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Wisdom//May 22, 2019
Bill Gates on the 3 Surprising Things His Parents Did to Set Him Up for Success
William Sr. and Mary Gates clearly knew what they were doing.
By
Elizabeth Yuko, Ph.D., Bioethicist and writer
Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
A lot of factors had to come together to make Bill Gates into the billionaire philanthropist he is today — including the way he was raised. His parents — Mary and William Gates, Sr. — weren’t afraid to be a little unconventional when it came to raising their son. Gates has revealed three aspects of his childhood that helped shape him into who he is today:
They stressed the importance of community
The Gates family made a point of being involved in community work and philanthropy, making sure that their kids participated too. “Mary was a firm believer in an idea from the ‘Book of Luke’: ‘To whom much is given, much is expected,‘” Gates Sr. said in an interview with Forbes. “From the beginning, she instilled it as an important value in our family.” It’s clear that this is something their son has taken seriously in his adult life as well.
They gave him a significant amount of independence
The struggle between parents’ authority and children’s autonomy is nothing new, but the Gates parents were more willing than most to give him a significant amount of independence. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, they enrolled Bill in a private school known to give their students unusual amounts of freedom. It was at this school that Bill discovered computers.
By the age of 13, Bill’s parents permitted him to visit the University of Washington at night to use their computers. They also allowed him to leave home for chunks of time, like to go to Olympia, where he was a page at the state legislature, and Washington, D.C. to work as a Congressional page. He also took a break from school his senior year of high school to work as a programmer at a power plant in southern Washington. All this was before he dropped out of Harvard University to move to New Mexico to found Microsoft.
“Mary and I were both concerned about it — I think she a bit more than I,” Bill Sr. told the Wall Street Journal. “Her expectations and mine were very ordinary expectations of people who have kids in college — that they get a degree.” But ultimately they were supportive of their son, who eventually moved the company closer to home in Seattle.
They wouldn’t let him give up just because he didn’t excel at something
When you’re raising a smart kid who’s good at a lot of things, it can be easy to let them drop out of activities where they don’t excel. But that’s not what the Gates parents did — they made sure he continued to participate in swimming, soccer, football, and playing the trombone — even if he wasn’t the most gifted in those areas. Though it probably would have been easier not to attend kids’ soccer games or have someone in your house learning how to play a brass instrument, Bill’s parents understood that it was important that he learned that he didn’t have to be good at everything, and that failure is perfectly normal and acceptable.
“At the time I thought it was kind of pointless,” Bill Gates said of these activities in an interview with Fortune, “but it ended up really exposing me to leadership opportunities and showing me that I wasn’t good at a lot of things, instead of sticking to things that I was comfortable with. It was fantastic, and now some of those activities I cherish. They had to stick to it because I pushed back a lot, but it was fantastic advice.”
Follow us here and subscribe here for all the latest news on how you can keep Thriving.
Stay up to date or catch-up on all our podcasts with Arianna Huffington here.
— Published on May 22, 2019
Bill Gates,
Independence,
Parenting,
successful habits
Elizabeth Yuko, Ph.D., Bioethicist and writer
Dr. Elizabeth Yuko is a bioethicist and writer specializing in health and the intersection of bioethics and popular culture. Previously she was the health and sex editor at SheKnows. She is an adjunct professor of ethics at Fordham University and has written for print and online publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Salon and Playboy, and has given a TEDX talk on The Golden Girls and bioethics.
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LUDOVIC MARIN / Contributor / Getty Images
Wisdom//February 21, 2019
I Spent an Uplifting Day at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Discovered What It’s Really Like to Work There
by Business Insider
Well-Being//February 9, 2018
Here's How 5 Tech Moguls Raise Their Kids Nearly Tech-Free
by Business Insider
Thrive Library//October 8, 2017
6 Books Bill and Melinda Gates Read to Their Kids
by Rachel Gillett
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Will be used in accordance with our privacy policy.
“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills . . . There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. . . . So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”
- MARCUS AURELIUS
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Wisdom//May 22, 2019
Bill Gates on the 3 Surprising Things His Parents Did to Set Him Up for Success
William Sr. and Mary Gates clearly knew what they were doing.
By
Elizabeth Yuko, Ph.D., Bioethicist and writer
Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
A lot of factors had to come together to make Bill Gates into the billionaire philanthropist he is today — including the way he was raised. His parents — Mary and William Gates, Sr. — weren’t afraid to be a little unconventional when it came to raising their son. Gates has revealed three aspects of his childhood that helped shape him into who he is today:
They stressed the importance of community
The Gates family made a point of being involved in community work and philanthropy, making sure that their kids participated too. “Mary was a firm believer in an idea from the ‘Book of Luke’: ‘To whom much is given, much is expected,‘” Gates Sr. said in an interview with Forbes. “From the beginning, she instilled it as an important value in our family.” It’s clear that this is something their son has taken seriously in his adult life as well.
They gave him a significant amount of independence
The struggle between parents’ authority and children’s autonomy is nothing new, but the Gates parents were more willing than most to give him a significant amount of independence. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, they enrolled Bill in a private school known to give their students unusual amounts of freedom. It was at this school that Bill discovered computers.
By the age of 13, Bill’s parents permitted him to visit the University of Washington at night to use their computers. They also allowed him to leave home for chunks of time, like to go to Olympia, where he was a page at the state legislature, and Washington, D.C. to work as a Congressional page. He also took a break from school his senior year of high school to work as a programmer at a power plant in southern Washington. All this was before he dropped out of Harvard University to move to New Mexico to found Microsoft.
“Mary and I were both concerned about it — I think she a bit more than I,” Bill Sr. told the Wall Street Journal. “Her expectations and mine were very ordinary expectations of people who have kids in college — that they get a degree.” But ultimately they were supportive of their son, who eventually moved the company closer to home in Seattle.
They wouldn’t let him give up just because he didn’t excel at something
When you’re raising a smart kid who’s good at a lot of things, it can be easy to let them drop out of activities where they don’t excel. But that’s not what the Gates parents did — they made sure he continued to participate in swimming, soccer, football, and playing the trombone — even if he wasn’t the most gifted in those areas. Though it probably would have been easier not to attend kids’ soccer games or have someone in your house learning how to play a brass instrument, Bill’s parents understood that it was important that he learned that he didn’t have to be good at everything, and that failure is perfectly normal and acceptable.
“At the time I thought it was kind of pointless,” Bill Gates said of these activities in an interview with Fortune, “but it ended up really exposing me to leadership opportunities and showing me that I wasn’t good at a lot of things, instead of sticking to things that I was comfortable with. It was fantastic, and now some of those activities I cherish. They had to stick to it because I pushed back a lot, but it was fantastic advice.”
Follow us here and subscribe here for all the latest news on how you can keep Thriving.
Stay up to date or catch-up on all our podcasts with Arianna Huffington here.
— Published on May 22, 2019
Bill Gates,
Independence,
Parenting,
successful habits
Elizabeth Yuko, Ph.D., Bioethicist and writer
Dr. Elizabeth Yuko is a bioethicist and writer specializing in health and the intersection of bioethics and popular culture. Previously she was the health and sex editor at SheKnows. She is an adjunct professor of ethics at Fordham University and has written for print and online publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Salon and Playboy, and has given a TEDX talk on The Golden Girls and bioethics.
Share your comments below. Please read our commenting guidelines before posting. If you have a concern about a comment, report it here.
You might also like...
LUDOVIC MARIN / Contributor / Getty Images
Wisdom//February 21, 2019
I Spent an Uplifting Day at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Discovered What It’s Really Like to Work There
by Business Insider
Well-Being//February 9, 2018
Here's How 5 Tech Moguls Raise Their Kids Nearly Tech-Free
by Business Insider
Thrive Library//October 8, 2017
6 Books Bill and Melinda Gates Read to Their Kids
by Rachel Gillett
Sign up for the Thrive Global newsletter
Will be used in accordance with our privacy policy.
“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills . . . There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. . . . So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”
- MARCUS AURELIUS
About Us
Contact Us
Leadership
Corporate
Media Partnerships
Careers
Press
Privacy
Terms
Thrive Global © 2019
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