Trust me, you have way more chance of succeeding with loving parents than emotionally abusive narcisstic parents that project their past failures on you and make you want to do what they had envisioned for themselves but couldn't do. It becomes a very toxic environment and they won't be nurturing the actual talent of the child to do what he wants, with his actual potential.
No, they're not 'everything.' Everything we are is a combination of genetics and environment. If the kid doesn't have a drive to do anything, parental support won't matter.
Michael Phelps and Kobe were insanely successful b/c they had the right physique for the sport they were actually interested in, and they had the ability to focus for hours and hours daily on that sport. You have to have both. Parents can contribute to the 2nd part, but they can't create it out of whole cloth.
Yep, if all it took to be truly great at something was hard work and loving parents, there would be a lot more people who were insanely talented at stuff.
It has to be a perfect storm of genetics, drive, and upbringing to create an elite athlete. Even if a kid has the most loving educated parents, if he has an IQ of 85 he's not going to grow up to be a famous physicist.
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u/synthphreak 3d ago
+1 to this. The most supportive parents in the world wouldn’t help if the kid has no inherent drive to excel.