"Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" lol

I would probably be happy with a pretty wide range of jobs, but the problem for me is convincing people that I should get them.

Of course you should get them! Yadda yadda yadda! Inspiring crap here!

[Not that that's not HEARTFELT filler text, mind.]

@Black Humor: I like making up stories in my head, occasionaly making myself get off my butt and actually write those stories - and if I succeed that's just a huge high - doodling, and lurking on serious political threads here on TV Tropes to learn more about politics. In fact, learning more about most things, actually. If I could get paid for going to college for the rest of my life, I'd be in Heaven.

If I could get paid for going to college for the rest of my life, I'd be in Heaven.

that's exactly why i want to be a university professor. i'm going to be in school for the rest of my life. that's how much i like it. DD:

edited 31st Jan '11 9:02:03 PM by SelphieFairy

Ah, but then you'd have to do the teaching, and it would probably be the same thing year after year. I'd just like to be the one sitting there absorbing the information.

Now, you do know that research assistant (or whatever the technical name is for the job the QI elves have, according to Wikipedia research assistant is something more specific) is a fairly common kind of job, right?

In fact "look X up and summarize it for me" is one of the most common tasks any boss will ask their employees, because the boss can't spend all their time researching stuff and still have time to make decisions.

So, TLDR I think you're doing pretty good whatever you do.

ah that's why i want to be at a RESEARCH university.

i get it though. i SERIOUSLY contemplated on going to lectures for a class i wasn't enrolled in just because I wanted to enjoy listening and learning without the pressure of grades. they were at 8 AM too btw. i'm crazy. :|

Black Humor: You still seem to be under the impression that, meh, you might not make as much as you'd like doing your dream job, but you'll make enough to get by. You really need a reality check.

Yes, there are people out there like Weird Al who make a living doing all kinds of crap, but for every one of them, there are many people who would like to do the same thing but would never earn any money from it.

Take fiction writers like me and OTOH, for instance. Publishers accept less than 1% of manuscripts submitted, meaning that for each published author, there are a hundred who do not get published, and that's not counting those who failed to get an agent or put together a submittable manuscript. And just getting published doesn't pay the bills, either—most books scarcely even earn back their publication costs. All this for a single book, before you account for how frequently you'd need to publish to make a living off it. Fiction writing: Great hobby. Terrible career.

This is true for most careers that one would qualify as "fun:" If you want to spend all your time doing it, chances are that far more other people want to spend their time doing it, too (barring the possibility that your dream job is, say, dental hygiene, in which case go for it).

Of course you're still in high school, so you're convinced you'll be that one guy who actually makes a living off of whatever it is.

Well, hey, I think part of being in high school is to find out that you actually have multiple dreams, and to figure out which of those is actually viable. That's what I'm doing right now. I want to become an author, but that's impractical. But I also want to become an environmental scientist and help push America to being greener and cleaner and more self-sufficient. That's certainly less fun, but it holds a completely different kind of appeal - the day-to-day crap might be boring, but I would have the satisfaction of knowing that my job means something.

Your math is unnecessarily pessimistic.

Yes I know how unlikely it is for a publisher to accept your book, but:

1. That is the rate for someone trying to break in the industry for no experience at all. An already published author, or an author with some kind of connections, has a much easier time of it.
2. Even so that's still 1% per publisher, which if you send it to 30ish publishers is around 25% total chances. Still not great, but for a total newbie who isn't even trying for connections that's not bad.

And that's for a much narrower subset of job than most people try to get into. Most people who like writing in general do not try novel writing as their main thing, they try journalism or copy writing or something easier. Only the people who only like fiction do fiction.

And any career (or nearly any career) is fun to somebody. You make fun of dentists, but somehow the happiest doctors I've known have been dentists, which seems to indicate they like it. It doesn't have to be a stereotypically "fun" job; I personally couldn't stand writing fiction even if I could get into it.

@Black Humor: True, tons of people end up loving their jobs. But very few succeeded in making a job out of a hobby. I won't contradict you when you said you met a ton of happy dentists; so have I. But do you think when they were fifteen these people thought, "You know, I really love brushing my teeth. That's my passion in life; I'll make a career out of it"?

Also, if your work really isn't marketable, it's unlikely that one publisher would be much more likely than another to take it on. And there's the hurdle of actually making money to live off of once you get published.

Granted most dentists probably decided to be a dentist at least partway into college if not into med-school. I don't really care how you get there, I just care that you do.

And granted not many people succeed in making a job out of a hobby, at least not without heavy adaptation. But "things you like to do" is much broader than "hobbies", or at least hopefully it is.

And also granted that that 1% is not independent of other rejections; but then I never claimed it was easy to do this, I just claimed it was worth doing.

I'm actually wondering how I'm going to make money in the field I'd like to be in—which is policy consulting and political strategy. - Glenn Magus Harvey

Hmm, the only chinese mother I know was more of an OTOH "SAP" than this article crazy type, and her son turned out pretty good. Well, except for being gay...

^ Lawl.

Though if I had money I could play politics AND make myself known with less trouble. :P

We're not a wealthy family, and I've grown up to have a bunch of cool and idealistic but microeconomically-useless views of things, so if anything I'dsay that my mom's concern with my making a decent living is probably founded.

The thing about going into college convinced that you're going to be a lawyer or surgeon or what have you is that most of those kids are walking in thinking "oh this is going to net me a successful future" and not "oh, this is going to be a math and science rigorous course with far reaching consequences and dedication needed", which explains a large part of the 40% transfer rate that seems to happen at my college.

Now, since I've read through this whole thread in one go, I'm going to backpedal a bit to respond to something I found as the almost unanimous rant tone towards the beginning and middle of the thread.

I will state this upfront right now before I say anything else, and even then I think by the end of my post, someone will have completely forgotten my stance. I personally believe this lady is insane and extreme. I also know plenty of people like her.

I am very much Chinese, and I'm not going to tiptoe around that. However, what has been incensing me this whole time while reading both the articles and comments is the stance of criticism taken against her. I'd support it if it didn't seem to offhandedly insult me. The worse part being that most of the posters didn't even mean to do so.

The stereotypical arguments that this lady is suppressing her children's creativity or dooming them to crash and fail the moment they leave her sight really bothers me. Why? Because you are essentially saying to the thousands, if not millions, or genuinely creative individuals who HAVE BEEN RAISED IN THIS MANNER that they have somehow had their personality and individual qualities stripped away by their overbearing parents and "lol sorry you guys have so many problems". No, not in those words. Yes, I am exaggerating. No, I am not joking. The overall feel is the same.

My parents are ridiculously strict. I'm not going to argue with Chua's stance that Asian parents are stricter than Western parents. It isn't an absolute, but nothing in the world is. However, in my own experiences, this has been true in practically every single occasion I've met. And yes, my parents can be blunt with the "Hey fattie-lose some weight". I have heard practically that exact line. And I don't consider myself one bit mentally scarred by the pressure.

What a lot of the criticism directed towards her seems to indirectly apply to me is that I am some sort of emotionally scarred, creatively repressed, drone like individual. While I know this is not the message intended to be sent across, it is the one that is seeping through. And it is honestly insulting. I have had sessions where my father forced me to stand in the corner for hours or do hundreds of problems at a time to reinforce my learning. Did I hate it with all my might? Yes. Did it somehow mentally stunt my growth or emotionally scar me for life? Implying so is annoying. Did I learn something out of it? Yes. Now some people are going to say that's the wrong lesson, but who honestly has the right to say that?

I may have been drilled for long hours in music and study, but I also have a wide range of hobbies and ideas outside the normal scope of strictly academic learning. I may not have been allowed to go to sleepovers or parties on school nights, but does this mean I'm incapable of functioning normally in a social group?

Some of the most talented artists and musicians I've ever met have been raised in traditionally East Asian households with similar mindsets. What people seem to be missing is that, love for an activity and skill are two different things. You could love music with all your heart and soul and think "omg this is my calling!" but if you don't have the competitive spirit and dedication to mastering it, that isn't any better. And one more thing, if you really love something, you won't stop loving it no matter how hard some pushes you. I've been playing piano my whole life and my parents have always been pressuring me to ridiculous extents. My anger was towards my parents, not directed towards a lack of love or interest in my piano. And even then, it didn't last long. The anger that is.

I'm not going to argue over things such as suicide over failed university exams, or people who lose it completely from all the pressure. Those things are very much true, and it's true for all people that if you push them hard enough, they break.

That being said, there was this one experience I personally had that I remember clearly. When I was talking to my friend about my parents'...well, parenting when I was over at her house (sometime when I was around 13 or so) her mother was listening to us. I remember her coming over and saying, "Oh you poor girl" as if I was something to be pitied. The only emotion I can recall immediately is anger and annoyance. Why is that, for some reason, because I happen to be raised this way in a prevalent Western teaching mindset society, I am apparently something damaged?

I agree with Chua's stance on strength, though not her methods. If there's one thing I can be sure of, it's my own strength of character and confidence no matter what someone says to me. And that was fostered in an environment similar to what was described. Then how come because I happen to be a certain, strong individual (which under any other circumstance apparently would be great) who was raised this way somehow seems to make my strength of character the result of some sort of battle hardened, cynical experiment?

What may have started as a debate about the article and book (which I admit I have not read) seems to have leaned far too much towards the other end as a result. :I

edited 1st Feb '11 12:45:50 AM by Skyrius

I don't think any of us have read the book, to be honest. And it's not like the topic is about it anymore...

One place where the problem may lie is one's expectations of what others think/expect of 'em or what 'ey expect 'ey can or may do in a given situation. One could argue, along similar lines to those who defend stricter parenting, that stricter parenting makes the child more accustomed to feeling a subconscious need (in the form of responsibility) to achieve success up to a certain measurable standard.

That said, I still caution that it can become too easy for a child to rely on 'eir parent(s) for motivation to achieve in "proper" things such as academic work, and to have trouble when such motivation is removed, such as when going to college/university.

@Sky: All right. I understand that you're exaggerating your side and ours, so I won't respond harshly or respond in specifics.

Nobody (as far as I know, it's a big thread) has said strict parenting makes children into drones. Likewise, casual parenting doesn't make children into slobs. It's a matter of degrees. You may not be a ruined, uncreative, drone unable to interact with others, but that doesn't mean your parents' parenting didn't have an effect on you. You are probably less creative and extroverted/good with people than you could have been. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

What we're protesting is not stricter parenting so much as it is Chua's extremism, as well as the inherent racism in her article. If your parents were as extreme as Chua claims to be, I'd object to them as well. I'm white Western and I think I turned out fine. People like Chua genuinely can't see that there are other ways to succeed than hers.

Oh, and btw, I'd like to thank this thread for inspiring me to get back to work on my own initiative, without being forced to.

Well, it wasn't without a moment "eeeehhhh >___<" before I decided to go thread hopping. It was rather unfortunate I didn't read this thread until after it had filtered out into other topics instead.

And yep, I was addressing extremes, since obviously the mediate is going to be what most people recommend. However, you have to notice that, especially at the beginning and middle of the thread where the discussion was raging the most, people tend to argue extremes, since it's the best way to make a point. Especially if the opposite side is an extreme as well.

The thing being, over the internet it's a lot easier to be misinterpreted. While there are a lot of people who were basically saying that the middle road is the best, which is a non offensive stance and good compromise, when you stick it in the middle of a debate, it sounds almost like backpedaling. It's not meant to be offensive in any way, nor were the people arguing that Chua is too extreme trying to insinuate anything negative about the children themselves, but it gives the impression that all the hard work and good grades aren't really important. Impression being the main word, because no matter how it's dressed up, grades and creativity may be equal, but you can't really say grades are less important, unless you want to argue the whole American school system (which, to be honest, I would >_>)

To respond to something someone said above: Law school is not a great road to lifetime good employment anymore. In many areas, there is an oversupply of recent law graduates and many are ending up unable to find employment in the legal profession. Sure, it's still better than being a philosophy graduate, but it's not a guaranteed meal ticket either.

Yes, that's another point:

The jobs that pay a lot are the jobs everyone and their mother wants to do.

If you're going for one of them to have financial security, you're not going to get any because more people want the job than there are positions available. So just like publishing a book, once you get a job as a lawyer or a doctor or whatever you can pay the rent without much trouble, but saying you should go for it because of that is skipping over all the work you have to do and luck you have to have to be one.

True, it is a very competitive world out there, but that's true for both very fun jobs and very lucrative jobs - the difference being, if you land a fun job, it would be hard to pay the bills with it. Also, you're ignoring a whole range of mid-level jobs that are neither super fun nor extremely well-paying, but are still a better financial option than your typical fun job.

Also, and this might just be me, but no matter how hard it is to get a high-paying job, at least you have some concrete ways to get there - namely, studying hard, being sociable, etc. It's still easier than trying to please a publisher or agent on a purely personal/emotional level.

Not really, super well paying ones generally need you to be friends with the people in charge or really really driven to get them.

Uh, no it's not any easier.

You try really really hard to be a good writer, it's not going to help you as much as knowing who to talk to.

You try really really hard to be a good lawyer, it is again not going to help you as much as knowing who to talk to.

So if you need to do the same things to get a fun job as a high-paying job, why not go for the fun job? Bearing in mind that this is just the stereotypical "fun" job we're talking about; I'm sure, say, anthropologists don't have nearly this kind of competition.

Well I think that is a huge problem in western society where connections matter more than merit. That's idiotic. Someone who works hard and does better at something should definitely succeed more than someone who simply uses politics to get ahead in life. I mean that's the stereotypical comparison of White vs non-whites.

The Stereotype White Guy: He has connections to get ahead in life even if he sucks at math and science.

Non-White Guy (in this case, Asians): He works hard, excellent at math and science, high job skill but has no connections and thus remains forever in the lowest rungs of the company.

I mean the entire parenting style, that is talked about in this thread, is basically that. Western parents encourages social skill and intermingling to get a large network of relationships. Asian parents encourage studious behaviour and improvement in skill/merit. Then when they come out to the real world, the guy with less skill but more connections gets ahead. Overall, society suffers as GDP and quality of life is damaged due to inferior products being made.

recent law graduates and many are ending up unable to find employment in the legal profession.

Excellent. Suffer lawyers, suffer.