What my son taught me: it’s all about relationships
A few days ago, my son turned 29. I was overwhelmed. From morning until midnight, the phone was ringing, people were messaging and zoom calls were taking place. I had never experienced this before.
It was a very special day. His girlfriend decorated the house, and together, we cooked Mexican food. We watched a video for 20 minutes where so many of his friends from all over the world wished him a happy birthday. One of his friends even got Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the basketball legend, to give him a tribute.
At times, it felt like I was watching this event like an outside spectator. What was so special about this kid? I could see the pattern from all his friends’ wishes: “I am very lucky to have you in my life because you understand me so well.”
His friends come from different backgrounds and different races. How can this boy understand every single one of them so well? How can this boy make each of them feel so close to him? While I was observing all of this, a reflection came over me.
I was reminded of a time, as a wife in an extended family, when the values that people exhibited were quite different from the ones I saw in my son. It brought back memories of a time where cockiness and smartness went hand in hand. In my extended family, I noticed that people who were smart were allowed to be arrogant. Nobody corrected their cockiness. No one said “try to be simple.” Instead they would say, “yentha shaney idhan nodu” (look how smart he is!). Unknowingly, I began to hold the view that it is okay for smart people to be weird or to be bullies.
We also hear intelligent people are logical and they don’t wear their emotions on their sleeves. My son wore his emotions on his sleeve. He was always a people person and he wanted to interact with people rather than to read a book at the dinner table. But that wasn’t okay with me because I thought one has to read all the time and not waste time in talking. When people were showing off their kids’ awards and achievements, I hardly had anything to show off my own son. This made me feel less validated by the world. Today, as I look back on my previous concerns, I am ashamed.
The truth is, I began to believe that those people were smarter than my son. I thought people who read all the time or who had awards are better achievers in life and more successful. And I began to believe that is what mattered. Slowly my unconscious bias, that society’s validations mattered more than anything, became a conscious bias. I compared my son to others, I felt frustrated over small things, and I felt anxious that my son won’t be able to come up in life. It took some time to realize the amount of damage that these attitudes had on my son’s well-being.
I carried the narrative for several years, but things began to change when he was in high school. In 10th grade, for the first time, his french teacher recognized that my boy was special by giving him a Purple & Gold Award. His English teacher gave him the same honor. This award was special because it recognized the passion he showed towards his subjects, not his academic abilities. At the time, I was so ignorant that I did not know why the award was given and all that mattered for me was my son’s name on a piece of paper.
Long story short, my boy was the first one in our family to graduate from an Ivy League school. He worked for a Congressman. He worked for the world’s best company, Google. And now he is at Harvard Business School. But how did he do any of these things? It was not because he was a straight “A” student or that he got the perfect score on his SATs. He was not a valedictorian. It was all due to the relationships he built over the years.
For example, he got into Dartmouth because two of his close friends wrote heartfelt letters about the kind of person he was. Another very close friend messaged now Congressman Ro Khanna in 2013 and introduced my son to him. Even getting into Harvard is the totality of all his experiences with life.
I have realized that all of those awards and accomplishments all came from who he was when he was a small boy. As a small kid, he was talkative and he always wanted to have relationships with other people. He would ask questions. He would want to play outside. He would be interested in all of life. And those curiosities and interests in so many things is what made him who he is today.
My unconscious bias left me forever after his birthday celebration. None of his friends cared where he went to college, what awards he got or his professional success. All they mentioned was how my boy made them feel. It is true what May Angelou said, “I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” He has created a village just with the relationships he has made with people and how he made them feel. He has achieved a lot, but guess what? He is still a down to earth guy and his professional success does not matter most to him.
So next time when you meet smart people who act snobbish because of their accomplishments or awards, don’t feel intimidated like me. Don’t let yourself believe that academics or achievements are the only way to be successful. Instead, feel very sorry for them because they haven’t understood the value of relationships. I am the luckiest mother in the universe for giving birth to an extraordinary person. Hope to continue my journey with this super soul for many years from now.
Note from the author: I recognize that some may think that it’s easy for me to write an article like this because my son has fit the definition of conventional success. But the truth is I would feel this way regardless of what he did. The truth is that good relationships make him happy, and when he is happy, he is successful.
