My mom can design better than you
I was talking to my mom the other day, as you do, about nothing in particular (certainly not the impending election¹). I was on my third round of “Okay bye…yeah you had said…” when I offhandedly mentioned an issue I was having with a friend. Right on cue, my mom said the inevitable words “I know you are going to get mad at me, but…” and decided to once again insert herself into my world with one of her great “ideas”. I wish I could say I didn’t rise to her bait, but I did get annoyed. How does she know what’s best for me, and my relationships? I managed to get off the phone before starting a fight, which is always a small victory.
When I thought about the issue with my friend later in the day, my mom’s words of advice came to mind, and I realized that…damnit…she was right. She’s ALWAYS right.
I could have the most obscure problem like what to wear to an interview, or how to serve appetizers to friends during a socially distant outdoor BBQ. She always has an “idea”, and often times, they’re pretty damn good. It’s like my mom is always in problem solving mode, it’s some sort of inherent gene that she can’t turn off.
For context, my dad is a brilliant engineer. We’re talking multiple degrees, celebrated career and an actual expert in organic chemistry. On the flip side, if you asked that man how to start the dish washer, his head would probably explode. There’s something to be said for being able to solve life’s everyday problems, big or small.
My mom had gone to college for a short while. She was always a really good student, so good that she had the privilege of doing most of her brother’s, sister’s, and cousins’ homework for them all through their schooling. She had been studying to be a psychologist and would have been a great one if she had gotten to finish. She never did finish, instead she had to drop out when her father died suddenly during her sophomore year.
Sadly, this isn’t uncommon. Someone needed to bring in money for the family, so she started hairdressing full-time to help her mother and siblings. She met my father, got married, and raised her 3 children.
Somewhere in there, she learned a lot about the way the world works, the way people work. She also learned her place in the world, and the best way to live in it and get the things you need. When she was 10 and her mom asked her to go to the store in town 15 miles away to get her a pack of cigarettes, she grabbed the car keys and a few pillows and made it work. When I told her the day before Halloween I wanted to change my costume and be a ghost instead of a zombie she grabbed a sheet, some lipstick, and fake eyelashes, and made me a pretty happy “girly ghost”. It’s scrappy problem solving but its adaptive, and most of all, it works. Making decisions based on information gathering and using what you have are some of the most basic skills of any designer.
I’ve seen a lot of design talks. I’ve heard a lot of experts. I’ve listened to plenty of podcasts about design and design thinking. They all seem to believe design thinking was something that suddenly appeared one day, something that once it was defined, came to be, and that’s when people began using it as a way of problem solving. They’ve never seen what my mom can do with a box of cake mix and a crock pot.
The kind of problem solving I’ve seen from my mother can only come from generations of scrappy ideas and years of trying, failing, learning, and trying again. It’s experimenting and taking risks that my siblings and I never had to take because my parents worked so hard for our family. It’s a level of ideation and solutioning that I can only hope to touch on one day in my work, a place that doesn’t rely on life or death situations, just selling airline tickets that people don’t necessarily want or need².
After coming to the realization that my mom is honestly an amazing problem solver (it only took me 35 years Ma!) I’ve started to listen more when she starts a sentence with her signature line “I have an idea…” because it will likely be a great one, and I’d be stupid not to listen³.
What I’ve learned from my mother goes beyond child rearing and cooking tips. It’s greater than juggling three children’s after school activity schedules and having dinner ready when they get home. It’s the idea that not every great mind is alike, and design thinking for problem solving is not only used by people in tech. There have been countless studies conducted around the benefits of diversity in education and the workplace, and yet tech continues to be dominated by the same groups. How can we look beyond what we see in front of us to diversify and build a more robust workplace full of new minds and ideas? How can we help enable those with unconventional backgrounds gain access to this privileged world of design in tech? If you have an answer please let us know, we could certainly use the help.
¹ It is my expert opinion that all children should refrain from discussing the 2020 election with their parents until the year 2027.
² Please buy our airline tickets.
³ Everyone should listen to their mothers.
