My Harvard Mom
I was born in a one-room apartment with no flushing toilet. It was one of those holes in the ground, in case you’ve ever visited Communist China in the 90s. But the walls were filled with books. My mother cut out little paper cards to teach me Chinese characters since I was two months old so I could be reading books by the time I was two. That was my “Harvard mom.”
I’m sure there are many varieties. What did my mother do that made it easier for me to gain admission to some of the most selective universities in the world?
She was alway lecturing me about something, and not in a bad way. There was always something to be taught, and she was always teaching it to me. And one more thing: she never congratulated me on anything I did.
It wasn’t until I came to the Western world that I continually heard the phrase: “good job!” Along those same lines, I also heard: “you gave it your best shot,” and “you did the best you could.” No, my upbringing was not like that. The expectations were high, and by high I mean unfathomably. And I’m pretty sure there was nothing I could have done that could have met them.
Psychology is a strange thing, and child psychology even stranger, perhaps, because researchers (presumably adults) are attempting to derive knowledge about what goes on in a mind that is in a very different state from their own.
A child’s mind, as my mother always said, is very malleable, and actually much more resistant to stress. As long as the love relationship is strong, there is a probably a great deal farther you could push your beloved children toward their highest potentials.
How did I know my mom loved me? She worked… hard. Getting into college is actually a team sport. The child is young, but very observant. All team members must be putting in their best effort, or the child will not have sufficient motivation to be doing more than his/her “share.”
Who was the person scraping ice off her windshield on –5°C Canadian mornings to get to work? My mother. Who was the person helping me glue together hundreds of little pieces of colored paper for my third grade mosaic art project? My mother. Who stayed up the entire night helping me finish my IB Calculus mathematical modeling paper even though she had work the next day? You guessed it, my mother.
Every family is unique, and every mother-child relationship even more so. My mother isn’t perfect, but she did do a few things that made it that much easier for me to stay motivated and build the self-discipline I needed to succeed in my academic and career endeavors. She led by example, and always pushed me beyond what I was capable of.
For all the mothers, sons, and daughters reading this article, know that in the college admissions journey, you will need one another more than ever. In just a matter of months, this last chapter of the “mother-child” story will be over, and on its way to maturing into a new and even more beautiful relationship.
