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Home > Blogs > Women's Life > Archives > 2009 > April > 21 > Entry
Have a rebellious kid? He might win a Pulitzer
Your kids should not always follow the rules, say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ respect authority or even try to make you happy. Take me and Mike Elrick.
Mike and I were both reporters at the State News at Michigan State University in the late 1980s. By the time I was a junior, I had already worked at three professional newspapers, had about a 3.5 GPA and was liked by all my professors.
Mike had no internships, decent grades and caused a lot of his professors to shudder. Mike was a fantastic reporter, believing, even in his early 20s, he could uncover truths, catch people doing bad stuff and change the world. Please note all my clichés are intentional. He was an old-time, scrappy muckraker in the body of a 20-year-old wearing a Detroit Red Wings jersey.
And because of that, he tended to rub authority the wrong way. Unfortunately for him that authority tended to be his professors, those who might hire him for an internship, even the editors at our student newspaper. (In fact, especially them.)
I had to get him his first internship, all the way out in eastern Pennsylvania at the Allentown Morning Call. I vouched for him to the editor when other candidates might have seemed like better picks. She was wise enough to select him and was in love with his work the day he hit Allentown.
Finally, someone who understood him.
During my last semester at MSU, Mike started an alternative newspaper to our State News. He wrangled a few of his friends and a renegade retired professor to write a column. He wanted me to be the editor. But that just wasn’t me. I didn’t do rebellion. I just wanted to graduate quietly and get a job.
I did that and have gone on to decent, fulfilling success and a continued interest in doing my best, but never becoming like Mike. I’m too polite and too cautious. Mike just won the Pulitzer Prize.
He won for a little story you might have heard about: Something about the mayor of Detroit and some text messages and a public affair and eventual convictions. And in typical Mike fashion, even as he wins the ultimate prize in journalism, he teeters on the bring of unemployment. He won this award as a staff writer at the Detroit Free Press, a big-city newspaper barely hanging on.
I imagine he took the mayor down by getting in several people’s faces. He clearly did not respect the authority of the mayor, nor should he have. And, I bet even in his own newsroom at the Detroit Free Press, he rubbed authority the wrong way.
So parents, if you have a rebellious boy or girl don’t worry about them. There are places for them in the world. Very successful places. And if you have the polite child, she’s probably going to turn out alright too. Differences and uniqueness are good.
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