so glad I’m not having kids. I would break them.

Not fair?

Not fair that I’d done all of the assignments they’d skipped, paid attention in class, practiced endlessly outside of class and did all of my homework?

People look at skills and assume they can’t do it because they’re thirty and they haven’t magically been able to do it yet so it must not be something they were “meant” to do. What hogwash. I honestly find it kind of offensive when people think I was just gifted with it.

Like how it would be offensive if I landed an awesome job and someone said to me “oh, that isn’t fair, they probably hired you because you’re an easy lay” or something. Pretty much the same thing.

Anyway, I can’t really comment on my upbringing or anything… but I thought the tiger mom book was written as a satire? And just that no one got it? And that people are raging about nothing?

Eventually, all kids have to be able to stand on their two feet. I don’t think there is a right or wrong way of parenting, but like I said above, taking into account a child’s personality I think is significant. I believe in structure, rules, trying to be your best, etc., I think in my work with dogs, I’ve learned quite a lot about the positive reinforcement model of training. This isn’t only for animals but relates to humans as well. It’s something we don’t do enough of in general. I was a bit odd in that I was lavished with R+, but in the end, I just never believed it, because I didn’t really believe in myself enough. But the majority of the time, I think it is the former. Anyway, just going off on a tangent now.

This book has been on my reading list for awhile, especially after the original Wall St. post came out about it. I followed it for quite awhile and gathered the same thinking you did when you saw her in person. I really think a lot of it depends on the child and their personality.

For me, the whole expectations issue of parents has been hard. I’m Asian but was adopted. My mother was not a tiger mom in the least, but my father was with expectations. It didn’t help in that I was already a perfectionist and worked really hard. But many times, I never felt like my hard work really paid off as I always knew kids who hardly studied for something and then aced the test where I got a B. I began to become a bit disillusioned at the hard work concept though I still am by nature.

As for my father, he always wanted to instill in me that I could do anything I wanted, but truly, it was me who realized I really couldn’t. It took a long time for him to realize that I was not going to med school, that I had a fear of taking a GRE test, and that my life path would not match the one he had dreamed of for me. So instead, what did I become if it was not a doctor, psychiatrist, lawyer, judge, etc.? I became a professional dog trainer. It is certainly not the money making profession a doctor would be (I sill love medicine in general but do not want to go back to school for it), but I am happy (will be moreso when my business truly gets going–only off the ground for 3 months). And in the end, he couldn’t be happier for me, though he still occasionally throws in the “so have you finished those med school applications yet?” I see it as a joke now but it took me a long time to get to that point.

My dad on the other hand works now, and he gets taken care of in a way that he didn’t have when we were growing up and she was at work. In a lot of ways we all have to sort of help take care of him a bit more since he was so focused on us in our youth. It’s not like it’s payback, but it is important for me, and my relationship with him, to be more about being adults who like similar things and can be candid and open, then to be father-daughter like. Thus we curse at each other a lot, and when mom insists he hug me at the airport it is so very, very strange.