Bill Gates, Sr.I read Showing Up For Life by Bill Gates, Sr. It's an easy read. A read that affirms family habits and activities, sheer length of time and interaction together create a legacy. The ethical and moral choices made day-to-day, while they may not be easy or enjoyable, leave a permanent pattern. Right? Nothing new, here.
What may be au courant is that we see in Showing Up For Life a family's story of discipline, liberty, love, commitment, intellect, trial-and-error, and downright determination does establish a bountiful family. Showing Up For Life brings home the ideas that meeting your neighbors right where they are; volunteering in one's community and being available for our fellow human has lasting effects. Our conglomerate of decisions and choices have a practical and fixed denouement on our family, community and the world. We not only see the Gates family in humble beginnings and living out the small, everyday choices which make them one heck-of-a likeable clan; we also see the seeds of success harvested in our generation. We are allowed an inside peek into an American family of philanthropists and what that philanthropy has the power of achieving. We are not talking only grand successes like providing a third world nation with vaccines; we are talking about Mary Gates' continually showing up to help out her local rotary club or the elder Mr. Gates' sister being denied the option of having learned to drive as a teenager so she saved her money and when her brother, Bill Gates' Sr. received his first driver's license Merridy bought him his first car.
When we were growing up, I often felt uncomfortable that there were different rules for Merridy because she was a girl than there were for me. One example is that she never learned how to drive a car. I, on the other hand, was permitted to get my driver’s license the minute I turned 16.
By that time, Merridy, who was seven years older than I, was married. She had a job and was earning her own money. For my 16th birthday, she spent 85 dollars – which was a significant sum then – to buy me a birthday present: a 1930 Model A Ford roadster with a rumble seat. Merridy’s generosity – when she had been denied the opportunity to drive herself – is something I’ve never forgotten. -- Showing Up For Life
Each of us has a grand sphere of influence and are capable of great things and we are all weaving a tapestry from which future generations will annex and increase. Maybe we all want to throw a glass of water on our children from time-to-time; maybe we all cringe when we contemplate our children actually using our name--that name we work diligently to make honorable; maybe we all tremble a little when our children make choices and act on decisions we wonder from where they came! We know they didn't get that from us, we say to ourselves and sometimes out loud and on purpose!Behind the Bill Gates success story is the other William Gates. The senior Mr. Gates balanced a family thrown off kilter by a boy who appeared to gain the intellect of an adult almost overnight. He served as a quiet counsel as his son jumped into and thrived in the cutthroat business world. When huge wealth put new pressure on the son, the elder Gates stepped in to start what is now the world's largest private philanthropy.For this article Bill Gates and their family shared many details of the family's story for the first time, including Bill Gates's experience in counseling as a child and how his early interest in computers came about partly as a result of a family crisis. The sometimes colliding forces of discipline and freedom within the clan shaped the entrepreneur's character."As a father, I never imagined that the argumentative, young boy who grew up in my house, eating my food and using my name would be my future employer," Mr. Gates Sr. told a group of nonprofit leaders in a 2005 speech. "But that's what happened."The first stage -- argumentative young boy -- "started about the time he was 11," Mr. Gates Sr. says in one of a series of interviews. That's about when young Bill became an adult, says Bill Sr., and an increasing headache for the family.While very involved in his kids' lives, Mr. Gates Sr. was somewhat distant emotionally, which his children say probably reflects his generation. His stature, combined with a lawyerly bent for carefully choosing his words, also made him intimidating at times. "He'd come home and he'd sit in a chair and eat dinner, but there was never any kind of warm, give-me-a-hug kind of thing," says Kristi Blake, his oldest daughter.Bill Gates at an early age became a diligent learner. He read the World Book Encyclopedia series start to finish. His parents encouraged his appetite for reading by paying for any book he wanted.
Still, they worried that he seemed to prefer books to people. They tried to temper that streak by forcing him to be a greeter at their parties and a waiter at his father's professional functions.
Then, at age 11, Bill Sr. says, the son blossomed intellectually, peppering his parents with questions about international affairs, business and the nature of life.
"It was interesting and I thought it was great," Mr. Gates Sr. says. "Now, I will say to you, his mother did not appreciate it. It bothered her."
The son pushed against his mother's instinct to control him, sparking a battle of wills. All those things that she had expected of him -- a clean room, being at the dinner table on time, not biting his pencils -- suddenly turned into a big source of friction. The two fell into explosive arguments.
"He was nasty," Ms. Armintrout says of her brother.
Mr. Gates Sr. played the role of peacemaker. "He'd sort of break them apart and calm things down," says Ms. Blake, the eldest sibling.
The battles reached a climax at dinner one night when Bill Gates was around 12. Over the table, he shouted at his mother, in what today he describes as "utter, total sarcastic, smart-ass kid rudeness."
That's when Mr. Gates Sr., in a rare blast of temper, threw the glass of water in his son's face.
He and Mary brought their son to a therapist. "I'm at war with my parents over who is in control," Bill Gates recalls telling the counselor. Reporting back, the counselor told his parents that their son would ultimately win the battle for independence, and their best course of action was to ease up on him.
Bill Sr. and Mary ultimately took a page from their upbringing: They backed off. They enrolled their son in a school that they thought would give him more freedom. That was the private Lakeside School, now known as the place where Bill Gates discovered computers.
Mr. Gates says he began to realize, "'Hey, I don't have to prove my position relative to my parents. I just have to figure out what I'm doing relative to the world.'"
It's a delicate dance this thing we call showing up for life as a parent. To give our children the freedom to be who they are happiest being and doing that which brings to them the greatest satisfaction is sometimes the greatest leap of faith. If we but follow the guidance of the Gates' counselor we've most certainly heard before, and allow our kids room to just be, we no doubt will have had a hand in raising admirable, joyful, successful adults who know the benefits of showing up for life, too.
One of the [best pieces of advice] I ever had ... is the business of getting along with and encouraging the right things with your youngsters. Bill's mother and I early on were involved in parent effectiveness training, [an] activity at the church we went to. And the thing that the people there taught us and emphasized, which is so central and so significant, is that you should never demean your child. When you think about the centrality of that, in terms of the relationship with an offspring, you're off to a really good start. I'm a great fan of my son's. I think he's an incredible citizen and a wonderful businessman, and we let that show in the things we do together. --Bill Gates, Sr.
So I'm thinking over the things that he said...parenting is as much about showing up as it is about a set of rules and examples I bestow upon my children no matter how well-intentioned.
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