Gabriel Mizrahi

He has a level of understanding of difficult concepts and science that is light years beyond what my husband and I have.

But his social and scholastic development have been a train wreck.

He got a perfect score on college entrance exams, but struggled to complete homework and missed a lot of school due to health problems and COVID.

He would teach himself the material and do very well on exams, but most of the time never do his homework and his grades reflected that.

He failed to connect socially and was very isolated and disengaged from school.

The heartbreaking part is that he's meant to be at some high-end academic institution in research and development.

I don't just say that as his mom, I mean it as a scientist.

He's constantly teaching himself high-level engineering, building complex contraptions in the garage, contacting authors of obscure papers to get insight, and coming up with brilliant ideas to improve various things.

When he was in middle school, he designed a science experiment that he conducted at the edge of space with a weather balloon, and wasn't even considered for a prize at the science fair.

He taught himself ham radio, got a license from the FAA, and used fellow ham radio enthusiasts to help him follow and retrieve his weather balloon after the experiment in another state.

The science competitions were run by women who, prior to giving any awards, announced that girls were going to be supported in the fair, and the winners were all girls with social experiments.

I'm not against girls in science, I applaud every opportunity that girls are given to enter this remarkable field, but I also hate it that it has pushed talented boys out.

I saw how this approach left my son and other young men devastated.

Despite our encouragement, my son never entered another one.

And when he applied to college, not even one accepted him.

He's hung up all the rejection letters around his room.

This is like the opening of a movie about some misunderstood genius before he finds his groove and then, you know, does his best work.

Little Goodwill hunting.

Yeah, exactly.

That is not how the real world works.