My grandson Jordan is a photographer, and he was recently hired to take portraits at an acting studio in Los Angeles. A director who just days earlier had won two Oscars was visiting the acting class that day. Someone asked him where he had decided to display his trophies, and he surprised everyone by admitting he’d tucked them away in a drawer. “I don’t want my kids to come home from school every day,” he said, “and see my Oscars and think, What am I possibly going to do to compare?” I laughed when Jordan told me this, because he is also the son of an extraordinarily successful man. His father, Marianne’s husband, Rob, won a Nobel Prize in economics. And Rob also keeps his prize in a drawer, tossed in next to the wine opener!
There’s no need to hide our success from our children. But this director and my precious Rob have a lovely way of acknowledging that their awards and accomplishments are not who they are. They don’t confuse who they are with what they do. When we conflate achievement with worth, success as well as disappointment can become a burden on our children.
Marianne told me a sweet story that’s a good reminder of a very different legacy we can choose to pass on. My oldest great-grandson—her grandson Silas—came to stay with Marianne and Rob in New York one weekend. He said, “Granny, I heard that Papa won a big, important award.” He asked to see it. Marianne pulled it out of the drawer and Silas stared at it for a long time, running his finger over his grandfather’s name etched into the gold plaque: Robert Fry Engle, III. Finally, he said, “My middle name is Frye. Why does it say Fry?” Marianne said, “Well, who do you think you’re named after?” Silas was delighted to discover that part of his name came from his grandfather. Later, a family friend came over for dinner and Silas proudly asked, “Have you seen my prize?” He ran to the drawer and pulled it out. “See?” he said. “My name’s on it. Papa and I have a prize!”
It’s not good to live with success looming over you, feeling burdened by the need to reach a certain height to be worthy of love. And yet the strengths and skills of our ancestors are also a part of us. It’s our legacy. It’s our prize, too. We honor our children when we can create a culture not of self-aggrandizement or self-effacement, of overachievement or underachievement—but a culture of the joy of achievement. The joy of working hard. Of nurturing our gifts. Not because we have to. Because we’re free to. Because we’re blessed with the gift of life.
My daughter Audrey and her son David have taught me so much about nurturing gifts rather than fulfilling expectations. David is an incredibly bright and creative person. As soon as he could read, he had a photographic memory for sports stats. I’ll never forget watching The Wizard of Oz with him when he was two and he deduced that the woman riding her bicycle in the storm was the Wicked Witch. But while he excelled in extracurricular activities in high school—playing soccer, writing songs, performing with the choir, starting the school’s first comedy club—and scored very high on standardized tests, his grades were a problem. Audrey and her husband, Dale, were often called into the counselor’s office because David was in danger of failing classes. His senior year, when he was accepted at two small private colleges, he reluctantly told his parents that he didn’t feel ready to go.
Education has always been a strong value in our family—in part because Béla and I missed opportunities when our lives were interrupted by war. But Audrey didn’t guilt David or lay down the law. She listened. And when she learned about a new music academy opening in Austin, where they live, she told David that if he could get in, he could take a gap year to focus on music, and then figure out his college plans. He jumped on the opportunity, recorded a demo of original songs, and earned a spot at the music school.
Taking time to focus on something he loved and was good at—and feeling supported by his parents in doing things at his own speed, in his own way—gave David the focus and motivation to later pursue a career path he cared about. When he did go to college—on a choir scholarship—he knew what he wanted to do, and he genuinely wanted to be there. He was making a choice that served him, not just doing what he had to do to fulfill someone else’s expectation. Now he has a journalism degree and a job he loves as a sportswriter. And music continues to be an important and joyful part of his life. I’m moved and impressed by Audrey and Dale’s parenting, and by David’s capacity to know and express his truth.
Too often we’re boxed in by expectations, by the sense that we have a specific role or function to fulfill. Often in families, children are given a label: the responsible child, the jokester, the rebel. When we give children
