Despite becoming Senate majority leader before the age of fifty, being elected vice president and then president, and being the most formidable power broker in Democratic politics for decades, Lyndon Johnson carried a Texas-sized chip on his shoulder his entire life.
He grew up poor. His upbringing and his options landed him at Southwest Texas State Teachers College. A perfectly fine school but not the kind that a president attends—something he was convinced all of his learned and sophisticated Ivy League colleagues were thinking as they witnessed his ascendancy in American politics.
His insecurity began early. He never felt like he was good enough. From a young age, his mother placed unfair expectations on him and made him feel like he had to earn her love, that her pride in him was contingent on his succeeding. She made him feel terrible when he failed—like when he decided to stop playing the piano or dancing. “For days after I quit those lessons,” he remembered, “she walked around the house pretending I was dead. And then I had to watch her being especially warm and nice to my father and sisters.”
It’s a sobering reminder to all parents: the feeling of deficiency is far worse than any potential deprivation. So make sure your kids know that they are enough, that they are plenty, that you have loved them from the moment they were born. And make sure you remember that there is nothing they have to do to earn this love. There’s nothing they must accomplish to deserve tenderness and affection.
They are good enough. The talents, the interests, the goals they have, are enough.