<p>This is an important topic, worthy of respectful discussion as above.</p>
<p>pressure nowadays. gosh. i bet she could have been saved.</p>
<p>on a related note, caltech just had its third suicide in three months</p>
<p>What a sad, sad article. I can relate to the āways of the Asian parentā section, because Iām half Chinese. But I, and many other Asians, would never dream of suicide no matter how bad our academics. I donāt believe suicidal is an accurate stereotype of Asian students.</p>
<p>Fizix, I recently visited CalTech and picked up the June edition of the newspaper. I read the memoir on Brian Go, which was truly inspirational and, yet, so tragic. 
He sounded like a wonderful person. I heard about a second suicide, but not a third. How horrible!</p>
<p>Iām a first generation vietnamese citizen.</p>
<p>I guess I dodged a bullet because my parents are way to busy to care about my education. Sure they pay fees and see if my grades are slipping but they never praised or scolded me for my grades. Iāve had mixed feeling but due to their neglect, it was ultimately up to me to control my destiny. I am now a highly motivated student who works hard.</p>
<p>My two cents.</p>
<p>I take back what i said about my parents.</p>
<p>my dad is fine. ( i never want to let him down, shows respect i have. )</p>
<p>i wish she would just leave me alone. The more she fusses about me āsitting down right after you get home and study your brains outā bullcrap, the less i am motivated to actually do the work. just give me a break, for christās sakes: she nearly ruined my high school life by meddling into my academics (something she has long shut up for during middle school and frosh year, and result: i managed a 4.1 gpa), and then messes up my concentration by refusing to </p>
<p>i dunno</p>
<p>i cannnot wait till i get the hell out of her sight when it comes for college time. that is why i wanted a job, so that i can become more independent, drive on my own, and as a result, hear less of all the worthless prep talk i have to endureā¦</p>
<p>only reasons why iām no where near the depression point at all: i am fortunate to have extremely good close freinds, i started to take things lightly, and i just plain out ignore her, and weed out only the important info. rest is just spam-talk in koreanā¦ yea. i just take things lightly.</p>
<p>currently doin an sat prep school right now: of course i am workin to improve, and improve. but more she blabbers to me to do my SAT hw (***: after i came back from a 2 hour long physics examā¦), the less i want to actually do it.</p>
<p>i wish i went thru high school in a self motivated way. I dont thank my mother for all the uneeded fuss i went through. (not to mention the complete ruination/destruction of my two favorite ecās: saxophone in band and tennis, thanks, in some ways, to herā¦)</p>
<p>i dunno.</p>
<p>i wouldnt miss her when i get to college.</p>
<p>i havnt finished my second paragraph, oh well. roots of this love-hate relationship goes back to 6th gradeā¦</p>
<p>^cool story bro</p>
<p>My parents (my mom) used to really stress performance when I was younger. Straight As; piano, swimming, and karate lessons; and unerring discipline. Then I went through this phase in middle school where I stopped caring about anything. Iād get pickup games of basketball going instead of doing my homework or studying for exams. That was a good time.</p>
<p>But now my parents are really chill about what I do with my life. Theyāll ask about how hard I thought a test was and stuff like that, and theyāll warn me if I start slacking, but itās all been bearable. Iām more self-motivated now lol.</p>
<p>" but more she blabbers to me to do my SAT hw (***: after i came back from a 2 hour long physics examā¦), the less i want to actually do it."</p>
<p>SO TRUE here and so annoying!!!</p>
<p>My mom gets piissed off when I read. :/</p>
<p>I just want to add that Asian Americans/ Asians are not alone in this. Over all cultures, first-generation parents are generally freaky. Iām African and my parents were pretty intense about academics. Yeah, I definitoly have some stories like Hairy Lemonās. Like how I got a second award twice ( catholic school thing) and my parents decided not to come to the awards assembly if I got a second award again- ( the day they didnāt come- I got a first award) but mostly, this year the pressure has deflated. To deflate the pressure you just do what Hairy Lemon did- freak out. After, I lost it about my GPA- my parents spend as little time as possible on my grades. Iād also like to point out- that among African Americans who are middle class/ immigrants they put intense pressure on the child to suceed. For example, my paremts are driving my brother crazy -10 years old. They tell him that heās a black kid in America and b/c of that it is unacceptable that he gets bad grades. Ever. They say that a black kid has to prove himself twice as much as any other kid. He was in fourth grade going to fifth grade and I think- " nobody cares if you get a C in fourth grade!"
Its really annoying. My mom still is nagging me to finish my HW assignments and study for my Pre-calc class before its even started but I just tell her that Iām sixteen and its summer. No way.</p>
<p>I feel like Iāve revealed too much.
Oh, well. Whatev.</p>
<p>i agree with all of this</p>
<p>asian families can be incredibly lkdjshglskjhfglsjkhf</p>
<p>ha</p>
<p>ok, i feel chill now. i love my mom when sheās just being mom. </p>
<p>i just wish sheād delete the * fuss-about-academics-and-future-and-do-your-goddamn-homework!-right-now!* side of personality. after all, at least i have will to go to at least a UC, (hopefully i get in) cuz then i use that as a base of operations to get into grad (provided i succeed in the academics in my future collge.) and, NOT to toot my horn or use in malicious intent, but neither of my parents ever went to college. my dad didnāt even finish high school. maybe thatās part of the reason why my mom comes up with thi fussā¦</p>
<p>oh well. i hope that needless fuss goes away with timeā¦</p>
<p>Thank goodness for my parents. Iām a first generation/Korean, but I have never experienced such pressure from my parents </p>
<p>Like many others on this forum, my desires to be perfect and academically overachieving come from myself, not my parents. </p>
<p>They realize that if they try to impose something on me, I will only cope so much. They know that I will only put out what was put in, and if parental demands are the only things put in, then, in turn, rebelliousness and lack of motivation are the only things thatāll be putting out.</p>
<p>Suicide by burning has to be an extremely painful way to go. I wonder why she would pick that way. What I like about the USA is that itās possible to get into a decent college with great professors even if youāre not exactly top of the pack.</p>
<p>Wow, amazing article. Well written, too.</p>
<p>Youāre right, Woami, Elizabethās suicide method was extreme. If you read the NYT article that I mention at the end of my essay, youāll find that she actually made previous attempts that looked like cries for help. When she didnāt make valedictorian but was instead named salutatorian, she made superficial cuts on her wrists. When she got to MIT, she took an overdose of pills, but denied that she was trying to commit suicide. I believe that as her depression worsened, her thoughts became more disturbed and she began devising more extreme methods.</p>
<p>For many suicidal Asian-American students, there are cracks in the high achiever facadeāwarning signs, if you will. Thatās why itās so important not to ignore depression, talk of suicide, or suicidal gestures in oneself or others. Students who are suicidal have developed tunnel vision; in their minds, all other options have closed off and they think that their only escape is to kill themselves. </p>
<p>But depression can be treated well. Students may need medication, but they also need a trusted confidanteāa teacher, counselor, or mental health expertāto help them break out of the tunnel vision and get them to realize that they can find constructive ways to handle their problems. Bottom line: donāt stay silent and isolated. If youāre depressed or suicidal, get help. </p>
<p>Thanks so much to all of your for your comments. Your replies have been full of insight and empathy.</p>
<p>āBut Ruby, there are plenty of parents Iāve met that still act that way. Not so much in the States, but in Korea, things are pretty crazy when it comes to childhood education and household-name universities such as Harvard.ā
Hence why i said āthere are families who donāt actā¦ā never said a lot or all. Asian especially Chinese are used to slavering their way up because they come from such backgrounds. Their mentality isnāt going to change. Those who claim to have become āAmericanisedā or whatever still have that mentality but go about it in a different way than very traditional asian parents as they come to realise that such extremes isnāt necessary.</p>
<p>"It is NEVER worth it to physically abuse children. NEVER. Physical abuse is illegal and leaves permanent mental scars. "
Totally agree. But spanking is a different thing altogether. I was spanked in primary school but not for grades haha. Just being naughty. Iāve never been spanked above middle school though. Itās typical for asian kids to be spanked, not physical abused. Iām sure thereās a difference.</p>
<p>āI got barely above average during my middle school years (ie low Bs to low As), made some friends who didnāt take school seriously, and eventually returned to Korea with my mom/sis where a few things happened and I realized the value of getting good grades.
I think things wouldāve been a lot different if I parents had pushed me a little more or if I had siblings/older friends who went on to places like MIT or Stanford. I wouldāve tried a lot harder and made my time in the US a lot more meaningfulā
I was similar like that. Except I only started to value good grades half way through last year (grade 10) which was extremely late. I was always brought up to value education,etc but I was an athlete when i was younger and my parents didnāt force me to do extra math/english, whatever, at home unlike some of my Chinese friends. Because of the way i was brought up, iāve become terrified of bringing home a bad report card since i was little. So I wanted to get good grades but at the same time, didnāt really understand the meaning of it and rebelled in a way when my dad told me to do extra work at home. I wish i listened to him now. I also moved a lot between countries from year 7 to year 10 which really screwed me up in those crucial years. Plus I didnāt really have great role models. Two of my siblings did terrible at a really low uni and the other one didnāt even go to uni. </p>
<p>āIf there is one key thing that differentiate my parents (and other Asian parents) from my other friendsā parents (white/black/hispanic), other than being Asian, is that Asian parents tend to want their kids to take care of them after they retire (speaking of the parents of course). (This is from my personal experience) Which partially explains the pressure the parents bear on their child to get into a good school or get a good job.ā
Thatās true. Asian parents want their kids to grow up, get a good job and take care of them and give them money when theyāre older. Thatās suppose to be the way of giving back to your parents. My mum even tells me that now. </p>
<p>āNonetheless, the demand for English fluency is pretty crazy in Korea. I mean there are kids whose parents have gone to the States just to have their child born there and come back so their could attend the foreign schools, many which require a kid to either have a foreign passport or have lived in the States for a considerable amount of time.ā
Lol thatās pretty obsessive. There arenāt many Chinese parents who do that but there are parents whoād do anything to send their kids to an American Kindergarten. Two of my cousins went to American kindergarten because their parents wanted them to be english literate and forked out twice as much as my normal Kindy and for nothing. They ended up not knowing any more english than i did and after that I went overseas so naturally, i was fluent in a few years while theyād forgotten any english they learnt in kindy because once in at elementary school, it was back to mandarin again. </p>
<p>@aero: yeah kinda like me. I think thereās a cycle. They tend to push you really hard in elementary years. Then in middle school you kinda get sick of it and want to slack off and push the boundaries a bit. In high school youāre back to reality and begin to realise the value of grades and are a lot more motivated by yourself than by parents. My parents are more chill now too (though theyāve never been extreme) but my fear of showing them my report card still exists. I donāt know where that fear comes from but iāve always had it. I guess i hate seeing them being disappointed but not enough for me to push myself (at least when i was younger).</p>
<p>I grew up with my parents, my fatherās parents, and 2 brothers (me being the middle child, and all of us being close in age). Both my parents were raised in very traditional environments, but by seeing her parents a few times, I want to say that she was raised in a more physically affectionate, i.e. atypical Asian, family.</p>
<p>Needless to say, I got the strict Asian deal from my grandparents, and my parents yielded to their authority like any good son and daughter-in-law would. When they moved away (when I was 12ish), things changed. A lot. Especially in my momās actions. A lot more hugging and kissing. 
And although that might seem really childish and stupid, in retrospect, I think that had a lot to do with how my younger brother and I turned out as opposed to my older brother.</p>
<p>Now, donāt get me wrong! I love my grandparents (all of āem), and Iām extremely thankful for the role they had in my early childhood. I call my fatherās parents on Mothersā and Fathersā Day the same way I call my own actual parents. Without them, I definitely think I wouldnātāve had that strong Asian influence to make me appreciate my parents, and both were necessary for me to have become who I am today. And fortunately, I think grandparents, all grandparents, are more apt to have a soft-spot for their grand kids more so than they had for their own kids, no matter the culture.</p>
<p>But I can definitely attest to the feeling of not wanting to disappoint anyone. Even today, to me, disappointing someone is worse than making someone angry, and that does put a little unspoken pressure on me. However, in school, it was always me putting pressure on myself to succeed, and it was my mom telling me to get some shut-eye at 1 in the morning (which seemed really late to me in high school. haha)</p>
<p>And it is true: talking to parents is still a bit awkward. Through the years, I have been able to talk to my mom more and depression and self-esteem issues were talked about from both sides. But I think that awkward parent-child bond is awkward for any kid, right?</p>
<p>And on the what-to-major-in note, both my parents let us do whatever we want. Probably because my mom majored in the sciences when she really wanted to major in Korean (back in Korea) and my dad majored in engineering in the U.S. because his English wasnāt up to par to study humanities like he really wanted to, they better understand the importance to studying what makes you happy.</p>
<p>Iām an Asian and I remember when I was young (in 3rd or 4rd grade) I was fighting with my maid everyday lol</p>