|
\"As a father, I never imagined that the argumentative, young boy who grew up in my house, eating my food and using my name would be my future employer,\" Mr. Gates Sr. told a group of nonprofit leaders in a 2005 speech. \"But that's what happened.\" ffice ffice\" /> The first stage -- argumentative young boy -- \"started about the time he was 11,\" Mr. Gates Sr. says in one of a series of interviews. That's about when young Bill became an adult, says Bill Sr., and an increasing headache for the family. Until that time, the Gates home had been peaceful. Bill Sr. and his wife, Mary, had three children: Kristi; then Bill, born in 1955; and Libby. It was a close family that thrived on competitions -- board games, cards, ping-pong. And on rituals: Sunday dinners at the same time every week, and at Christmas, matching pajamas for every family member. While very involved in his kids' lives, Mr. Gates Sr. was somewhat distant emotionally, which his children say probably reflects his generation. His stature, combined with a lawyerly bent for carefully choosing his words, also made him intimidating at times. \"He'd come home and he'd sit in a chair and eat dinner, but there was never any kind of warm, give-me-a-hug kind of thing,\" says Kristi Blake, his oldest daughter. Mr. Gates Sr. left much of the day-to-day parenting to his wife while he was building his career at a ffice:smarttags\" />Seattle law firm. Daughter of a Seattle banker, Ms. Gates had been an athlete and top student in high school and college, where she met Bill Sr. She became a full-time volunteer and served on corporate boards. Ms. Gates encouraged her kids to study hard, play sports and take music lessons. (Bill Gates tried the trombone with little success.) And she imparted a discipline that reflected her upbringing in a well-to-do family. She expected her kids to dress neatly, be punctual and socialize with the many adults who visited their home. For the most part, young Bill dutifully abided. \"She was the most engaged parent and she had high expectations of all of us,\" says Libby Armintrout, Bill's younger sister. \"Not just grades and that sort of thing, but how we behaved in public, how we would be socially.\" A Battle of Wills Bill Gates at an early age became a diligent learner. He read the World Book Encyclopedia series start to finish. His parents encouraged his appetite for reading by paying for any book he wanted. Still, they worried that he seemed to prefer books to people. They tried to temper that streak by forcing him to be a greeter at their parties and a waiter at his father's professional functions. Then, at age 11, Bill Sr. says, the son blossomed intellectually, peppering his parents with questions about international affairs, business and the nature of life. \"It was interesting and I thought it was great,\" Mr. Gates Sr. says. \"Now, I will say to you, his mother did not appreciate it. It bothered her.\" The son pushed against his mother's instinct to control him, sparking a battle of wills. All those things that she had expected of him -- a clean room, being at the dinner table on time, not biting his pencils -- suddenly turned into a big source of friction. The two fell into explosive arguments. \"He was nasty,\" Ms. Armintrout says of her brother. Mr. Gates Sr. played the role of peacemaker. \"He'd sort of break them apart and calm things down,\" says Ms. Blake, the eldest sibling. The battles reached a climax at dinner one night when Bill Gates was around 12. Over the table, he shouted at his mother, in what today he describes as \"utter, total sarcastic, smart-ass kid rudeness.\" That's when Mr. Gates Sr., in a rare blast of temper, threw the glass of water in his son's face. He and Mary brought their son to a therapist. \"I'm at war with my parents over who is in control,\" Bill Gates recalls telling the counselor. Reporting back, the counselor told his parents that their son would ultimately win the battle for independence, and their best course of action was to ease up on him. Mr. Gates Sr. understood that counsel because of his own childhood, an hour's ferry ride from Seattle in the working-class town of Bremerton. \"There wasn't a lot of structure to my growing up,\" he says. \" I had an awful lot of discretion about where I went, what I did, who I did it with.\" His mother was doting and easygoing. His sister, his only sibling, was seven years older. And his father was a workaholic who sacrificed child-rearing to work at a furniture store he owned with a partner. \" His complete focus was on the store,\" Bill Sr. says. Mr. Gates Sr. early on built a life outside of his home. Next door, the Braman family had two boys for him to play with and a father who would become his most important role model. That man, Dorm Braman, had built his business and would later become a Naval officer, mayor of Seattle and a U.S. assistant secretary of transportation. In the late 1930s, Mr. Braman brought Bill Sr. on family road trips across the country. He was scoutmaster of Bill Sr.'s Boy Scout troop, leading the boys on hikes through the Olympic Mountains and driving them in a beat-up bus to Yellowstone and laceName w:st=\"on\">GlacierlaceName> laceType w:st=\"on\">National ParkslaceType>. The troop spent two years building a log house from Douglas firs they felled themselves. Mr. Braman had \"no sense of personal limitations whatsoever,\" says Mr. Gates Sr. Bill Sr. and Mary ultimately took a page from that upbringing: They backed off. They enrolled their son in a school that they thought would give him more freedom. That was the private laceName w:st=\"on\">LakesidelaceName> laceType w:st=\"on\">SchoollaceType>, now known as the place where Bill Gates discovered computers. | 
窥视卡
雷达卡
发表于 2009-7-29 16:28:44
提升卡
置顶卡
沉默卡
喧嚣卡
变色卡
千斤顶
照妖镜
楼主
