Have a "curious child?"
William and Mary had three children, two girls named Kristi and Libby and a son they nicknamed Trey. Since William was a successful Seattle attorney and Mary was a school teacher they thought a career in law would be an appropriate pursuit for their only son as well.
Imagine their pleasure when Trey scored 1590 out of a possible 1600 on the SAT. His parents were thrilled when he was accepted into Harvard in 1973. But Trey had a hard time finding a clear focus for his studies and spent most of his time playing around on the schools computers.
According to Trey’s parents they were “sick when he told us he planned to leave college to take advantage of a window of opportunity he believed would be long gone by the time he graduated from Harvard.” Much to the dismay of his parents, he dropped out of school forever in 1975.
In the father’s recent book, Showing Up for Life, Trey’s dad explains the lesson he learned as a father: “Perhaps there’s a lesson in this for parents of other curious children who, from the start, require the freedom to meet life on their own terms: It is that there is no statute of limitations on the dreams you have for your children. And there is no way to predict how much delight you might feel when those dreams are realized in a far different way than you could have imagined.”
Incidentally, Trey was chosen as a nickname because this son was the fourth William in the family tree. You may know him by his adult name, Bill Gates.
Imagine their pleasure when Trey scored 1590 out of a possible 1600 on the SAT. His parents were thrilled when he was accepted into Harvard in 1973. But Trey had a hard time finding a clear focus for his studies and spent most of his time playing around on the schools computers.
According to Trey’s parents they were “sick when he told us he planned to leave college to take advantage of a window of opportunity he believed would be long gone by the time he graduated from Harvard.” Much to the dismay of his parents, he dropped out of school forever in 1975.
In the father’s recent book, Showing Up for Life, Trey’s dad explains the lesson he learned as a father: “Perhaps there’s a lesson in this for parents of other curious children who, from the start, require the freedom to meet life on their own terms: It is that there is no statute of limitations on the dreams you have for your children. And there is no way to predict how much delight you might feel when those dreams are realized in a far different way than you could have imagined.”
Incidentally, Trey was chosen as a nickname because this son was the fourth William in the family tree. You may know him by his adult name, Bill Gates.
Comment
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Comment by Victor Encinas on May 6, 2009 at 9:30am -
Hi Dan,
Love that story. My 5 year old, Jude, wants to be a policeman and my 4 year old, Audrey wants to be a dog and kitty keeper. Going to encourage them in their talents and pray for them a lot.
Victor
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Comment by Archie Winningham on May 1, 2009 at 6:00pm -
Dan,
Thanks for this inspirational story. Funny you would recently post this. This is a reminder of what my youngest son Adam, who is now 7 years old, said. He has been saying he wants to be in the Air Force, but yesterday he, just out of the blue, said he wants to be a comic book saleman. I don't know what to make of this, but I am just going to go with it and continue to encourage him to use ever bit of imagination that he has.
Hey, ya never know!
Archie
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Comment by André Dugger on May 1, 2009 at 1:58pm -
Dan,
Keep sharing those inspiring stroies. Soon, very soon, we will be sharing many of these types of stories about women and men who are part of our 212Connection and 48Days.net. I love outside the box thinking and practice. Thanks for yet another great reminder.
Andre'
SuccessinLife.com
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Comment by Deb Ingino on April 29, 2009 at 9:05pm -
Just love this story Dan! Its just that perspective we cherish at My Wired Style.
Some of us have curious children, or serious children or inspriring children and each are uniquely gifted with strengths that are the key to their future success, so glad Trey was allowed to meet life on his own terms and change the course of how we communicate, do business and live today.
Deb
MyWiredStyle.com
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