Project (Dis)Connection

Response #1: I just graduated from high school. I'm going to be attending college and studying chemistry. I intend to pursue a pre-med route, so if I excel on that route, then hopefully in five years, I'll be in a med school working on my MD. But I'll be more realistic. I know that it might not be possible, or it might be really hard, or I might burn out, or there might be some reason that I might not make it. I think I'm a very malleable person, so I can see myself going into a lot of different areas. I can see myself going into politics. I can see myself going into education. I just don't know yet. But at the moment, I would like to pursue something in the medical field.

Response #1: In terms of her future, I actually don't have too many plans. Maybe people won't believe that because they think Chinese parents all plan a lot for their children, but I actually haven't planned too much for her, because I want to give her space to let her explore on her own. I've always told her, you need to have your own dream; I'm just here to help you achieve your dreams. But in the process of helping her, I am rather strict. I tell her, even though she changes — she sometimes says she wants to be a scientist, she sometimes says she wants to be a lawyer, and wants to help her elders, et cetera — I tell her, since you have such big dreams, you best have a high starting point. Go to a relatively good school which will improve your career outlook. Then I say, since you have these standards, you have to hold yourself to these very high expectations. For example, we talk about the public high school she attended. Each grade level had several hundred people, and maybe only a few go to an Ivy-level college, so you have to be in the top 1%. So I do tell her about these things; it does seem like I'm giving her some pressure. But then, when we talk about what happens after she goes to college, we've had some discussions, but not many, and not that specifically. I think that when she was choosing colleges, a main reason she chose XX University was because she felt like XX was more balanced, as in there were more choices and she could explore more things. So, her dad and I are supportive. We just say that since she got into XX and has such a broad world, so many accomplished professors and classmates, we think we should just let her explore. She has always said that after her four years at college she will go to grad school no matter what, but we tell her, you don't have to get a PhD. You can go to law school, business school, even medical school. Heaven knows, in college you might meet friends who want to study medicine, and you might think that's pretty cool and want to learn it too. It's all possible. You might also take two years to work after your bachelor's, and then come back to complete graduate school when you feel more motivated. So we really aren't thinking of anything specific, and we don't place any assignments or wishes onto her. I just mostly want her to keep motivated. I trust that in college, she'll be motivated by the people around her, and then later she'll find a path that's suitable for herself.

Response #3: I think some of his attainable possibilities are that he has a better understanding of the direction of his passion, a better understanding of the trajectory of his major and his interests. Of course, these things might still change along with age and era, but as he first experiences becoming an 18-year-old adult, these choices are, "What am I going to learn? What is going to be my major?" This is the first thing he has to do in college. I'm also very happy to see him exploring on his own, like a child learning to swim. He's choosing among a lot of fields. I think that within these four years, he will have a pretty clear idea of an initial major selection. His life will have lots and lots of interesting things happening. The first is obviously that he will leave home for four years, this loving family, and looking back he'll see people helping him weather the wind and rain. When he himself enters the real world, he'll face hardships, and frustrations. I think frustrations are a very important source of learning in our lives. We cannot avoid them. I think that when you are young, experiencing some frustration is very valuable, but I hope he has the courage and wisdom to face these frustrations. This is why I say he needs to be healthy in the body and heart. Another big thing is romantic relationships. He is a young person, and slowly will learn to love. Maybe as an Asian family, I might think less about this. My thoughts and his dad's thoughts are actually very simple. We don't mind if our child decides to be single, or if he finds out that opposite-sex relationships aren't fitting. I think that's very good if he's happy with it. Perhaps he says, “I like people of the same sex.” I also think that's very good. As long as he thinks, "That's true love," then we love who you are, not who we want you to be. Maybe in this process of self-discovery, he will feel a lot of frustration. But as a parent I will tell him, "Throughout the years, regardless of what happens, if you need Dad and Mom by your side, we will be good listeners. We will be your support. In this world, we won't use any judgmental perspectives to judge you, because that's your life." Another point is that I think he might still be on campus after five years, because he really enjoys studying. I even think there's a possibility that he might just stay at the university and study until at last he's a professor. It's all possible, because I think he's someone who really enjoys that kind of environment. But he also has a very adventurous mindset. I think he has a very strong attraction toward money. He's not satisfied with just having a stable job, but he knows that a stable job is a foundation. Another thing is, after he walks into society, he will see a lot of social levels. Eventually, he will have his own social circle and social standing. I think that in four to six years, I can see something rather exciting for him, including painful and happy moments, but it will be four to six years full of growth.

Response #1: Her dad and I have always told her that career and family are both important in a person's life. Of course, after many women reach a certain age and have kids, they might not work anymore. This is something we witness a lot, putting focus on the family. Based on my daughter's personality, she probably won't do this, similarly to me as her mom. I'm pretty sure she'll always pursue her own career. But I always tell her that, as a woman, simultaneously having to keep up with your career pursuits and take care of your family is a really hard thing. Her dad and I also tell her — and this sounds a little funny, she thinks we're a little funny — to live as close to us as possible. 20 years later, she'll be at a stage where her career and family are both very busy. We'll both be retired. We'll both be able to help her, so she can have a better balance between work and family.
Her specific career, income, and field at that point we've not really thought about. We think there are too many possibilities; we don't say that certain things are better, and we don't even have preferences. We think it's hard to think of right now, and we're too lazy to think about it too. I shouldn't influence her too much, but I hope that no matter what she does, she'll also have a pretty good family life. Because I myself have a PhD, she has always thought she had to get a PhD too. She says, "I can't be less accomplished than my mom." But I tell her she doesn't have to have a PhD. I see lots of people without PhDs who are equally successful in their career developments. Even being a technical worker in a company, some become fellows without a PhD. So this is just to say, her thought process should be more open, and she doesn't need to just do research and get a PhD. She can also be an entrepreneur; she can also get a master's and then go be an engineer; she can also go to law school and be a lawyer, or go to business school, for example, to become a project manager or something like that. She has to explore. Of course, she already has a career she's interested in; she participated in science research in the past and wants to continue doing that. She also hopes to enter the school of science at her college and pursue research there, especially about things pertaining to physics and the environment. I do support her; I think I have no reason not to support her. If she's willing, it's worth a try. I always think that kids of this age are less able to be influenced by parents compared to friends or professors, right?

Response #11: According to my understanding of her, she will have two little kids, and she'll spend a lot of her energy on her family. I think that however large her career achievements are, they aren't important to her or to me. She's not a career-minded person, but that's totally fine with me. I think she'll still be a rather calm person, who won't have a lot of drama and also won't surprise me too much. She will live a very ordinary but rather relaxed life. There are a lot of things you can't predict in life, but I think she will be stable and steady, without many large ups and downs. She has been a relatively laid-back person since she was a child. A lot of Chinese parents might think this is bad, but to me, I think it's very good, because I think that, especially as a woman, if you have very high expectations for yourself, if you have career accomplishments, the pressure will be heavy. A lot of physical discomfort is caused by stress. Of course, it should not be too laid back. It's just to say that women need to know what they want, and they need to know to set up a boundary, know what is against their principles, and very firmly stop it. I think that children who grew up in the United States have a completely different background from those of us who grew up in China. We didn't learn to set boundaries, but now you know how to set boundaries, and there's a lot of information to teach you. I think my daughter is an independent person; she can't have codependency. No matter what happens with her future spouse, she can pick herself up and be on her own. I have confidence in her for this. Right now, her relationship with her boyfriend is quite stable. Honestly, I think they might walk the same path. That boy is also a rather quiet, rather responsible, rather calm person, so I think that together, they'll be a normal, typical middle-class family, with two kids and a steady income. They won't have major extravagances, but from the bits and pieces of their life, they have their own happiness. I think that boy is also a very pragmatic person. He knows to be frugal and not spend money arbitrarily, and he also doesn't have a lot of friends out there. She's someone who likes to socialize, but actually in the past two or three years, I was very surprised by her change.
With the situation in our family, after her dad and I split up, I was very worried that she was heavily influenced, because she was one of the main reasons for our separation. I'm scared that she feels guilty, and she's also told me before that she doesn't believe in love, doesn't believe in marriage, doesn't want kids. In her first few years of high school, she was a bit wild. She often went to join parties, and then later she would tell me lots of details. This was a wild time, but ever since she was together with this boyfriend, I think she underwent a really big change. It just made her very calm, and then she has an image of a traditional life structure. She told me she wants to get engaged at 24 or 25, and at 27 she wants to get married, and then have two kids at around 30. This is her plan right now. I think that's perfect. I never wanted her to stand out, Chinese parents all want their own kids to stand out — that's very normal, understandable, but to me, my goal is for her to be happy and healthy.

Response #3: I hope he can have a deeper and better understanding of, and a plan for financial independence. A person can spend a whole life changing and exploring their academics and career; you don't have to decide at 22 what you want to spend the rest of your life doing. But there are some things that are never too early to start, and never too old to think about: money can't accomplish everything, but nothing can be accomplished without money. People can't be controlled by money, but people need to have a lot of ability to create wealth. Maybe it's because I work in the financial field that I often tell this to him and his sister. Starting from high school, our family's method of teaching was to have him calculate his own allowance. He would tell me, "For this month, I need this much as my allowance." We also have clear boundaries about what this money covers. Any education expenses don't have to be covered by this money. It is all for his pleasure spending — for example, the kinds of clothes and shoes he wants to buy, the money he needs to hang out with friends. He needs a budget and a plan. I can see he has managed very well during these four years, so every month I just auto-deposit for him. I don't monitor what he does with that money. If he wants to buy marijuana, it's his money. I tell him he should start to invest early. I think he should start to learn about the market. Everything that happens in our lives financially, he needs to learn about it. I think this will give him a lot of freedom. In his upcoming life, he can make a choice with confidence. A lot of our choices have limitations because they are tied to our survival needs, but if he starts planning at this age and persists until he's 40 years old, I trust that he will already be accumulating a financial foundation, enough to let him have confidence and accomplish the life he wants to live. I also tell him, if there's a day he feels at ease financially and really wants to go back to college to do research or go be a teacher, some kind of ideal job that doesn't have a high salary, that's no problem. But as a precondition, first he needs to guarantee that he can cover his living expenses. I often share things like this with him, and he is also teaching me.
I think we as parents need to know how to let go of this authority. Other than this, I would not do anything to interfere with my children. I think he might not have left the college campus in five years; I think he will continue and go get a master's degree. He might also go into industry. He is cautious in some ways, but I think he has an eye for wealth. He might not have the kind of courage to do so, but I think he has the kind of smart vision to go search for the right people to do some interesting things with him.

Response #8: As parents, we ourselves didn't grow up in America. Our parents grew up in China, we grew up in China, and then we immigrated here, but our children grew up within an American cultural environment. There are challenging and painful parts, such as when we believe that some things might actually be right but discover that our children aren't willing to accept them. They think, "You shouldn't guide me, I want to search for myself." As parents, we can't not accept it because our children are in the larger cultural environment of America here. So that makes me wonder what the ideal really is. If we as parents want certain things, how meaningful is it to our children? I can only say that I would personally feel very satisfied if my child is in a certain state in the future – which to me is that he's very hardworking, and very self-motivated, very disciplined, and has a goal. It doesn't matter what that goal is. In Silicon Valley, most people want to be an entrepreneur, but even if he says, "No, no I don't want to follow that. I want to be a musician," I would still be very happy about that, as long as he has a clear goal he is working on and not just dreaming of. You can have a nice job with a high salary, and the people around think you're doing so well and even feel jealous of you — but if you don't have a clear goal, I actually don't think that's an ideal situation. I personally believe he is a very competent child, but I think he's not very driven to go toward a goal. I don't want to tell him this, though, only for him to misunderstand it and think, "I cannot make my mom happy. I even got into an elite college and still can't make her happy." Even if he didn't get into an elite college, he can still make me happy, and it's really not about me being happy or unhappy.
There are some things related to this that I want to point out to make life better for him. For example, he always likes to play and stream video games, and the online streaming community makes him happy. I believe that from a long-term perspective, it's good if he streams something with a theme that overlaps with what he wants to do in the future, but he's not a serious gamer and he won't go very far with these games. He'll spend a lot of time streaming each week, and I really oppose this, but it's his life, his decision.
He says he has ADHD, so it's very hard for him to settle down. I accept this. I think I myself have ADHD, but my experience is not that you take Adderall and things are great; I think it's something you have to adjust yourself mentally. If it were my approach, I believe you shouldn't just take medication, but instead you should be willing to see a counselor, or do some meditation, or do some more exercise, make yourself more disciplined, and find a way to follow a certain routine. These are my thoughts, but I think he just cannot, isn't willing to accept this.

What future do you see?