Maye and Errol: Parents of Genius
As i said before: I write not about famous people, but about people, with unusual life paths, who didn't try to change history, but left their own an unrepeatable footmark in our time. Today it will be two people at once. In a sense, they greatly influenced our world, without planning it...
Today the name Elon Musk is on everyone's lips. One of the most famous person in the world, the creator of Tesla and Space X. He creates and develops the most advanced technologies and tries to expand the horizons for humanity. But let's for a moment take a look on people, who gave us this genius, his parents. Maybe a special approach of parents to education of children is the key to genius? This family can not be named the usual.
Mother
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Maye Musk- mother of three children and grandmother of ten grandchildren. She began her career as a model at age 15, and she is a successful and popular model even today at the age of 67. She also known as nutritionist, and lectures about healthy eating around the world.
Maye was born in Canada in 1948 and was the fifth child in the family, in a few years the family moved to South Africa. Her parents were adventurers, they were always organized an incredible trips for their children. So Mayei grew up a man with very wide horizons.
At 22, she met her future husband, engineer Errol Musk, and subsequently gave birth to three children (Kimbal, Elon and Tosca). In parallel, she studied at the University of Pretoria as a dietitian and worked as a model. After 10 years of marriage she divorced Errol, after a divorce, sons Elon and Kimbal decided to live with their father. However after a few years in 89 they went to live with mother in Canada.
Maye lived with children in a small house, worked simultaneously on five works. She found a job at the University of Toronto to give for children opportunity get education for free. In the same time she led model courses and workshops on healthy eating, worked as a dietitian. Until the late 90s, the family could barely make ends meet, they couldn't even afford a piece of meat for dinner. Children also did not sit idle: after school Tosca worked in the shop. And Maye helped to Elon to get a job at Microsoft, where worked husband of her colleagues.
In 1996, Maye has invested all her savings ($10 000) in the son's company Zip2, to enable them to pay office rent and buy necessary things. In 1999 the company was bought by a manufacturer of software Compaq for $307 million.
"My children know me as a person who worked very hard. They themselves are workaholics" Maye says. She never read them lectures, but showed on a personal example how difficult the path to success. At the same time, she says that their success is entirely their merit, but not her: "I had never helped my kids. I had a lot of hard work and not a lot of time, they did it all themselves."
Father
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Errol Musk also had considerable impact on the future of sons. Errol traveled a lot with them in years after divorce. He took them on trips around the world. Elon spent his childhood in the back seat of the car, and Kimbal was a true navigator.
When firsts computers had began to appear in the shops, Elon said he wants to go on computer courses to learn how to use new technologies. But it turned out that these courses did not take children. Anyway Elon continued to insist (he was 11 years). Then his father decided to take him on a lecture at the University of Johannesburg, where he worked. Elon so impressed the professors that they had helped his father to buy a computer with a discount, Elon started to work. At the age of 12 he had already written his first program space toy Blastar and sold it for $500.
As we can see, parents in this family had not developed any special programs of education, in principle, they could not even give their children enough time, because were always working and even did not lived together. But all three kids have grown quite successful people. Kimbal now owns a chain of restaurants, "The Kitchen", and Tosca is a director and producer of films and television shows.
Genes of Genius
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In fact, children get 70-80% of physical and intellectual abilities before birth, from parents in the form of hereditary, genetic memory, and only the rest is upbringing. Genetic memory has evolved over the thousand years. There is also a so-called gene of independence, which has about 15% of humanity population. This gene kind gene of leadership, which affects the way of thinking, the carrier of this gene does not attach much importance to the generally accepted dogmas and rules. These people have expressed their "I" — it is a relatively independence from other people in judgments and behavior.
Though Elon's father leads a more calm and measured way of life than his children and ex-wife. But most likely he is a carrier of this gene. Errol's grandmother became the first chiropractor in Canada. His father and mother were the first people who flew a single-engine aircraft from South Africa to Australia. Errol is a pilot, sailor and engineer. The tendency of Musks to go their own way and to seek adventure is visible through the generations.
Not to say that the role of geniuses's parents is limited only to the transfer of sets of genes. Yes, abilities originate at birth, but the principles and character, which will guide our talents, formed during our lifetime, and the main factor that affects us in the future is the behavior of our parents. We study the world through our moms and dads, copying or deliberately avoiding their behavioral lines.
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Elon's parents taught their children the hard work towards their goal. Without reading them a lecture, but were the silent and effective example. They didn't create prohibitions but on the contrary helped the children beat it. It is also important that parents have sought to show children the world, not limited to their country. This allows to see and understand that there is no absolute rules and we don't have to blindly follow the crowd and be limited to basic aspirations imposed by the time and society in which we live.
Many things depend from parents. They can spend all their time and strength to develop the necessary (in their opinion) traits in the child, for maximum realization of his potential. Or they can just not interfere in the self-development and always believe in correctness of the way chosen by their child. The worst they can do is lure a child genius in the envelope and trying to level him on normal kids, not believing in his success, not supporting unusual beginnings. @natord
This is fascinating and a great read. I never knew anything about Elon Musk's parents. As for genetics and intelligence the affect may well be less than previously thought. I think @kyriacos can link you to some articles on it. It seems it is still an issue of controversy.
Well, we often forget that even geniuses have parents :)
About genetic, you are right, it's really intresting and disputable guestion. Maybe i will try to write full article about it.
Great:)