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 Her son, pianist Marc Yu, now 16, gave his first orchestral concert
at 6 years old. He has since played venues like London's Royal
Albert Hall, Beijing's Central Conservatory and New York City's
Carnegie Hall in a duet with superstar Lang Lang.
Along the way, Hui discovered that being the parent of a gifted
child is not easy - nor cheap.
"I didn't know what was ahead of me," she admits.
That included living in an L.A. garage for four years, a living
arrangement that was subsequently upgraded to a "shack," she says.
Virtually all the family's money went to lessons with elite
teachers, which cost $150-$250 an hour, multiple times per week.
There was no way Hui could work, as she managed her son's budding
career and homeschooled him. Eventually they moved to San Francisco,
just to be near a school that could accommodate his elite talent.
Rearing a so-called average child born in 2013 through the age of 18
is estimated to cost $245,000, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
For Hui, that's chump change. Between the ages of 6 and 10, she
estimates that she spent a half million dollars on lessons, travel
and other services to develop Marc's piano talents.
"It puts a huge strain on the families, and it's very stressful,"
says Ellen Winner, a psychology professor at Boston College who
wrote the book "Gifted Children: Myths and Realities." "Having a
child prodigy is not necessarily a good thing."
Before dig deep into your pocket, you need to ask yourself: Is your
child just very talented at a particular skill, whether it is chess,
violin or figure skating? Or are they truly a one-in-a-million
specimen?
You can usually tell the answer by who is doing the pushing.
"With true prodigies, it is usually the child leading the parent,"
says Joanne Ruthsatz, a professor at Ohio State University.
Ruthsatz has been collecting DNA from child prodigies around the
country, in the hope of identifying a "prodigy gene" - one that is
shared with autistic savants, she suspects. She is releasing a book
next year entitled "The Prodigy's Cousin."
"One little kid I worked with was downloading lectures from MIT, all
on their own," Ruthsatz says. "You just can't stop them."
STAGE PARENTS
On the other hand, there are the stage parents who are relentless in
driving their kids.
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A prime example, says Winner: Tennis great Andre Agassi, who
bemoaned his miserable childhood in his autobiography "Open". (Note:
You can expect to spend $30,000 to $100,000 annually to fuel your
kid's dream of tennis stardom, according to Tim Donovan, founder of
Donovan Tennis Strategies, a college recruiting consulting group.)
In other words, if your child isn't a true prodigy, don't invest a
crazy amount of resources just because you sniff a potential payoff
down the line.
If you do have one-in-a-million talent, though, then you have some
hard financial decisions to make.
The good news is that if you do sacrifice and help launch them to
world-class levels, the financial burdens start to lessen: They will
likely garner full-ride college scholarships, for instance, and be
paid for their performances with travel expenses covered.
After that, though, comes the most perplexing part of all: Making
the successful transition to adulthood, both financially and
emotionally. After all, if you can play the violin like a virtuoso
at age 6, "everyone oohs and aahs," says Winner. "At age 25, no one
cares anymore. So you shouldn't expect them to go on to become
Einstein."To be sure, it is not an easy road for parents of gifted
children. Hui certainly remembers just scraping by, as a single mom,
even having to go knocking door-to-door to ask neighbors for
donations. The whole experience even sent her into a deep
depression.
"I tried my best," Hui remembers. "But raising a gifted child is a
lot of pressure."
(Editing by Lauren Young and Cynthia Osterman)
(The writer is a Reuters contributor. The opinions expressed are his
own.)
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