About 16 years ago, I met a young man at work. He was 25. At the time, I worked a retail chain and my husband is still in IT.My first impression of “Chris” was that he was an ass. Before I started working, I walked through what would be my department and he was already working in it. As I was about to leave I overheard him say something to a coworker about how he hated working there.I got the impression that he was going to be miserable to work with.Over the course of the next year of working with him, I learned that this young man was remarkably defying odds at every turn. He was rough around the edges, but he never gave up and he kept pressing forward bit by bit.He was raised in a frighteningly abusive and toxic environment. I won’t go into great detail about the things he went through and saw growing up, but I will say that he’s been subjected to horrible abuse of all sorts.Miraculously, he was dedicated to purging himself of the habits that he’d learned from them. The first thing that really made me take notice and be impressed with him was that within the first year of knowing him, he lost 140 pounds.You know how when you see a person every day, it’s hard to notice a change? I swear that one day he was this pudgy, poorly dressed, out of breath person and the next he was not just thin, but fit and took extremely good care of his appearance and health.That sounds very vain, I understand, but I know the effort he must have put into those changes was massive.Over that same year, I and my family became very close to Chris. He would come over for meals and cookouts and just to talk and play with it two young sons. He also came over a lot to ask us for advice and guidance with school and work.His mother really had him in a bad way. To give one example of his mother, Chris had very good credit when we met. He’d taught himself how to build it and maintain it. His mother tried to use is credit against his will to purchase a house.I could brag about lots of things about Chris but the reason I’m posting this is that after years and years of grueling work, this past May Chris graduated medical school. He was at or house a few days ago and said to us he was ashamed to be 36 years old and having just graduated medical school.My husband had what I think was the perfect response: “Yes, but you GRADUATED MEDICAL SCHOOL. You’re inflating the bullshit and ignoring the monumental accomplishment! You’re a doctor, Chris!”I remember this kid working, busting his ass to make a high gpa, doing volunteer work, shadowing doctors and more all just to get admitted! I’d look at him and feel exhausted.He worked so hard, and he’s done it and I’m so proud. He’s inspired our boys to take immense pride in their schoolwork. They say they want to be doctors too but regardless of whether that’s what they actually choose or not, he’s inspired them to strive for excellence.It makes me sad that he’s down on himself for taking longer than his classmates to graduate. His classmates more than likely didn’t have to deal with the upbringing that he did, nor did they have to contend with the racism.I think it was his second year of medical school where he cried as he left our house because he was so stressed with the work. I’ll never forget what he said because it brought me face to face with an aspect of being black that I never even considered. He said, “I’m so scared that one day I’m going to fail and be the dumb n-word that took someone’s spot because of affirmative action.”When he said that, I felt gutted because I had no response to it. I just hugged him and told him that he earned his spot and that he could succeed. And he’s now done it.He wants to be an Emergency Room doctor. I’m so proud and heartbroken for him. He keeps finding reasons to be down on himself when he should be proud of being one of the few people to be able to say he’s a doctor. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2OGyjdU
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