MESSAGE FROM THE
HEADMASTER Affluence and the Second Generation The Influence of ‘The Butterfly Effect’
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HE “BUTTERFLY EFFECT” REFERS TO A simple and often-repeated fable: A boy walking in the woods sees a latestage cocoon, inside of which he can see a young butterfly struggling to break free. The butterfly-to-be is barely able to move his wings and is squirming and pressing against the sides of the cocoon to get out. Thinking he’s helping, the boy stops his walk and reaches down, ever-so-gently breaking open the cocoon to allow the butterfly to get out. The boy naturally assumes that, in easing the butterfly’s struggle, he’s helping it survive. But the conclusion of the story isn’t so upbeat: It’s in the very struggle that the butterfly grows strong enough so as to fly. In releasing him early, the boy has prevented the butterfly’s opportunity to grow strong enough to survive. The moral of the story is too obvious to emphasize further. So often, our boys hear how “the rest of the world is not like Greenwich” and “how lucky they should feel about growing up where they do.” Greenwich and towns similar to it are, in many ways, “the promised land” in our society. The streets are clean, safe, and well-kept, and the children — whether they attend independent or public schools — are often enrolled at some of the finest schools of their kind in the nation, and therefore, in the world. In so many ways, it might seem that Greenwich is the perfect place to live and to grow up. The reality, of course, can be quite different. It’s not an overstatement to say that, in some ways, growing up in Greenwich can be more challenging for our youth than growing up in a somewhat less successful and perhaps more moderated community.
and of responsibility in the very children for whom they are working so hard to provide. Whether it be the ease with which the wants of the second generation might be sated — as compared to the wonderful lessons of struggle and perseverance that so often promoted the success of the first generation — or the difficulty of raising a child true to commonly accepted mores, growing up to be a self-reliant, focused, empathic, and fulfilled individual can often be, in settings such as ours, a notable challenge. As we walk through our own woods, tempting as it may be to reach down and take an active and early hand in removing the cocoons of struggle surrounding the children we love so much, the best way to ensure survival and strength is actually to let nature take its course. We, in all we do at Brunswick, try to keep our thinking clear in this regard. Although our buildings might be beautiful and our offerings wide-ranging, our goal in so much of what we do is to help our charges learn that the most valuable accomplishments are those they achieve on their own.
“...THE BEST WAY TO ENSURE SURVIVAL AND STRENGTH IS ACTUALLY TO LET NATURE TAKE ITS COURSE.”
Taken a step further, it’s ironic to note that the very success that so many of us have earned in large part to provide for our children may, in fact, serve as a detriment to those very same children. Most parents strive, in all they do, to provide experiences for their children that are at least the same, and ideally, much better than the circumstances they knew themselves while growing up. Yet, often surprisingly to these parents — who, through a delicate mix of hard work and great talent, have achieved great things — living among such a successful and driven population and enjoying on a daily basis such bounty can often unrealistically skew the perception both of reality
Thomas W. Philip
W W W . B RU N SW I C KSC H O OL . O RG
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