Some children of minority families growing up and having socialized in white-dominant American culture might invariably experience certain degree of identity issue or that of belonging or cultural rootlessness.

I have observed this from the time when my son was at daycare to now as he is going to stand on his own. He expressed the wish that he wanted to be a white when he was 3 years old, playing with white kids of his age. By the time he was in high school, he was able to basically accept himself. Well, what can you do if not?

When he first left for college, he told me he would have one house in China and one in US. I realize he thought he was culturally rooted in both lands. I did not say much as I had doubt if he would fit in China.

From what I have seen there has been a severe lack of interactions and communications between my children and the two relatives from China coming to our house, one being 23-year-old at the time of his arrival, the other being 10-year-old. At first, I thought it a good opportunity for them to learn from each other, Chinese language for my kids and English for them. Can’t believe I am so simple-minded!

They grew up in two different culture environments and have next-to-nothing in common. My son kept chatting with his friends while his big cousin kept the chat via Internet with his. Right now, my daughter and the 10-year-old simply don’t talk to each other at all. “I have nothing to say to him,” as I was told. Living under the same roof like two strangers reminds me of John Higham’s book Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. Now I witness the book comes to life.

From this observation, I would think my American-born Chinese children would feel more alienated than a sense of belonging if they decide to live in China. The same can be said of us — we moved to America after we became adult and forever have this feeling of alienation from mainstream culture. Well, some did become Americanized when they go shopping like mad hares.

After more contacts with children from China at MIT, my son realized the difference between him and these Chinese children. Yes, you are a Chinese only in appearance and that can be deceiving. He told me during his last home visit that he gave up the idea of living in China.

How I love those serious-sounding topics of identity, belonging, and even to the point of crisis if not handled wisely! This may be part of growing pains, which might be outgrown like old shoes or the pains might be cured or dulled with the passing of time and gaining of experience and wisdom, if they ever gain.

There are more serious topics than this — how you are perceiced by others, how this perception influences you and the marginalization of living in America. This is too gloomy to talk about in this sunny day. Enjoy while the sun is not out-of-office. Well, actually it is sunny but very cold today, beautiful to look at from inside but not funny to go outside.

Chinese parents have this well-known saying, “Looking forward to the day when the child becomes famous.” If I interpret it literally, it goes like this — look forward to the son becoming a dragon. What a magnificent dream! But how many of us are aware of the fact that we cannot go higher than our thoughts?

True, thought precedes action and can condition us and channel our desire and directions. See all those TV commercials with tons of money throwing there? They all serve to cultivate and channel your desires to their products, stimulating you to buy till your last penny.

Imagine when our minds are thoroughly buried in minute trivialities, busy fighting over these details, and cannot think anything better than our daily engagements, where else do we expect to end up? No where. We don’t “become dragon” by accident. The desire and the thought must come ahead of everything.

Therefore, this desire and the thought are the gifts that I want to give to my children so that their minds are nurtured with great thoughts, which will hopefully generate great actions someday. Also, when the goings go tough on their life’s journey, they will have the backing of these positive thinking to tide them over. Ideally, once these positive thoughts take root in them, they will guide their life through all weathers.

Yes, a mom must be able to think way down the road, sixty or seventy years ahead, if they make it that long, hopefully. Because you don’t want to see your child ending up like the son of Daedalus who flew too close to the sun, ruined his waxed wings and dropped into the sea. Well, on the other hand, the story also emphasizes the limitation of a parent’s word or advice. Daedalus did warn his son not to fly close to the sun but the boy forgot it all. So probably will be gone to the winds my words to my children. At least we have tried.

How to instill some lofty ideas into their heads? By reading books on great people and providing them with the virtues, achievements, and stories of these people, constantly chatting with them about dreams and ideals that they should have.

Remember a boy will never become a dragon without his thinking and dreaming of becoming one. You are the one who first impregnate this dream.

It is true that very often money, in whatever form it may take, is the focus of what is desired by the children and what shall be passed on to the children, if there are some. For me, the teaching of money and life is one of the most valuable gifts that I would like to give to my children, priceless though the cheapest one.

There are tons of stuffs written on money, that money being a good servant but bad master, etc. Or money is not everything but nothing can be done without it. Money cannot make you happy but you won’t be happy without it. It is even mentioned in bible, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”

I want my children to be aware of the relationship between money and their lives. While our life energy and time is limited, money is unlimited. There is no end of human desire for more and more because there are indeed more and more money and wealth if you strive for it, the more you make, the more you spend. But can you strive for more and more time and energy out of your limited span of life? No. Have you heard this, “Our span on earth is short.”

When we have to work for money, well, to make a living if you don’t have a large inheritance, we are in essence doing nothing short of exchanging our life energy and time for money, a limited for an unlimited and an unbalanced exchange, which we want to terminate as soon as possible so that we can enjoy our limited life by doing whatever we enjoy. Ideally retire at age 40.

Such a nice dream or perfect plan! Too bad not many of us can afford it! I remember a friend of mine told me, “When I was young, I wanted to retire at age 50 and start enjoying life …” Well, he is just like an Energizer Bunny, not that cute though, forever running, no where near retirement. Some friends of mine started having children after age 40 and will have to work their heads off to fulfill their financial responsibility for the youngsters.

Now what, after we know this relationship? Well, my advice for my children is like this. No paycheck, no matter where it comes from, can make you rich quickly and allows you to retire that early.

One of the legal ways to get rich this quick is investment — invest wisely and do it as early as possible, better starting it from your first paycheck. Yes, you got to leave some extra each month to invest. Saving needs self-discipline. You need to discipline yourself to put aside at least 15% of your income and invest wisely.

e.g. if your average annual investment is $15,000, after 25 years, with average 9% annual interest rate, interests compound monthly, the future value is about $1.4 million. If you start working right after college and can retire after 25 years, living comfortably with this saving. Of course, the more you make and invest, the less time it will take to reach your financial goal and then retire.

I told my children, “You will never have money for investment if you are like average Americans, living from paycheck to paycheck by spending every penny they make, when still not enough, start borrowing and finding themselves in heavy debt for the rest of their lives and finally never have a second to enjoy the most precious life on this earth!” I have learned many of my co-workers don’t even have money left for their company-matching retirement savings. Many of them started working in their teens and have to work till they drop dead!

A sad yet heavy lesson that I hope my children will learn as early in their lives as possible — get rich quick and enjoy life early. You cannot enjoy life if you are rich in money but poor in time.

One last thing — retirement does not mean stop working or doing nothing. It only means doing whatever we enjoy without having to worry about paycheck.

Nearly without any exceptions, all moms want to make their children happy by providing what they want, such as cooking their favorite food and allow them to do what they enjoy. But a wise and really good mom knows what is really good for the benefit of her children in the long run.

I have observed a rather unhealthy lifestyle in some children. Such as the 25-year-old boy living in my house is disproportionally in favor of meat, especially frying steak, hot and spicy, large and tender, averting vegetable as much as he can, to the extent that he suffered from stomach ulcer and bleeding at age of 14, and suffers from hyperlipidemia and high urine protein at young age. His uncle blamed his mother for this eating habit, “My sister often cooks large chunk of meat for him just because he loves it.”

I have also observed many children demonstrating unhealthy lifestyle — unbalanced food and lack of activity, which result in high hyperlipidemia, childhood overweight and even early onset diabetes.

I have long before realized that many diseases are caused by unhealthy lifestyles. Yet, not until I observed these lifestyles demonstrated in some children did I fully understand that a mom plays an extremely important role in shaping and forming a healthy lifestyle in her children. To be sure, a mom is definitely responsible for children with weight problem. Such as, my children love fresh and delicious donuts and cheesecakes. I would encourage them to gain unnecessary weight if I provide them with it every time they ask.

Yes, you can see a healthy lifestyle is one of the best gifts that a mom can give to her children. This lifestyle includes balanced and nutritious food, no drug and smoke, and the love of outdoor activities, anything that is opposite to laziness and greediness. True, it is easy to say but difficult to promote and cultivate this lifestyle over a long period of time. It takes tremendous persistence, patience and a lot of talking and nagging to plant a healthy eating habit. A really good mom will try to do the right thing by giving her children what is beneficial to their long-coming life, regardless of what.

I always have this or that plan for weekend, but never have it my way. I woke up before 6 AM on Saturday, trying to fix some breakfast for my daughter who needed to get school at 7 AM for science olympia competition. She would take school bus there and have the competition somewhere north of Missouri River.

I started working on applying for visa extension for the 10-year-old at my house. The boy woke up early today probably because of the noise created by my daughter’s early activity. As soon as he got up, he started chatting with his family over the internet. The loud noise from the conversation made me want to go out, but I had to get his application ready for delivery today. This I did.

I sped up and reached post office before it closed at noon, then to the bank, the library, and finally I did some grocery shopping.

Too many things that cried for my attention so that I found it hard to follow my original plan for my weekend — the 25-year-old nephew is in China but has to register for something like internship to keep his student status here. School has started there and we got to think of a way to pay for him. Sprint has just announced its plan for further reduction in force, in other word, layoff of people. Another one in the house needs to get ready for a trip to China, air ticket and purchase to name the least. My daughter keeps asking for skiing lessons and I needed to call around to find such lesson for her. The 10-year-old won’t quit crying for mama.

My daughter came home around 5 PM, indicating she wanted to go to Border’s. Great idea. So we went. And finally I got to sit down and rest a little bit at Border’s. Nothing extraordinary and nothing big accomplished. Still, I feel blessed for being around and able to do something for the children. I can’t imagine how dreadful it will be when I find myself nothing to do, all by myself.

Mao Zedong once said “we communists are like seeds while people are like earth. Wherever we go, we must integrate ourselves with people. We will take root and blossom out among people.”

A mom’s worries go beyond a child’s years at home and follow her child wherever he/she goes. I had anticipated the time when my son would be far away. So, even before he left, I kept showing him this quote from Mao Zedong. “No matter where you go, the only way to be happy is make efforts to be part of the group, instead of isolating yourself.” It is not money, not any short-lived tangible property that I want to pass to my children but advices like this.

I feel this strongly at office, I meet as many different types of monitors as birds in forests. Some are cheerful, friendly and helpful; some are not. Some frank and straightforward, some just the opposite. Some leave smiles and good feelings behind while some others, make you want to say “What a good riddance” when they have left. They travel and meet strangers all the time. It is their attitudes that determine how they themselves feel wherever they go.

My son joined the college fraternity and was surrounded by friends soon after he left home. In fact, he has merged so well that he has found his home-away-from-home among his friends and has never suffered from home-sickness. He does not call home as frequently as some college kids, which is a thing good if you take it as his quick adjustment to the new environment. Isn’t that the way every mom wants her child to feel when her child is away from home?

By the way, one of my children once commented that if you failed to merge into the group and isolated yourself, it was your own choice and you were the one who suffered and the group would not be negatively impacted by this. I think it will take toll on both parties — the isolated individual and the group.

Note, in an attempt to become integrated, we need to avoid getting ourselves lost in the group. 1/21/09.

For the first time, I am thinking of writing about mom, yes, as if I had never done so before. Many thoughts rushed into my head as I hit the topic. The thoughts streamed in totally haphazardly. Let me count how many ways motherhood is defined and described. I am not sure if these are descriptions or expectations, ideal or reality, or combination of both, or surrealistical.

(1) responsibility — cannot shake this off her shoulder once she brought into the world a brand new life, too bad there are too many irresponsible moms, well, not as many as dads of this kind,
(2) love and care, total, unconditional and unselfish so that she should not expect any return when she gives, not like investment into stocks, as if she were real angel,
(3) privilege, indeed, but only to those who can recognize it,
(4) having the fortitude and courage, no matter how physically fragile she is, like a pillar of steel, shouldering the weight of the whole family. Have you ever felt this way? Me too. Isn’t that fair enough?
(5) having tolerance and flexibility, adapting your expectations to reality, relaxing your authority towards your teens,
(6) having patience and firmness, with terrible two-year-old and even terrible-two’s dad with temper greater than his weight,
(7) wise and knowledgeable, ready to answer whatever questions the children might come up with, wise enough to know when she should let go of control,
(8) here’s a catch-all phrase — demanding all the best qualities that we expect from a decent human soul so that a mother can bring out the similar best qualities in the children.

To me, on top of it all, it has meant all of the following:
self-sacrifice,
total devotion,
no time-off duty,
never-failed dependability,
a guide or councilor when a need arises,
providing home in both physical and psychological, emotional sense,
sunny and cheerful when the children need you to cheer them up,
her responsibility for her offspring being as long and important as her life,
strong and optimistic when they need your shoulder to cry over or to lean on.

At some times, your healthy presence is all they need. Imagine how strong you must be for your youngsters, before you can rest your head on their shoulders if you can keep your head that long, not physically.

Mother should be a glorious title. No doubt it is arduous and laborious at time — education of the soul is never easy. Yet it can be a purifying, heart-warming, and rewarding experience.

In reality, we see moms from one extreme like Susan Smith murdering her children to another sacrificing her life for her child exemplified in China’s 2008 Sichuan earthquake, from restrict to indulgent type, from let-go to over-protective ones, from love with wisdom to love without … Just like seeing all kinds of birds in forests, we see all kinds of moms in real life…

For an ordinary mom like me, I feel there are so many things that I want to do for my children or want to pass on to them but never have enough time and energy. I wish I were as strong as a decade ago and could keep up with my youngsters in either walking or jogging. Gone are those days. Now, more than ever before, I am keenly aware of the fact that when a mom has a good health, she and her children have everything. Nothing matters as much as a mom’s health, not even money. A surprised discovery today!

Yesterday evening someone came home with an English homework, of which they were asked to write about the meaning of a wise saying and how it relates to the writer. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” She wrote the following,

“Even if you help somebody get out of a fix for right now, the problem is still going to be there, it is just been pushed back a bit. That is the fish-giving part of the proverb. And to really make a difference in that person’s life, you have to get to the root of the problem and actually solve it. … So the moral of the quote is that taking the long way and teaching a person a skill is a more permanent solution than simply giving.”

Children can prove more mature than we thought. I hope she now understands why I am willing to invest tons of money in her education but not that zealous on her other expenses.

To my son. There is a doctor at our clinic who went to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. He came back from Beijing, excited and eager to share his excitement with his colleagues. He said Beijing was a fascinating place, so fascinating that he wondered why I chose to work here in Kansas. Indeed, not many places in the world can match Beijing in her richness in culture, history and life.

Good question. I have thought of this. For now, the main reason I stayed here is for my children to get a decent education. Once they have gone for college, so shall I. Currently my son is in Boston. My daughter is determined to follow her brother’s footstep to east coast. By then I will either follow her or go back home in Beijing, where I can either engage in coordinating clinical trials in oncology or teach English or something else that might fit my fancy.

As I observed two children of other people living in my household, I found they are different from mine in many areas. One obvious difference is both of them like to spend time with me at kitchen, whereas my children do not.  As I was wondering why, I discovered that the mother of one child spent a lot of time in kitchen. I remember the other child’s mom is a good cook.

As kitchen is never my favorite place at home, neither is it my children’s favorite hangout.  Indeed, nothing comes from nothing.  I only hope my children can manage to bring food to the table when they grow up. Or find some means to complete this task.

At some point during their primary school years, both of my children asked for allowance. “All my classmates have weekly allowance. No fair I don’t have,” my son said with the whining tone when he was around 9 years old. Yes, I never gave allowance, even though I was aware of this practice in America.  This I had told him and also had explained to him. “The real No-fair is when you get something for nothing. Remember there is no free lunch. For anything you get, you have to earn it. If you have been a good student, I will reward you something when I am happy.”

By his six-grade he pretty much figured out it was hopeless to get easy money like his classmates. So he started making money himself. He learned from some class how to program in Basic language. He programmed some small games, saved it in a floppy disk, and then sold them to his “allowance-rich” classmates.

My daughter made much quicker money than her brother. She took to school two individually wrapped cakes and sold each of them for $5. The whole box containing 10 cakes only cost $1.

My son told me I should do some research to find my own niche. I am not a good student and have been lazy doing any research.  My niche? I think I should be comfortable finding a community of parents who have experienced some forms of cultural conflicts with their American born children, like me growing up in China and raising children in America. Conflicts inevitably erupt when my Chinese culture-based upbringing meet their American cultural resistance. Being a mom caught in between two cultures, I have learned, among others, conflict-management skill is an absolute life-saver in keeping a fire under control.

By the way, if there is a competition for the best-behaved mom, I would certainly be rewarded the first prize. Because I have kept my mouth shut as much as I am aware of in front of my children’s friends, for I know how much this foreign accent mom could embarrass her children. My son once told me in his primary school years, “Mom, let me do the talking.”  I don’t need to be told twice on this.  I would save my children’s face by not working in a Chinese restaurant.  I would put on some decent clothes when I showed up in my children’s schools.  Of course, the best performance is to pretend that I did not know them in public.  To be fair, they are good children, but I have learned how to behave to save their dear faces.

Yes, this is my niche — the experience of a Chinese mom with her American born children.

I told him this, “Son, I am not bragging about you.  I am just proud of you.”  To be honest, he is not perfect –he almost never cooks, nor does laundry, nor cleans up his room.  Still, I miss him greatly when he is in Boston, so far away from his Kansas home, leaving me an abundance of memories to cherish and to reflect on. I think he has done me a great favor by staying home for three weeks this summer instead of two as he originally planned.  As I often tell my children, now I should tell myself — count your blessings and be happy with what you have.

Many people give expensive gifts to their children upon their high school graduation. As a frugal mom, my gift to my dear son is the following letter, http://www.geocities.com/diemerpta/to_my_son.html

P.S. in case the link is not active any more, the owner can be reached via momwrite@yahoo.com

Here’s a little background as justification for and explanation of the creation of this weblog.
First of all, the idea first surfaced in my mind during one of the conversations that I had with my college age son, during his summer break of 2008.  “Mom, since you like writing so much, why don’t you set up a blog?” I know he also means since you talk so much, have your own blog and talk there.  This I whole-heartedly accept.  My son says I like to repeat myself and say the same thing again and again and again.  So much like a nagging mom!  So annoying! I wish he could keep these words to himself.

For sometimes, my emails to him went unopened because, according to my son, they are too long-winded. This is rather discouraging and I was smart enough to have learned not to write to him any more. Who would otherwise?  Now I have my own blog! 

My daughter outdoes her brother on this. Each time I started talking, she said, “Oh-Oh, where’s my MP3 player?” Why doesn’t she call that “Block Mom’s Voice Player?” That’s what it actually is when she does not want my words to enter her ears. The youngsters either don’t have the time to hear me out or find my self-invited voice extremely unwelcome. Again, here’s my blog, serving as an outlet when my daughter puts on her “Block Mom’s Voice Player.” By the way, she is a nice girl most of the time. Most likely I have advanced into my dotage years way earlier than the rest of the humanities — the only time I have not lagged behind.

Secondly, this blog ties back to my education in humanities and social science and to so many years of my life as a parents of two.  Since the birth of my first child, I have volunteered to devote, with an overdose of maternal instinct, a large part of hours and days, unpaid of course, months and years, my time and life, to the care and education of my youngsters — watching them, talking to them, reading to them, working with them, writing to and about them, reading books about education, psychology, personal development, etc. My life and major decisions regarding job and location of my residence have been centered around their needs and their lives.  Thus, for better for worse, being a mom has literally shaped my life and defined me. To be sure, other than English, sociology, computer programming, clinic trials and other profitably engagements, this is something I have come to know best and can write about.  I am sure, all moms share similar experience.  For this, the blog also serves as a celebration of a mom’s life or those of any moms that come to visit.

Thirdly, part of my strength and energy have been nourished and furnished by encouragements that my dear friends have been so generously shone on me over the long passing years. Honest, my unreserved communications with my friends on education of my youngsters has been beneficial to both sides. They have been so kind and spoiled me with more credits than I deserved. Now it is time to credit back in the form of this blog.

Fourthly, I have been too serious with too many things in my life. By the way, I see my son carrying the same genetic trait, according to my observation,  unverified by professional. I wish we all could relax once in a while, do something we truely enjoy. Here comes the unique blog of my own, where I can laugh at myself, the fathomless well of laughter and the safest object of ridicule and sarcasm that I have discovered.

Finally, I got to have some purpose more lofty than the above ones. Here’s the ultimate driving force: a space for parents to share their experiences with their youngsters.

Oh my God, so much for a little background!  Again,  I am too long-winded.  Other people might have an  abundance of money, but I have an equally abundant amount of, not money but words.  How wise is my son!