Recently, Gu Ailing's emergence has made many people boil.
What is particularly rare is that compared with those idols in the past, Gu Ailing is perfect at 360 degrees without dead angles.
You think she can only ski, but she is proficient in running, rock climbing, horseback riding, and archery;
You think she's a sports genius, but she's still a Stanford bully;
You think this has reached the human ceiling, but she also has piano, ballet, vocal music and other artistic pluses...
The most infuriating thing is that she also has the appearance of an angel, the figure of a supermodel and a good fashion taste.
You stomp your feet and say no, who wouldn't have a bug?
Genius is always lonely, and the personality should not be very good, right?
You can fix your eyes on it, she is obviously cheerful, smiling, strong in heart, excellent emotional intelligence, and has shown a very mature outlook on life and values at a young age.
Well, if she's human, then what are we?
This is a really heart-wrenching question!
For a time, "how to cultivate a Gu Ailing" has become a hot topic for countless parents to dig into the ground and try to find out the answer.
The first to dig up, of course, is the mother Gu Yan who single-handedly pushed her to the championship throne.
The Peking University biochemical talent went to the United States for further study at the age of 22, later switched majors to study at Stanford University Business School, and entered Wall Street to engage in venture capital after graduation.
In 1993, while at Lehman Brothers, she helped China successfully run a $200 million loan, setting a precedent for "a successful loan by the Chinese financial community on Wall Street in the United States."
In 1994, she co-founded a technology investment firm with Evans Fleck, a well-known Venture Capital Expert in the United States.
Currently, her LinkedIn personal label is "Private Investor and Chinese Investment Expert" and "Chairman of Beijing Oriental Weibo International Information Technology Co., Ltd."
On the one hand, Gu Yan's brilliant career trajectory has laid a solid material foundation for Gu Ailing's growth, and the high training fees have made ordinary people unattainable.
On the other hand, Gu Yan was a member of the Peking University speed skating team when she was a student, and also worked as a ski instructor near Lake Tahoe in the United States, Gu Ailing got a strong sports gene from her mother, and fell in love with skiing from an early age.
In Gu Ailing's sports career, her mother Gu Yan is also a teacher and friend, not only can she scientifically analyze learning methods and skills with her, but also help her adjust her competition status, becoming Gu Ailing's "secret weapon" for constantly making breakthroughs.
Then, netizens found that Feng Guozhen, the grandmother who brought Gu Ailing from childhood to adulthood, is a former senior engineer of the Ministry of Transport, a former women's basketball player at Shanghai Jiaotong University, and an idol of Gu Ailing.
In fact, digging here is almost enough, after all, Gu Ailing only mentioned her mother and grandmother in the interview:
"My grandmother was very competitive and gave me the mentality of winning, and then my mother taught me a dedicated attitude, and I felt that I was doing my best to pay tribute to them." 」
But this does not satisfy the curiosity of the melon-eating masses.
That eye-catching mixed-race face makes it difficult to ignore her other half of her genes, so rumors about Gu Ailing's father have been boiling for a while, from Google No. 5 employees to directors of the 100 billion fund...
But all the information at present shows that in Gu Ailing's growth process, his father is an absent character.
From a biological point of view, Gu Ailing needs a father, and from a pedagogical point of view, Gu Ailing does not need a father.
This conclusion sounds shocking, but when you think about it, it makes sense.
Single-parent families can also raise healthy and excellent children, which is nothing new at all.
Even single-parent families have certain special advantages, can you believe it?
As soon as the rumors about Gu Ailing's father came out, several of my friends invariably felt offended.
They all come from single-parent families and feel that the curiosity, discussion and prejudice of the outside world about single parents are far more harmful than those caused by single parents themselves.
For a long time, countless education experts have told us that children can grow up healthily in a complete family, and fathers have fatherhood and motherhood.
So many people subconsciously think that there is always something wrong with the children from single-parent families, either there is a problem with personality or a social problem, or there is a problem with the concept of marriage...
Even many couples in order to let their children "grow up healthily", do not hesitate to sleep in the same bed and dream, torture each other, and painstakingly maintain the integrity of the family surface.
But is this really the case?
To be honest, I hadn't thought about this problem before, and I always felt that the word "single parent" was very far away from me, and I didn't realize that a few good friends around me actually came from such families.
Why not realize it? Because they are no different from us!
They are all well educated, graduated from prestigious schools, have successful careers, get married and have children, and have the same joys and troubles as us.
Girls did not hate men, boys did not attach themselves to their mothers, and did not develop according to the accepted single-parent script at all.
Their emotional intelligence and social skills are even higher than most people I know.
Of course, my social circle may have sample bias and is not universally convincing.
But they at least convinced me that single-parent families can raise normal children, and they don't have more bugs than children in two-parent families.
So where did everyone's stereotype of single parents come from?
I think it has to do with the psychological cues people have to do when they analyze problems.
For example, if the same giant baby and mother treasure grow up in a two-parent family, people will naturally think that this is a failure of education, and if they grow up in a single-parent family, people will be more inclined to think that this is a family tragedy.
When the word "single parent" carries down all the pots of education, then people will attribute all the problems of children to the lack of parents, not the education level of parents.
Thanks to Gu Ailing, he broke this prejudice with the brightest smile and the most outstanding results.
Her mother, Gu Yan, provided a positive example for the majority of women:
You can live independently and freely, even if it is child-rearing, you can also not rely on men.
Compared with two-parent families, single-parent families have child-rearing difficulties.
The first is the economic problem.
The family has one less source of income and has to bear expensive education expenses, which requires a strong career as a support.
The degree of freedom of the economy determines the freedom of parenting, and even the freedom of the next generation.
For ordinary women, the basic condition for raising children alone is financial independence, and then it is necessary to decide the direction of child training according to the actual situation.
World champions are out of reach, but there are thousands of paths to talent, and the one that suits them is the best.
We may not be as good as Gu Yan, but at least we can be as independent as her.
The second is the problem of energy.
You have to work and take the baby, and the hardships can be imagined.
Single-parent working mothers are more likely to face the balance of work, children and personal space.
In Gu Ailing's growth process, Grandma was an indispensable role.
If Gu Yan is Gu Ailing's "secret weapon", then Feng Guozhen is Gu Yan's "secret weapon".
We can imagine that if there is no selfless effort of the old man, whether it is Gu Yan's career or Gu Ailing's sports career, I am afraid that it will be greatly restricted.
How important it is to have a person "take the handle" when he is tired of skills, I believe that every overseas Chinese has a deep understanding.
If there is no such role, then single-parent working mothers are likely to give up some workplace opportunities and children's extracurricular activities, and even need to be forced to adjust their parenting goals.
If you are lucky to have such a character, how to run into it is a new subject (more on that later).
Finally, there are psychological problems.
A couple of lovers, no matter what the reason, is separated, it will bring indelible trauma to the person.
How to digest this trauma and how to talk to the other party with the child are very challenging to people's hearts and insights.
If you show inner grievances and resentment from time to time, or even deliberately lead the child to hate the other party, it may cause the child to fall into great pain and self-blame, and even have a fear of marriage.
Because children cannot understand the grievances of adults, their instinct is to love both their father and mother, and not being able to love either party is a betrayal for them.
There are also some parents who will have an attachment to their children beyond the normal range because of the loneliness of a single parent, and obtain a sense of security by controlling the child at all times, making the child feel suffocated and have nowhere to escape.
Some parents will become particularly strong because of the "imperfection" of life such as single parents, hoping to raise their eyebrows and fight back against those who have criticized themselves through the excellence of their children.
We don't see these problems in Gu Yan and Gu Ailing.
Although her father is rarely mentioned, it can be seen that his father's image in Gu Ailing's mind is positive, and she is bent on applying for Stanford because her grandfather also graduated from Stanford.
Gu Yan has her own career, and she has her own interest in accompanying her daughter to ski, and she is not the kind of sad mother who dedicates herself to her child and loses herself.
From many interviews, it can be seen that Gu Yan does not have much obsession with whether her daughter can become a world champion and whether she can be admitted to Stanford, has never forced her daughter to take the first place, and has a kind of "but walk the way, do not ask about the future" freedom.
So we see Gu Ailing's sunshine, self-confidence, and mental health level is much higher than ordinary people.
Some people say that she looks like she has not lacked love since she was a child, and I think this is the best compliment for the children of single-parent families.
How many of us ordinary people seem to have no lack of love since childhood?
As long as the above three problems are solved, single-parent families can play to their unique advantages.
This advantage is that one person has the final say, and there are no "pig teammates".
Some netizens joked that in addition to Gu Ailing, there are Obama, Clinton, Musk, these people have nothing in common without a father, which shows that the father is a stumbling block on the road to success.
Jokes are jokes, but they coincide with one of my views, that is, in family education, one person plays a leading role and immerses in parenting.
It doesn't matter whether this person is a father or a mother, it is the most important thing.
If you are Gu Yan and find that your child has a talent for skiing, then just cultivate it and you're done.
There are no teammates saying "this is more expensive", "easy to get hurt", "affect learning", "can't practice what to do"...
No need to explain, discuss, or argue with your teammates, don't have to feel sorry for spending money to see people's faces, and don't have to feel sorry for delaying housework.
On the contrary, if there is a frequent conflict over education issues in a family, and there are always people who have to give advice and drag their feet, it will be very inefficient.
Endless internal friction will not only make education lose its direction and make children confused, but also hurt the feelings and even health of family members.
A while ago, a friend said that he had a physical problem and asked me to recommend several health care products.
On a second question, I was actually angry with my teammates.
Children learning is not a headache, the result of teammates will only say cool words, help, frequent quarrels and long-term negative emotions backlog to a certain extent, the body can not bear.
And I can totally imagine how irritable and helpless the child can be in such a family atmosphere.
Note that "pig teammate" does not refer specifically to dad, but may also refer to mom.
I never take it for granted that moms are the ones who take educational responsibilities, in fact, many dads have excellent ideas and abilities in education, and they are also passionate about education.
There are many well-known parenting bloggers who are dads, and this is the best proof.
In fact, in ancient China, the father was the party responsible for education, because we had the saying that "the son does not teach, the father is at fault".
In ancient times, women did not have the opportunity to be educated, and men had more advantages in culture, insight, and pattern, so usually the mother was responsible for taking care of life, and the father led the education, from reading and reading to piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, all of which were handled by the old father.
In modern society, the reason why the burden of education falls more on the mother's head is that on the one hand, the education level of women has been greatly improved, and on the other hand, because the mother takes care of the young children and grows up, which has a natural advantage in the degree of intimacy.
Another point is that modern men have more excuses to evade educational responsibilities.
Escape, run away, but they still have to judge and give orders.
You are harsh on the child, he says you should be patient;
You are gentle with the child, he says it is coddling;
You're trying to make a chicken baby, he said it's almost ok;
You finally plan to be Buddhist, he said how do you care about children;
The child's grades are not good, he said you did not teach well;
The child has good grades, he said look, it's all my genes are good...
Image source: Japanese drama "Home on the Slope"
Although such women are rare, there are also some.
One of my friends is a company executive, who is usually very busy at work, and the task of child-rearing is given to her husband, who is relatively idle and has less income.
We often hear her complain that her husband doesn't educate children and doesn't understand advanced parenting concepts.
Originally, she had limited time with her children at home and did not know much about the growth of her children, but she liked to guide laymen to guide her insiders, ignoring the painstaking efforts and efforts of those who really accompanied her children, and the consequences could be imagined.
Under her strong criticism and command, the men who were originally dedicated began to be passive and sluggish, the bear children began to let themselves fly when they saw that there was a loophole to drill, and the family education became a mess.
Compared with single-parent families, which have the final say, and personally carry out the educational goals to the end, it is even more regrettable that this kind of infighting between two-parent families is more regrettable.
I'm not advocating that single-parent families are better, and I'm not encouraging everyone to divorce and kill "pig teammates."
After all, as mentioned earlier, single-parent families will bring three problems that are difficult to solve, which require parents to face with extremely high ability and quality.
But in any kind of family, it is enough to have one person leading the education, and no one needs a "pig teammate".
So, what about the existing "pig teammates"?
It is recommended to rescue it and turn waste into treasure.
The first key word is "division of labor".
There is an iron law in the marriage relationship, that is, the finer and clearer the division of labor, the less quarrels and disputes there are.
If you all want to rely on each other's self-awareness, most of them will not have a good ending in the end.
Who will lead education? Who's going to play with it? How can the two sides cooperate? These issues are best discussed by both parties and decided according to the actual situation of the family.
For example, in my family, my teammates are busy at work, travel frequently, and I am a big straight man who often scratches his head at his children, so the task of leading parenting naturally falls on me.
I like to read, I am very interested in education, and I can say that I am in the middle.
This is very easy to do, the child's business is up to me, the teammates only need to pay, and try to accompany the child with me.
The combination of "one mother dictatorship" and "golden father" has very few contradictions in practice, and it can even be said that there are almost none.
I have a girlfriend who is just the opposite, she is busy at work and has a straight temper, often stepping on the pit as soon as she opens her mouth when educating her children, which is easy to help.
While her teammates work in the education system, they have a deep theoretical foundation in psychology and pedagogy, and have their own set of children's education.
Then their family is a combination of "one father dictatorship" and "miscellaneous mother", and the effect is also quite good.
There are also more complex family situations.
I have a friend, husband and wife are very busy at work, the child is basically the elderly before school age, until the child goes to school, the mother took over the work of leading education.
I guess Gu Ailing's family is also similar, when she was a child, she was mainly taken care of by her grandmother, and as she grew older, her mother Gu Yan's participation became higher and higher, and finally her mother became the main force of education, and her grandmother retreated to the second line.
The second key word is "run-in".
Even with a clear division of labor, running-in is a big problem, because everyone has their own desire to express, and there is no standard answer to the matter of parenting itself.
Even if both parents are parenting experts, they may have different views on the same issue, do not believe you look at the parenting books on the market, there are many opposing views.
So the two sides must reach a consensus, who leads, who speaks, who cooperates, who shuts up.
As the leading party, it is necessary to pay more energy and effort to convince people with actions, and also needs to communicate with teammates in time to exchange their goals and methods.
In our family, Barley and Xiaomi are responsible for their lives from childhood to adulthood, from physical to psychological, I am the person who knows them best, as long as they have any problems, I can immediately find a solution.
Usually, my teammates and I talk about our children before going to bed every day, talking about their recent performance and my parenting ideas.
So my teammates understood me very well and were very relieved, and they cooperated very positively.
Children sometimes want to take advantage of loopholes, pestering their fathers to buy this and that, or fooling their fathers into opening their mobile phone permissions, and teammates always answer "go and ask their mothers, and their mothers say yes."
When the two sides cooperate without leaks, the child's good habits are easy to cultivate, and the learning and life will be more regular.
It is more difficult to cooperate with the elderly than the cooperation between teammates.
I often have friends who complain to me about the problems of the elderly with children, bad living habits, watching too much TV, too pampered, and so on.
Sometimes, we have conflicts with our own parents, let alone with our in-laws.
I usually have only one sentence for this: you do what you do.
If you want to become the leader of education, you must have a corresponding hard work, at most you can only give simple housework and pick-up work to the elderly, and to know that the elderly help is not taken for granted, remember to be grateful.
If you are busy with work or have fun and give up the dominance of education, then you have to put yourself in the right position, and what you have to do is to cooperate fully, not to criticize.
Behind Gu Ailing are her mother and grandmother, and without the perfect cooperation of these two people, it would be difficult for her to achieve today's achievements.
Feng Guozhen's parenting philosophy has made many highly educated parents ashamed today.
In the video interview, Grandma talked about a small episode.
Gu Ailing didn't want to learn half of the piano when she was a child, and felt that it was not interesting, so her grandmother taught her to play a song and sing a sentence, which rekindled her interest in the piano.
There is no doubt that Feng Guozhen and Gu Yan are highly consistent in their philosophy: do not force children, and gently insist.
But it is impossible to say that there have been no differences and contradictions between mother and daughter for so many years.
Gu Ailing was brought up by her grandmother from childhood, and as she grew older, the dominance of education shifted to her mother's hands, and this transition was by no means simple.
It is difficult for grandmothers who have retreated to the second line to control their desire to express themselves; it is even more difficult for mothers who have taken the lead to learn from the experience of the elderly and promote their own plans while balancing their children's feelings.
Gu Yan's good friend Yolanda said in an interview:
I rarely admire a person wholeheartedly, but I really admire Gu Yan very much.
Friends around you know that she will look for your good qualities at the first sight and make others feel good about themselves. That's how she treats others and the way she treats her daughters – pure love, care and respect, without any fuss.
I think this should also be the way she treats her grandmother, and perhaps the way she treats her.
This super emotionally intelligent mother and daughter minimized internal friction and became the closest comrades-in-arms, working together to push the next generation to the peak of life.
The third key word is "respect."
In family education, no matter who is the dominant party and who is the cooperating party, it is a relationship of equal cooperation, not a relationship of control and control.
Expressing respect for your teammates in front of your children and setting up an idol for them is of great benefit to education.
Growing up in Gu Ailing, you don't see any family members making accusations and demeaning to others.
Grandma is an idol, mom is an idol, dad is an idol, grandpa is an idol.
Is this just because they have a high degree? There are many highly educated families I know, but very few are so harmonious.
The reason is very simple, no one is perfect, all you see is the advantage, that is the idol, all you see is the shortcoming, that is the garbage.
If you can amplify the strengths of your loved ones, then children have family pride, self-confidence, and motivation to learn from them.
Gu Ailing may not be close to grandpa, but he knows that grandpa is Stanford, and he also wants to take Stanford, which is enough!
We ordinary people can also learn from Gu Yan's wisdom.
Teammates may not be able to take the baby, but they have a specialty in their skills and have their own areas of expertise.
In fact, I often create opportunities for my teammates to tell children about common sense in investment and financial management and financial securities, and sometimes pretend that I am not good at mathematics, so that my teammates can play the strengths of science and engineering men to teach them mathematics and programming.
There are also some witty old mothers in the circle of friends, from time to time to let the "scientist father" out of the horse, to give the child a popular science lecture, not only to share the parenting work, enhance the parent-child feelings, but also to the children to establish a tall image of the father, in their hearts planted the ideal seed.
When you really do this, you will find that the "pig teammate" is missing, and the strategic partner is one.
Our children may not be destined to become Gu Ailing, but with such a growth environment, I believe they will not be worse.
Gu Ailing's optimism and self-confidence, self-discipline, and the look of "no lack of love since childhood" are the other shores that education can reach.
If Gu Yan created the miracle of a single-parent family, we can also create a miracle of 1+1 greater than 2.
Author: Talentless sister, limited talent and unlimited enthusiasm, senior Liu Dehua, calm two baby mothers, with interesting souls, resist the chicken flying dog jump on the road of parenting; through public issues, make a calm, logical and efficient voice; through the noise of sentient beings, guard warmth and love, public number: women without talent will stay in Germany.