that the kid has a well-equipped bedroom and rarely comes out of it, they'll know him a lot less well then if they're sitting mere feet from each other most of the time and the kid is going "Hey Mom! Check this out!" and turning their laptop screen to show off the latest hilarious pose from the Hawkeye Initiative, or whatever.

[icarus]

THAT. That makes sense.

[julian_griffith]

Mom will you take a picture of me in my Sherlock cosplay on your iPod and email it to me? Mom do we have any size 7 knitting needles? Yes Mom, I'll fix your dropped stitch for you. You know, Mom, you were right, Mr. Rochester is a great big bag of dicks. Can we get a picture of my Loki and the windup Dalek? No, Mom, I do NOT think Tony Stark would paint his toenails to match his suit, not even when he was drunk. But I'll help you do your fingernails like the old-school Captain America shield.

...the joys of raising a second-generation fan.

[icarus]

And I'll bet he's in his room, doing his computer stuff while his parents don't have much to do with his life. His father living far, far away just adds to the effect.

::nods-nods::

[julian_griffith]

I definitely spent more time in my room than my kid does, and my parents, attentive though they were, knew commensurately less of my strongest interests. Though they did know more than this kid's parents, because I had no TV or phone in my room, and I needed their help for transportation, and the dining room table was the best place to cut out sewing patterns.