Hello everyone, I'm Mommy.
Some time ago, Will Smith slapped the Oscars on the hot search, and many people found this movie starring him - "King Richard".
The first time I saw this name, I was confused, is this a story about a certain king?
After reading the introduction, I found that Richard was a black father from the slums, but he had raised two world-renowned daughters, the tennis sisters Flower Williams.
As of 2021, Serena Williams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, won a total of 73 championships in her career, and accumulated nearly $100 million in prize money.
Her sister Dawei won a total of seven Grand Slam singles titles and won more than $42 million in prize money.
Now, as executive producers, the sisters have brought their father's story to the big screen.
Why is this man, who is controversial in reality because of infidelity, divorce, and chaos in his private life, called "king" by the two champion daughters?
Let's take a look at his "amazing move."
01
A 71-page career planning book
Richard was an out-and-out "chicken baby" pioneer who wrote dozens of pages of career planning books before the birth of his child, with the aim of getting his family out of neighborhoods full of guns and drugs.
First of all, ordinary families want their children to quickly achieve a class jump, and they can only take shortcuts.
For blacks, the "shortcut" is to use racial talent to enter the sports industry, especially in the field of tennis, where there are basically no black people involved.
If black girls out of the slums can become tennis champions, it will surely make a sensation in the world.
Once the ideal is there, the next step is action.
Richard asked his daughters to hold rackets from an early age, and found that two of them were quite suitable for the sport.
So he accompanied the whole process of training during the day, and then went to the security guard at night to make money, rain or shine for many years.
Because of the frequent incidents of community violence, Richard often had a blue nose and swollen face to protect his daughter from being beaten by street thugs.
But this is far from enough, tennis is called an aristocratic sport because ordinary families simply cannot afford the ultra-high training costs.
Especially as their daughters grow up, they urgently need professional and systematic training.
Money, Richard certainly didn't have any money, but he was "thick-skinned."
All he could do was carry that career plan book, lobby for well-known coaches, show off his talents with his daughters, and get free training.
To put it bluntly, it is to brag, wait until the child's talent is cashed in after many years, and then give the coach a share of the money.
So what this black father did was a joke in the eyes of most people.
In the eyes of the coach, he was a liar.
In the eyes of his neighbors, Richard was a child abuse maniac, and the relevant social institutions often received reports of his child abuse.
But after being rejected N times, Richard still believed his daughter was a world champion, and in fact he actually found Bó Lè.
The reason is simple:
If even parents don't believe in their children, no one in the world will believe them.
02
A brainwashing game about "I can do it."
Dawei once said in an interview:
"My parents have always said since I was a child that I would be the number one in the world. I was brainwashed. ”
It's not a joke, from the birth of his daughter, Richard began his long-planned "brainwashing program".
He proved with practical actions:
No matter what happens, when the parent says it firmly a hundred times, the child will believe it.
Take a look at what the couple usually says to their children:
Every day when he said goodnight to his children, Richard would firmly tell his daughters:
"Someone will give you a check for a million dollars in the future."
The first time he trained in front of a tennis star, Richard told David:
"Don't get excited, one day it will be their turn to brag about the experience of meeting the two of you."
When the coach only promised to give one child free training, the mother encouraged Serena:
"You weren't left behind, I don't remember that I was born with a cartilage!"
The coach asked David, "What do you want with tennis?" ”
Dawei's answer was:
"I want to win Wimbledon more times than anyone else!"
Serena said:
"I want others to play like me!"
On his way to the race for the first time, Richard told his daughters:
"Whatever the outcome, show your fiercest side in front of your opponents."
When a black family showed up on the tennis court, Richard told his daughter:
"Don't care what other people think, they've never seen someone as beautiful as us!"
The first time she competed in the Junior Championship, Dawei was sweating profusely, and Richard told her:
"You're the one who's going to win Wimbledon, and those girls never want to meet you in the draw!"
Before Dawei's first professional match, her mother braided her daughter's hair and told them:
"Remember who you are, where you came from, and be proud of them!"
In 1995, when the 14-year-old Dawei competed in a professional competition for the first time, the pre-match news reporter repeatedly challenged in the interview:
"Do you think you can beat your opponent?"
"You look very confident."
"Why are you so confident?"
Just as Dawei was embarrassed to be asked, Richard rushed into the interview scene and interrupted:
"Why be so mean to a 14-year-old?"
Before truly entering the adult world of the jungle, Richard would not allow anyone to undermine children's confidence and interest in tennis.
Richard has a mantra:
"If you don't have a plan, you're planning for failure"
（If you fail to plan, you plan to fail）。
To convince his daughter that she can become a champion, and no one can question it, is Richard's plan.
In education, the hardest thing is for children to establish a belief, and it is even more difficult to protect this belief at all times.
03
A father who "loves money" and loves soberly and restrainedly
In the eyes of the outside world, Richard's "chicken baby" is very utilitarian.
Playing well, there will be a large amount of prize money and endorsement fees. With money, with luxury cars, with mansions, there is respect.
In addition to his private life, this is what he criticizes most for the public.
We have no right to speculate on this, but what We want the audience to see is:
His poor father showed sobriety and restraint at all times in his family education.
Richard once told his daughters a story:
In the 1940s and 1950s, he went out shopping with his father, and when he was paying, he accidentally touched the hand of a white boss and was beaten by a group of people on the ground.
Richard was lying on the ground thinking his father would rush over to protect himself, but he watched as the man ran away in ashes.
As a teenager, Richard, like most black youths, took to the streets and fought every day except fights.
A big part of the reason is that his father did not have a sense of responsibility to protect the family.
When guns and drugs grow up with children, it is too difficult to learn well.
One of Richard's daughters was shot dead in 2003 at the age of 31.
So it's not so much a chicken baby as Richard has created an all-encompassing life-changing plan for his daughter.
This plan looks like a wolf, but in fact it is cautious everywhere.
When David played in the Youth League, and many famous coaches promised to cover all the training and competition fees, Richard's choice was very cautious, and it could even be said that it was crazy.
He refused to let his daughters continue to participate in the competition, and in addition to tennis training, the children had to focus on cultural education.
In addition, he soberly realized that the coaches and institutions that came to him were for money, not to educate their daughters into excellent people.
Because of this decision, he was again regarded as a liar by the outside world, but his response was:
"My daughters not only play tennis well, but also speak four Chinese."
In addition to Big and Small, Richard's other three daughters are both good at learning, which is also very telling.
It is true that Richard is harsh, rigid, paranoid, and even a little domineering, but from his point of view, he has passed on most of the experience he has accumulated throughout his life to his children.
As a typical old-school father, he would tell his daughter:
"Child, the most powerful, powerful, and terrifying creature in the world is a woman who knows how to think!"
When he found that the child had grown enough to cope with the temptations of the adult world, he let go in time and gave his daughter the right to decide to sign a multi-million dollar endorsement contract.
David lost his first title battle, and seeing his desperately frustrated daughter in the locker room, Richard said with tears in his eyes:
"If you don't respect your own efforts, you'll never get respect."
Daughter, you are the champion.
I have never been so proud of a person in my life! ”
Richard's approach to education may not be admirable, but he has taught his daughters extremely wisely at every critical moment of their upbringing.
Many parents are always looking for a perfect way to educate, no matter what kind of person you want your child to become, perfect education is these four words:
Sober and restrained.
04
Another story about the success of "Chicken Baby"
I'm sure some people will say that if David doesn't end up as a world champion, Richard will certainly be the target of criticism.
But there's a saying in King Richard:
"If I'm interested in something, I'll try to figure out how it works and understand how the best people in the world do it."
This person, who at first glance is easy to think of as the "father of the beast", actually has a lot of wisdom.
We have seen countless stories of "other people's children", and each story blueprint is different, but in the end, the direction is similar.
From this I thought of another story, and maybe after reading it you will believe:
Excellence can be replicated, and successful educational experiences can also be learned.
There is a famous "Polgar experiment":
Hungarian psychologist László Polga launched a "genius development program" and successfully trained all three of his daughters to become chess legends.
One of the most important tasks is:
There is no limit, find out where your child's interests are, and find the thing that your child is most likely to make achievements.
So as his daughter grew up, Laszlo paid great attention to observing what things the child would naturally be interested in.
He believes that this interest, which is not interfered with by adults, can attract children's attention more easily and for a longer time.
In the process of the sister's daily busy chess learning, the two sisters, out of curiosity, also followed the footsteps of their sister on this road.
Of course, Laszlo also developed a strict training plan for his daughters, but due to natural interests, the three children went further and further.
This is different from Richard choosing a tennis ball for his child early, but there are also similarities:
Richard knew about tennis, knew more about the physical talents of his daughters, and brought the aristocratic sport of tennis to family life at a very young age.
Many parents are distressed and do not know which direction to lead their children.
In fact, when you know your child well enough, know how to observe him, and appreciate him, this decision is not difficult to make.
05
Write at the end
There is a detail in the movie "King Richard" that makes me feel a thousand emotions, every time my daughter competes, Richard does not dare to sit on the sidelines and watch the game.
He either turned his back on the arena or hid in the stadium aisles to watch the TV broadcast.
This paranoid who is extremely confident in the eyes of outsiders is not so sure that he is pushing his child to heaven or hell.
Sometimes I think education is a gamble, and children are like chips.
The moment we put the chips on, every choice we make about our children may set off a huge wave in more than a decade.
What I would say is:
We're not Laszlo Polga, we're not Richard Williams, and maybe we don't have the ambition of letting our children achieve a counterattack and a class jump in life.
Importantly, even if not every child will become a genius, we should at least strive to be the first Bó Lè in a child's life.