I have become acquainted with some young people, younger than 30, older than college kids, both boys and grils. They have one thing in common, that is, they are all dissatisfied with their current status. Some need to go back to school while others have not found their ideal jobs. Whenever they come to my attention, one question always comes to my mind. Would they have been better off if they had have different parenting when they were young? I strongly believe that proper parenting and guiding make big difference in a person’s life. Thus, I would not think it is their fault that they now are not happy with their lives.

Yes, you may say they can always come back to school or make extra efforts to make up for the lost time. Yet, if they were not equipped with the will to rise above when they were young, how can we realistically expect them to be better than their previous self? Most likely, nothing will change them too drastically at this stage of their life, as human beings are very much the products of habits and they have been too much controlled by the habits formed in the first 20 years of their lives. Like smoking, if you start young and get addicted, it will take extra dose of will power to get off the hook.

In the eyes of some minors, proper parenting may look like too much parental control. They may resent this at this age when they don’t know better and cannot see farther than their noses. Yet, if the minors cannot control themselves, responsible parents, instead taking an easy way out and giving up authority, should step forward and stand up for the children’s benefit. And it is better to exercise this uncomfortable control now and get them on the right track than letting the bad habit take over the control over them 10 years later.

This is another posting written especially for my children before their birthday.

This is one of the few postings that I write prior to their birthday. Most of them I have said to them before. In fact, I emphasize to them not once but several times. I won’t stop until I see the sign of improvement in them.

Firstly, you are 15 or 21 only once. Take full advantage of what you have at this moment because the moment will be gone forever, faster than you realize it.

Secondly, think ahead. It will always motivate you to action if you can think of this question everyday– what do you want to see yourself five years down the road?

Thirdly, when you were little and did not know better than wasting time while taking extracurricular classes. Now, it is high time you should realize that taking any classes is an investment, from which you should expect some returns. Like all investments, the cost for this one is your time.

You have way passed the age when you simply follow your instinct without thinking or do whatever you like, going around purposelessly and carefree. Get into the habit of making yourself accountable for the time you spent on these classes and any other activities, especially those classes that run year after year. That is, after dedicating a few years on one class, you should expect yourself to reach certain level on this and always try to make your skill work for you. If you don’t set any target of achievement and still behave like primary school pupils — doing thing for fun, you will most likely waste your time. You are better off putting this time into something else. In fact, it is high time that you should stop doing something just because you want, even if you have something more urgent on hand.

Yesterday morning I drove my daughter to Union Station for the last science seminar for this school year. It always feels my heart with excitement when I see the gathering of so many young people.

On the way back home, I shared my excitement with my daughter. Of course, she does not feel the same way since she is with people of this age group everyday and in fact, she is one of them.

These young people not only remind me the days when I was their age, but also the dreams and aspirations that I used to have back then. For them, the world is yet unfolding before their eyes, filled with unlimited opportunities and possibilities. As I was told before, the sky is the limit. Reach out for your dream and your future will be as bright as anything you can imagine.

I mentioned to my daughter some young people that both of us know of. I cannot say the same thing of those people as they are over 10 years of her senior and have way passed their high school years.

Alas, we are young and have this unlimited opportunities only once. Time and tide wait for none. Nothing will be the same once the youth years are gone. Talk about type A personality! This is especially written for my children.

On the Sunday of 2/7/2010, while I was waiting outside the rink for my daughter’s skating, I had a nice chat with a parent whose daughter was also in the rink. She came from Taiwan and told me something interesting about Taiwan. Well, interesting because I hear of the same thing going on in mainland China. It is called chewing the old bones. That is, adult children living off the backs of their parents.

These adult children have graduated from college but choose to stay at their parents’ home doing nothing. Because they have not found a job of their like. Sometimes, it is because they don’t like what they are paid; or they are afraid of hardship involved in the job; or they don’t like people around their work place. Anyway, they can find thousand of lame excuses for not working outside home because they can always live on either their parents’ paycheck or their parents’ life time savings.

I know of one such young people staying home for a year after graduation, saying “I could go to work at … because the few thousand monthly salary is not worthy it…” I don’t know what has happened to young people today, but I firmly believe the root of this problem lies in the parents who have spoiled and continued to spoil and ruin their children. The adult children could always find some earnings at a fast-food restaurant before they land on their ideal position. But they wouldn’t. Because they have their loving parents to feed and shelter them. Nice parents, complain not. You reap what you sow. For the adult children, enjoy your leisure till the old bones are thoroughly consumed.

March is the month for both of my children, the month reminds me how much I have been blessed by their presence.

Every time my son calls and asks about me, I feel so much blessed;
Every time my daughter calls me from downstair, “Mom, come and eat delicious food,” I feel delicious food already in my mouth;

When my son talks to me about his plan and activities, I feel abubdantly proud and rewarded.
When my daughter told her brother “Mom has been sick” and my son asked me over the phone why I did not tell him this, I am certain I am already better with their loving concern.

When I come home tired, my daughter insists that I rest in bed and not cook the dinner, I feel a warm stream rushing through my body.

Parents will enjoy the blessing of the shade when the young seedlings they raised with tender loving care have grown into skyscraping trees, able to stand any extreme weather, and ready to give back to those who have loved and raised them.

During my early school years, there were something that was kept pumping into my ears, so much so that I didn’t really have a good feeling about it at that time but it is this something that I remember clearly and now I am doing the same thing on my children the way it was crammed down on me. The main idea is you always plan at the beginning of the day or the year or any activity instead of at the end of it when it is too late.

I remember how my father had serious talks with me on laying out a plan for the summer break or winter break. It was basically no different from what we now do, setting a goal and an action plan for reaching this goal. How I disliked it when I longed nothing but play for my break. Now I realize it is such a wise move and a good habit, so that I would not fool away the precious time, though I am not sure I cared that much about time.

Even my daughter has heard of SMART action plan. How darling it is, except not many people follow their plans to the letter. I wish both of my children would listen to me and get into the habit of having a good plan before any activities.
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timebound

This is written for all the young people that I care of, especially for my children.
Computer technologies are wonderful things when they can take us surfing globally without ever leaving our bedrooms or even bathrooms. Yet, I have posted some entries on the negative sides of this and I am doing it again as I observed nothing less than this psychological addiction to the internet among young people that I know of, including my own children. They find no life nor meaning outside computer, so much as that the touch of the topic triggers a sure fight between parents and their children.

As with all culture artifacts, there are producers and consumers, with the formers being the creators of these artifacts, the makers and movers in human history. The consumers are those who passively view and receive whatever channeled to them through the internet. There is nothing wrong with being consumers, only if you don’t care about consuming away everything you value in your life.

It is rather foolish to assume the consumers pay nothing for whatever channeled to them via the internet. As far as I can see, when people pour large chunks of time day and night, month rolling into years, they pay with the most expensive price for internet consumption — that is, their time and their dear life.

Yet, it is a terrible realization when you have consumed away your daily hours and then your youthful years, with the ultimate casualty of this addiction being your dream and ideal, your future and your life. This is not a false alarm. It is a real heartfelt wakeup call. The sooner you wean yourself off this addiction, the brighter is your future. Otherwise, doom to that future of yours and whatever dreams you may have. With that, you will remain a lifelong mediocre internet consumer.

I talked to my son about yesterday’s posting as I believed he could have played a positive role and could have prevented it from happening. I also wanted him to learn a lesson from this. I reminded him of the time when the other adult in the family threatened to disconnect our internet service. My son was around my daughter’s age and was on the internet all the time. Imagine what would become of him if both adults stood firm behind this decision.

I imagine without the internet my son would spend more time with his friends who had internet connection. He would spend less time at home and less time doing school work. One can never tell what he would do all the time at his friends’ house. One thing I am positively sure if that happened, he would not be able to go to the kind of college that he is in.

It is important that we do not lose sight of the big goal. Sometimes, in order to reach your goal, it is crucial that parents know how to be flexible and how to bargain some terms with the children so that both sides give in a little inch and move forward a whole mile. It is stupid to insist on parental authority all the time as if parents were always right. It is even more stupid to think that a parent is the boss of the family and must have the final word and must be the winner in any fight with the children. What kind of victory is that when a parent defeats the children? When the children lose, no one wins in the end.

While I was in China, I was very concerned about my daughter and the other adult.

Indeed, fight occurred between the two as I was afraid all the time, and with rather disastrous consequence. After I got back, I saw something broken in the house, a telephone and a small table — my daughter did it when she was mad at the other adult.

“He promised to take me to bookstore after I have finished my homework and piano practice. After I’ve done everything, he still wouldn’t take me,” explained my daughter.

The other adult said he had not promised and my daughter had not finished her work. More important, she would have a chapter test the next day and should have prepared for it.

My daughter thought the other adult was unreasonable and threatened not to go to school any more. “Fine with me. I don’t care,” was the answer. This droved her so mad that she started expressing her anger in as forceful manner as she felt pleased.

The consequence of the fight:
(1) My daughter did not go to bookstore
(2) She wasted the whole unknown amount of time without preparing for the upcoming test.
(3) The result of that chapter test turned out to be the worst of all, directly threatened the whole semester grade and more.
(4) My small table became a shambles
(5) A telephone and others are out of use.

To me, the biggest damage is her study. Both my daughter and I were nearly speechless when we saw the test result. For the rest of the semester, she needs to muster all her energy to pull herself out of the mess. I will have to think twice next time I go back to China.

The fight was ugly to the extreme. It is what it is.

A friend of mine sent me a long piece on why people come into our lives. I cite the season part below.

“People come into your life for a REASON, a SEASON or a LIFETIME. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person.
…
Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.
…”

They are your children who come into the lives of their parents only for a season. When the season is over, they move on to their own lives. Therefore, treasure every moment of it when the season is still in.

P.S. I contacted two college classmates the next day after I arrived in Beijing, whom I have not seen for some years. To my surprise, the two reacted differently to my contact, with one sounding warm-heartedly and the other communicating coldness and suspiciousness, as if … Well, very interesting because they come from different social backgrounds.

A heavy snow greeted us on the Christmas morning, 12/25/2009. I knew we expected a family coming over for dinner and we might have to drive out in the morning, so I started out shoveling the snow on our drive way. Boy, it was a backbreaking and lip-biting task! I felt like going to collaps after this unwilling workout.

Back home I thought it a good opportunity for my daughter to learn a lesson. So I told her, “Get up quickly. You got a good opportunity to earn some spending money. Just go to one of our neighbors and said, “Merry Christmas. Can I shovel snow on your drive way for $10?”

She welcomed the idea and went out cheerfully but she had no idea how hard the job was. I thought she would appreciate this hard-earned money after this exercise. My son went to help her. Actually my son did the large part of shoveling. The neighbor lady was so kind and gave her $40 instead. She gave her brother half of it but her brother did not take it.

I was so proud of my daughter. When she got back home, she was exhausted. “Are you happy you did it?” I asked. “Yea, sure,” said she.

P.S. Back to work and in some way to a break, after a long weekend at home with many people running around and equal number of high-pitched voices yelling in the sky. More on this later.

So much has been going on at the same time — my son came back last Friday, my daughter just finished the finals yesterday, and I am in the process of moving into another clinic, a bit further away from home, but a welcome move as people at the new site are much nicer than some that I have been working with.

Yesterday evening the whole family plus the relative went to take a walk at a big mall, which did not end up pleasantly. After that my son and I took a long walk outside, talking and exchanging views on issues that concerned both of us. By the time we got home, it was after 10 PM. He took away a novel that his sister was reading, drove her to a local bookstore, where he wanted to get her a good book. I know he will have some serious talk with his sister.

I am so glad he is home. I know he will be of tremendous help to me. In fact he is the only help that I can count on. I cannot think of anyone beside him who genuinely cares for his sister. With his help, the future should be bright. Let’s hope.

Toward the evening of 12/17/2009, I talked to one of my high school classmates over the phone about the education of our youngsters, her child being the same grade as mine. She told me something rather amusing on the surface but equally disturbing when I dwell more upon it.

Her child loves watching TV and spends large chunks of time in front of it. Knowing her parents’ position on her TV passion, she would turn it off right before her parents return home. This reminds me of my children who minimize the Internet page when I approach them, knowing too well that they are doing something they are not supposed to. Children are so good at this hiding game.

I often tell my children that the worst part of this game is they are cheating themselves. What really happens is they cheat away their time and their lives. They victimize themselves while trying to outsmart their parents. What a huge loss! I wish my children are smarter than this.

By the way, we went to the airport tonight to meet my son. So glad to have him back.

One week has passed since my son left for college last Monday, 11/30/2009. Each time he comes back, I can see the change in him and he is getting more mature than before.

“Study is a privilege,” he told his sister. Not many young people at his age have come to this realization. One acquaintance of mine talked about going back to school this way, “It’s fun to go back to school.” I find it difficult to see fun in such a privilege as they are not even remotely related. Indeed, we often come to value this privilege after we left school.

He is getting better with time management. In fact, he talked to his sister on her time management problem. “When you come back home, go straight to your homework. Don’t say, ‘Oh, I work the whole day at school. I need to take a break before I hit books again.’ Because very often, before you realize it, many hours have gone and you have not started on your homework.” Indeed, this is exactly what happen right now. One of his friends often surfed around on the Internet until it is around midnight, “OMG, I have homework due tomorrow.” Then down into the night the student goes.

Another good advice to his sister — “Don’t turn on the computer as long as you can. Work on your book as much as possible. Because time runs very fast once you are on the computer.” Oh boy, don’t we know all this! I wish she could take this advice seriously.

Right now, a lot of their high school homeworks are posted on the internet. It seems you can hardly get anything done without the Internet. My son advised his sister, “When you take a 5-minute break from computer homework, stand up and do something else instead of staying on the internet. Chances are you will spend a lot longer on the computer if you use the break to surf the net.” Indeed, once you are online, there seems millions of icons screaming for your attention. With one click after another, pretty soon your time and life are sadly consumed, of no avail.

Knowing his sister was going to take SAT the next Saturday, he spent a large chunk of time working with her, explaining to her difficult concepts, much more clear and effective than anyone else. She rates him as the best tutor of all. I can’t believe he is getting so much better as a tutor.

We walked around the Plaza and Town Center. Such a blessing to have him back.

On 11/21/2009, my daughter was going to do homework and prepare for SAT that Saturday afternoon. Certain conflict occurred between she and another adult in the family. When she was extremely upset over what she perceived as unreasonableness, she said “If you are unreasonable, I am going to be unseasonable, too.” Next, she declared loudly that she was not going to take SAT, that she did not care going to college any more. Whatever she said, the other adult was non-stop playing on the computer as if the words fell on deaf ears.

That reminded me of an incident when my son was around her age. The other adult threatened to disconnect the internet service, my son was so agitated that he said he would not go to school if the internet was disconnected. “Whom do you threaten? I am not afraid of your not going to school at all. Go ahead” was the answer. Same thing happened to my daughter again.

Overly concerned was I at that moment, watching my daughter wasting the afternoon on the internet, doing something that she knew she should not do, just to express her anger. She had exactly two weeks before SAT and an exam early next week. I knew I had to do something to bring sense to her. So I took her out and we talked and talked, then finally she decided to go back to her study, saying “I have been acting like a simpleton.” Indeed, she later had to make up for the lost hours by working till two hours after midnight while the other adult was still on the computer, oblivious of anything outside the gaming world.

While giving my hearty applaud to my children’s quick return to sense, I am looking ahead not without concerns. I have these words for my children–

Losing a few hours of sleep is but a small price that you have to pay now. It could cost you a lot more in the future if you don’t grow out of this immature, irresponsible and totally senseless behavior. Things often happen even if we cannot make sense of them. No matter what happens and how upset you are with whatever unreasonableness, never express anger or any hard feelings by punishing yourself. Never lose sight of your big goal and your ideal self. Indeed, when you quit school or give up SAT, you are ruining your own future and your own life. Nothing can be as stupid as spitting out your anger by inflicting self-injury. I hope they can learn to bypass any negativity on their way to success.

A few days ago, a high school friend of mine exchanged notes with me on high school children, each of us having one with the same grade. Both of us feel exhausted over these children. Before my son left for college, he was the most busy person in the family. Now is my daughter’s turn or should be hers. But as it is, I seem to be that busy person. Up at 6 and off for work at 6:15, this way I can be home around 3 PM and be with my daughter. Each day ends with me feeling on the brink of breakdown. Good thing she appreciates it greatly now.

I told my daughter, “In a sense, getting ready for college is more crucial than getting a job.” If you fail to get one job or even a hundred offers, you forever have the second chance, as long as you don’t give up. College application is an once-in-life chance. If you fail to be admitted into your dream place for your bachelor, too bad, no more second time for the majority of people. You can only try getting there for your master or Ph.D. later in your life, as my son will do.

This is also the most busy years for parents. As the children approach graduation, parents realize time’s running out and feel the urgency of getting them ready for the big leap out of their first nest. Once they leave their first home, you can see they become more and more independent and moving faster and farther away from home. And as their world, full of new friends and all kinds of ventures, is moving farther away from yours, those precious moments prior to their high school graduation are also becoming distant memory.

With this thought, I appreciate driving her to art class, piano lesson, her friend’s home, library, bookstore, community service center, and even clothes shopping.

On 8/20/09, I walked to SMS high school for the Back-to-School Night, hoping to meet and get to know all her new teachers at high school, as part of my preparation for her upcoming school. Some of my colleagues asked me if I had taken my daughter to back-to-school shopping. I thought it strange as I have always related school to study not to shopping. Beside, what is it to buy when the school provides all the books?

Being in the states for a quarter of a century, I am still an old-fashioned parent, believing nothing is as important as study, without being unable to comprehend the meaning of back-to-school, that is, until my daughter repeatedly asked me to take her out for clothes shopping. I hear some girls spend nearly two hours in the morning to get themselves ready, make-up and dress-up, for showing up in school. Some go clothe-shopping every week. Many of them feel they must dress up to the latest fashion. Otherwise, they will lose face or don’t look decent enough to be seen. They are forever a puzzle to me.

Realistically, I don’t expect my children to accept my value. Still, while they still listen to me, I will make my view known to both of them and hope they will come to accept it some day. Even if you don’t spend as much as others in clothes and don’t look up-to-the-minute, you won’t compromise your dignity and value as long as you take good care of your mind and body. I understand it takes some courage and maturity to be able to throw out of windows those transient fads and fancies and rise above them all. No criticism of whatsoever.

I was so glad to hear my son calling from Detroit yesterday. He came back from China on Wednesday, 8/26/09. We talked a lot as he seemed to be impressed by many things that he saw on his trip to China.

One of the things that we talked was on the role that parents played in shaping their children’s perception of their future. When a parent fails to provide a positive role model, I believe most children would not say ill of their parents, even if they can be objective and truthful on other matters. I think it takes certain degree of maturity to be able to appreciate their parents objectively. Same is true with my children. I don’t expect them to say what they truly think of their parents as they do not want to see their parents getting hurt.

To be sure, our reflections and memories of the past are always emotionally charged, going to two extremes — either positive or negative. An acquaintance of mine has an unpleasant past experience with her mother, so much so that she cannot conceal her anger and rather intolerable negative comments on her mother now, as if her mother had absolutely no redeeming quality at all.

No matter what they may say now, I believe my children will choose their path based on their own judgment and the role model they decide to follow, just as their cousins choose their path. Whatever they choose will reveal, without words, the role model they have in mind. If they choose to game away their hours off work, that clearly shows they have chosen to follow the path different from mine. Whatever they choose, it is their decision and they will receive nothing but respect for their own decision.

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee,

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee.

My son did not want me to sing this song. He said, “I don’t like this song. It makes me sad.” Once we saw an old person, he asked me, 
“What happened to him?” 
“Nothing, he is just old,” said I.
“Why does he get old?” asked he.
“No why. Everybody will get old, someday, if they can live that long,” I explained.
For some time he did not say anything, then he started crying, “I don’t want mommy getting old. I don’t want to get old.”
…
That was 16 years ago. And I still remember the tears on his fat baby cheeks. I was worried that he was to grow into a very sensitive boy. But then, flashing back to his high school years, I remember he often walked around with a couldn’t-care-less air, without any appearance of that sensitivity. Today, the scene of a group of high school seniors ready for their prom took me back to my son’s graduation party about 2 years ago. I guess when push comes to shove, we all can play tough.

I love telling my daughter this piece of history. On the way from Fort Wayne, Indiana to McLean, Virginia in January 1997, I was driving in a snowy weather, with one arm on the steering wheel, and my daughter, less than 2 years old, grabbed my other arm and laid her head on it, falling asleep, so content and peaceful. I must be really tough at that time, driving all the way like this. Can you imagine that?

Yesterday evening, right after work, I picked up my daughter, got home, grabbed some food, headed for skating place for her 5 PM lesson and did not get home until after 10 PM. Today, we left home for her art lesson, then for skating lesson, got back around 4 PM. In the evening we were off to skate again for the 9 – 11 PM session. I was singing Puff the Magic Dragon on the road to skating. We got to be tough with busy schedule like this.

Early this morning, someone and her cousin got into a verbal fight, with each opposing each other’s weakness — she on his English and he on her Chinese.  This would eventually accelerate into exchanges of fists. A rough way to start a Sunday. With great patience, I talked, reasoned, pleased, and even threatened to leave the house for the rest of the day. Nothing worked. They were too much locked in the fight. I felt my energy, patience and life being drained away over such a senselss trivia when I had plans for today.  I must show my teeth to stop it, otherwise they would not listen. So I did and off I went.

Not that I wanted to take this step, but that they must understand I meant what I said. And their undesirable behavior is not unconsequential. To be sure, this is really no big deal. What really unacceptable to me is seeing my daughter so stubbornly fixed her eyes on other people’s weak spot when she has a lot more important matters that need her immediate urgent attention.  Also, for the past few days, I have repeatedly drilled into her head the need to focus on the major not the minor things in life.

She understands that she does not feel good when her weak spot is poked by others. Then why does she poke other’s weakness?  While she knows my position and feeling on issues like this, she still insists on doing it. I don’t understand why.

It would give me tremendous pleasure if someone could ignore whatever petty offenses thrown on her way and have her eyes on bigger issues, like enhancing her skills and school performances, moving closer to her goal.  Lack of a goal to pursue, we are easily trapped and sidetracked by petty bickering like this.  Have I expected too much? Or is it reasonable to expect this of her?

I suddenly realize this kind of conflict is not that of cultural or generational, or is it? By the way, this is the first weekend after my sister left. I dare not think ahead too far ahead now.

When my son was about 9 or 10 years old, I took him and his friend to a local kids game store, where I gave each of them $5.  I was hoping $5 could last a few hours.  His friend changed his $5 bill into quarters and used them up in one sitting in less than 30 minutes. After that, he came to me asking for more.  My son changed one dollar for 4 quarters and used one quarter on some kind of gambling machine, where he inserted the coin and spinned, hoping it would bring back more coins.  After 30 minutes, he came to me with more than $5.

I would assume playing the gambling machine must seem more fun to my son than the pure game machine that his friend played.  At least I hoped he had a good time.  I was preoccupied with his noisy friend’s demand for more money and forgot to ask my son what he was thinking at that time.

My son revised my word and used it on me when I told him, “Baby drinks milk and grow taller.”  When I told him to eat more meat so that he would have more meat in him, he said “Baby eat more vegie, baby have more vegie in baby.”

Things got serious when he imitated me so closely. Once I was driving with him sitting in the back. A car suddently cut in front of me, forcing me to hit brake suddently.  Needless to say, that driver deserved a sound lashing. So I did.  Before I finished my profuse cursing, I heard a tender, childish voice behind me uttering exact the same words.

It was at that time that I realized I needed to bleach my mouth really hard in front of this little mimic.  Like it or not, parents are said to be the first all-time teacher of their children.  The desire to bring up a good decent person forced me to be that person first.  So that is what I have become, for the sake of my children.  That is why I say in the process of their growing up experience they have changed me as much as I have changed them.

Both of my children, being good students of capitalism, have at some point in their primary school years tried to get money out of me by offering to do some household chores. “Mom, how about I help you do the dishes and you pay me $5?” my son would come to me with this offer. My daughter would not settle for less than $10.

My reply often went like this, “How about you pay me $1 for cooking for you, $1 for doing laundry for you, $1 for cleaning your room, $1 for helping you when you have homework questions, $1 for taking you to school, $1 for taking you to your friend’s house, $1 for reading Chinese stories to you at bedtime, $1 for  …” The list could run longer than his body length.  My son would stop me before I completed my list, “Never mind, mom. You can keep your money.”

I realized many American kids get paid for helping around the house. I do not do something just because all the rest of the humanities do.  My daughter has heard it again and again the concept of social group.  The theory goes like this, we all belong to some kind of social group at any point of our lives.  Family, school, club, team are all different forms of social group.  Everybody is expected to contribute to the social group he/she belongs to.  If, instead of adding values to the group, you are seen as a burden or a pest, people would say “Good riddance” instead of “Good bye” when you leave this group. I am sure you do not want to be got rid of like this.

They understand the theory and are eager to be key players and have their presence appreciated by the group they are in.  They all have contributed to their class at school by raising the average grade of their class.  But at home, let me tell you a secret about having two children — household work is like a football, they kick it to each other. Too bad they have each other to kick about.  I often violate the rule by picking up the ball most of the time. To be fair, my son did a lot more when his sister was too small to walk and my daughter does even more when her brother is in Boston.

My son said this when he was in a Methodist church daycare in Bowling Green, Ohio. He was the only Chinese there and there was a black girl called Amber. One day my three-year-old son came back asking me,
“Mom, am I white or black?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t want to be black,” he said.
“Why?”
“Nobody plays with Amber,” he told me.
Now I understood what was on his mind. Keen observer but a sad observation for a three-year-old. I had not expected people in this small town behaved differently from this, yet I was truely amazed at his choice. I told him he was a Chinese, neither black nor white. He said “I wanted to be white, not anything else.” Oh-Oh, identity crisis, self-rejection in this melting pot, I said to myself. It was hard to explain all this to him at this age. I wished I had a magic wand and transform him into a white boy and then transformed him back to Chinese when he was ready to accept himself as a Chinese. So I promised him I would try some magic and do the transformation. He was happy with this and forgot the whole thing the next second, but to a mom with a worried bone, the incident left me thinking for a long time about many big sociological concepts, which I just learned.

When my son was little and I was at school, my family in China sent us a lot of clothes to help us out. Also because clothes cost a lot less in China than there. He never complained about it until he entered primary school in Fort Wayne, IN. He refused to wear any clothes that had Chinese characters or that did not look like American clothes. One day he came back with an unhappy face and talked with a whining tone because his classmates called him Chinese. So sad. We had many talks on self-acceptance, self-esteem, diversity, etc. But no radical transformation in his soul ever took place. I thought it took certain level of maturity to really accept yourself. Look at me, a century passed before I became a little bit mature. With that, I really needed to give him more time and let him mature at his own pace.

As I observed, he slowly started accepting himself and became proud of his cultural heritage. By high school he had traveled to China many times, read or been read about China, watched Chinese movies and TV shows, listened to Chinese stories, and learned about famous Chinese people.

The cumulative dose of Chinese cultural essences must have worked its magic. Also, he met some other Asian students in high school and during his national competitions, some of who have become his best friends. Here’s a telling evidence proving knowledge is not only power but also key to self-acceptance and feeling on the top of the world. With that, everybody is happy ever after.

My son would make your day utterly miserable when you pointed out the mistakes in his “home homework.”  That happened during his primary school years.  When he dashed through his homework and made tons of mistakes, I could not say anything for I knew his reactions to my criticism.  “Mom, at least I did it.  If you don’t want me to do it, I’m not going to do it at all.” he threw these words at me.

I knew he was a reasonable boy, so I reasoned with him. “Do you want me to be silent when I see you have done something incorrect? Don’t you want to learn from your mistakes and become smarter?” I asked. “Yes, but you said it again and again and I’m fed up with it,” he replied. “Ok, I promise I will say it once and you got to promise not to lose temper the first time I correct your mistakes.”

We both wrote down our promise. To this day, I still have his hand-written promise. However, the written promise had failed to help him keep his temper.  I needed to think of something else to buffer the effect of my unwelcome criticism.  So here’s the next trick.  I told my him, “Son, I have something to say but I dare not.”  He would encourage me to say it.  I would say, “Only if you promise not to throw a temper at me,” I said with a smile inside. “I promise,” he said seriously. 

That was how I approached him with his mistakes. Not long after that he happily outgrew his temper tantrums and transformed into a person with a much gentle nature.  I have learned that love alone won’t always make both you and your child happy; sometimes a little finesse could avoid a home-made World War III.