We interviewed Freda three years ago. At that time, as a popular Shanghai mother in the circle, Freda's most interesting thing was that she cooked a good dish and raised three sports-top sons.
Today, the three sons have grown into a one-meter-eight-meter-tall teenager with excellent sports, who can play the piano and paint. Not long ago, the boss Rafael was admitted to Stanford University.
Freda shares her parenting experience by clicking to watch the full video
In the city of Shanghai, we have heard many stories about famous schools and cow babies. But the special feature of this story is that according to the data and statistics we have collected, Rafael is the first high school student in Shanghai and even the whole country to be admitted to Stanford University through swimming special recruitment in the past decade. (If there is any omission in the data, you are welcome to leave a message to add)
Curious as to how this story came about, we came to Freda's home in Minhang on a sunny winter afternoon and chatted with them.
Three boys and a stay-at-home mom for the day
The Southern California-style house is nestled in the warm winter sunshine, with greenery and potted plants planted in front of the doors.
The door opened and Freda stood in the porch to greet us. She wears a blue T-shirt, has maroon hair, and holds a white bear in her arms, looking much younger than expected.
Financial freedom, the Kochi family, the international perspective, the outside world is full of curiosity about how such a family or children born into such a carefree family will grow up.
Pictured here is Freda and her son Rafael
At two o'clock in the afternoon, the boys came home one after another, each tall and polite. On the way, max sat at the piano and played a Chopin Nocturne for everyone. The sun shone through the shutters, the teenager's ten fingers fell on the keyboard, and the room was surrounded by pleasant tones.
My mother, Freda, told us that the youngest brother Ethan learned to swim with his two older brothers since he was a child, but then he didn't like it very much, so he learned to draw instead. Now swim two or three times a week and think of swimming as a fitness program.
"After swimming for so many years, it would be a pity to give up all of a sudden, but you should respect your child's ideas."
The boss Rafael was the last to return, he had a clean plate head and a sunny and handsome appearance. Due to long-term training, the arms have strong muscles.
Rafael competes in the United States
If all goes well, Rafael will fly to San Francisco this fall to start her university life at Stanford. Until then, Rafael's schedule went forward as usual. Swimming for two hours a day, six days a week, plus strength training twice a week, sounds boring, repetitive, and requires self-awareness and self-discipline, but Rafael has been in this way from the fourth grade of primary school to the present, spending 365 days a year.
It was this day-to-day repetition and persistence that formed the key to Rafael's swim into Stanford. Of course, these keys are visible to the naked eye, and there are some invisible hidden in tiny stubs.
The young Rafael celebrated her birthday with her two younger brothers
After graduating from college, Freda entered into marriage and became a full-time wife.
Every day at 7 o'clock, even if there is an aunt at home to help, she likes to make breakfast for the family herself, and find ways to change recipes and menus every day.
Pushing open the door, there is the garden, which is a small world of Freda. In the summer, she grows purple Jackman, pink lilies, white hydrangea Annabella, and the garden is lush; in winter, she plants rosemary and pulls a handful that can be used to fry beef burgers at any time.
While the boys are in school, Freda cooks in the kitchen, haggis radish soup, slow-cooked braised pork cartilage, matsutake steam pot chicken... Because the dish is really exquisite and beautiful, when Freda recorded the process of cooking the dish and passed it on to the short video platform, she did not expect to have a wave of fans in the mother circle.
Freda cooked the dish
Psychologist Chen Mo said, "The mother's emotion is the needle of the sea god in the family." When life is turned into poetry, the home is warm and organized, and the children will naturally like to move closer to home.
From time to time, such a strange scene will appear in the gym at the entrance of the community.
A mother tied a ponytail with three big boys taller than herself to do physical training together until the clothes could be twisted and sweated.
Freda took her three sons to do physical training together
The coach said freda was fighting for her life at her age, and Freda joked that she wanted to set an example for her children, "It's better to work hard than to work hard with them." ”
After Rafael was admitted to Stanford, people inevitably had the stereotype that it was not due to the adult "chicken baby", or adults in order to send their children to elite schools and let the children choose to take the road of sports expertise, but the actual situation is that Rafael himself has loved swimming since childhood, in order to support Rafael's dreams and love, the family has been supporting it.
Rafael joins her school band at the International Jazz Festival
"It's so bitter, it's a hard road"
Rafael loves the feeling of being underwater.
After swimming for a few years, his talent gradually revealed. When he participated in swimming competitions in Shanghai, he long dumped the second place half or even a swimming pool, known as "lonely defeat".
Freda recalls that when Rafael was a child, she tried almost all sports, football, baseball, volleyball, hockey... "But suddenly the boy told me one day that he liked swimming. ”
In the third grade of elementary school, Rafael was envious when he saw the children on the school swimming team lining up with swim bags on their backs. The following year, Rafael was admitted to the school swimming team, and even though he was second to last, he was always happy.
In 2015, Rafael won the first place in the group in Taiwan
What started as a training session three to four times a week has increased since junior high school, and now it's five to six times a week.
Rafael swam into Stanford, and many people thought that sports students were a "shortcut" to knock on the doors of prestigious schools, but only Rafael and her mother knew the hardships involved, Freda said, "This road is really not easy, it is too hard." ”
From the age of 11, every winter and summer vacation, her mother Freda would take Rafael to the United States to participate in training and competitions.
The training usually starts at 5 o'clock in the morning, and the mother and son get up at 4 o'clock and drive to the training site in the dark of night. The training intensity is high, and her mother Freda can only be distressed. Freda remembers one time she was driving on the road and almost hit a van "because people are so tired."
California at 5 a.m. in 2019
Freda watched her son go to the club for morning workouts
Rafael once had a dream of competing in the Olympics one day, but when he was in 9th grade, he experienced a sunny setback. At that time, he was playing volleyball at school and unfortunately fractured, injured his ankle and could not enter the water, when Rafael cried and said to his mother, "My swimming may be finished." ”
Freda comforted her son and encouraged him to do recovery training at home, "If you can't swim in the Olympics, you can tour the Asian Games, you can't swim in the Asian Games, and even if you can't swim in the Asian Games, there is a city games." Otherwise, there are all kinds of swimming competitions participated in by the whole people, as long as you really like it, you can swim anywhere. ”
Surprisingly, in a large international school competition held by the school in January of the following year, Rafael's swimming performance not only did not decline, but showed explosive growth, and both mother and son were excited. Looking back, the sudden surprise strengthened Rafael's determination to continue swimming.
Rafael was home after his injury doing rehabilitation
Along the way, mother and son supported each other in this way.
In fact, like many other sports, swimming to the back is boring and tedious, and Freda has seen many gifted children choose to give up for various reasons. Many people ask Freda, Rafael has changed from a hobby to a specialty, as a mother, what exactly are you doing right?
Freda summed it up in the idiom "go with the flow". Freda tells us, "Actually, in the beginning, I never thought he would go anywhere, just walking and watching, he loved to swim, and we supported him." If you say that you want to learn to swim in order to enter the university, it is completely the end of the game. ”
Rafael signed with Stanford University
"Finally seen"
On June 15, 2020, Freda vividly remembers the day.
This morning, his son Rafael got up and opened the mailbox to be frightened, and he cheered in the room. Rafael's mailbox flooded overnight with more than 30 emails from U.S. universities. A lot of the emails came from 12:01 a.m. Unlike regular U.S. applicants, once a sports student has a reputation or ranks high in international competitions, he will be "targeted" by the university coach and "snatched" the talent in advance.
In order to "preemptively", many coaches wait in front of the computer to wait for this moment, and send invitations to their favorite candidates.
In these more than 30 emails, almost all of the top cattle schools in Oto and Koto are included, as well as the top three universities in swimming. Shocked, Freda was even more relieved, "Finally seen." ”
Rafael wanted to find a school like that would be both academic cattle and strong in swimming, and Stanford had a perfect blend between the two. According to statistics, in 2016, the total number of medals won by Stanford students at the Olympic Games was 21, which is only one or two less than countries such as Australia and Italy.
Rafael is cooking
After signing a formal contract with Stanford University, many parents learned from Freda, and some mothers said, "In shanghai, I am afraid that there is no study abroad consultant who knows the rules of SportsRecruits (Sports Specialty Admission) better than Freda." ”
Over the years, as her son's "ally comrade-in-arms", Freda has become a half-expert on this track.
"Many parents are behind closed doors, allowing their children to 'immerse themselves in hard work and training'. If you are going to go to college in the United States in the future and take the SportsRecruits route, you must have grades on the Platform in the United States and let the college coach notice you. ”
According to the Rules of the American Swimming Association, children over the age of 11 in the world will be ranked in the United States. When Rafael turned 11, he flew to the United States to "test the waters" to compete.
What is really rare is that for american children, due to the advantages of geographical location, they can participate in the competition at any time to "brush" the results and records. In recent years, many Chinese families, in order to make it more convenient and flexible for their children to participate in the game and have access to more powerful coaching resources, have simply relocated to the United States, but Rafael only has two opportunities to fly to the United States once a year. This means that there are not many opportunities left for him to lose, and he must cherish the opportunities in every game and do his best.
Every summer vacation, I go to the airport to send the boss to the United States to compete
The two key games that brought Rafael to the spotlight took place in 2019.
That summer, Rafael qualified for summer at Summer Junior Nationals. Rafael was only 14 years old at the time, and the athletes who participated in such high-level competitions were usually between the ages of 17 and 18, and Rafael was one of the two to three children who were 14 years old who qualified for the competition.
In the winter of the same year, Rafael once again set a new personal best at Winter Junior Nationals, scoring first overall points with 6 boys from the same club in the United States.
These two games have made many college coaches "eye" Rafael, including Stanford University coaches.
Pictured is Rafael
As a parent of an athlete, it is inevitable that there will be worries about the future of their children. For example, if you don't take the road of sports in the future, or if your body can't support you to walk a longer road in the future, what should you do next?
Freda said she hadn't expected that step yet, but Rafael had her own plans and preparations, he was interested in bioengineering, he would do it at Stanford, and it would be enough to have a job of self-reliance.
We let Rafael rank interest, talent, and effort, and Rafael ranked interest first and talent at the end. Rafael said, "Because you have interest, you will have the heart to study and work hard, and talent will only help you to be more successful." ”
For many people in the outside world, admission to a prestigious school means the end of the story, but Rafael's life has just begun.
Conclusion: After the interview, Freda chatted with us and said that what touched her most was that she heard from a neighbor that her son's evaluation of her was, "Mom has never put any pressure on me", and her previous worries have been dispelled. A family with love and warmth, a parent who knows how to lead by example at a critical moment and unconditionally supports their children's dreams, may be Rafael's "secret weapon" to swim into Stanford.
A review of previous articles on Freda's parenting experience: