The Bittersweet Joy of Being Professionally Eclipsed by Your 9-Year-Old

When my son became a prime-time TV star, ‘Hudson Yang’s dad’ became my most prominent title

Illustration: Fran Caballero

There’s no getting around it: I’ve been eclipsed by my son.

I mean this both physically and metaphorically. At age 15 and a sturdy 6-foot-2, Hudson quite literally blocks me completely from view when I stand behind him. But since the tender age of 9, he has been the center of attention for another reason as well: He’s a child actor, a star of the ABC TV show Fresh Off the Boat, the first prime-time sitcom featuring an Asian American family in two decades, and the launchpad of stars such as Constance Wu (of last year’s trailblazing blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians) and Randall Park (of Netflix’s well-received rom-com Always Be My Maybe).

I have had a long and successful career as a culture writer, but these days, Hudson gets keynote address invitations and awards from organizations I’ve been a part of for decades. When we go out, he’s the red-carpet VIP, and I’m his driver and “plus-one.”

So yes, it’s not just that his future seems bright — his present is already bright enough to outshine mine.

That’s exactly what any parent wants, isn’t it? We live and toil and sacrifice for the successes of our kids. But the process usually takes decades, giving us plenty of opportunity to get used to the curve of our children’s growth crossing that of our own aging and decline. As parents we grow grayer, weaker, more mortal. Our kids surpass us — first hesitantly, then with the urgency of a relay runner being passed a baton.

I remember the first time I realized I’d caught up to my own father, at least in one aspect of life. My dad, a trim 5-foot-six even now that he’s in his 80s, has always loved to swim, and is as comfortable in the water as out of it. He’s a lap swimmer, not a racer, but still, whenever I went with him to the pool as a kid, we’d pace one another in parallel lanes, wordlessly competing. Year after year, his steady, powerful strokes quickly outstripped my frantic paddling, letting him smoothly glide past me. But when I was 14, I lost my baby fat and grew five inches. That year, I saw him for the first time struggle to stay…