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4. Immigrant Parenting
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
79 4 Im mi grant Pa rent ing Your chil dren are not your chil dren. They are the sons and daugh ters of Life’s long ing for it self. They come through you but not from you. . . . You may house their bod ies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of to mor row, which you can not visit, not even in your dreams. Kah lil Gi bran, The Prophet, 1923 We late boomer sub ur ban par ents prob ably raised the most over- sched uled bunch of American kids ever. With Mom and Dad busy at work, tak ing turns with after-school ac tiv i ties, our kids grew up at the Y, the children’s mu seum, the sci ence mu seum, the dance stu dio, the mar tial arts stu dio, the local pub lic li brary, and other as sorted sites. They signed up for chess club, lan guage club, ro bot ics club, jazz band, or ches tra; or en rolled in soc cer leagues, base ball lit tle leagues, bas ket ball intra mu rals, swim ming teams, or track teams. Sum mers found them at sci ence, com puter, math, dance, and music camps. As Neil Howe and William Strauss found out stud y ing our chil dren, they were raised by par ents who placed a high value on ac tiv i ties.1 Un struc tured free time among kids ages three to twelve de creased 37 per cent from 1981 to 1997. We told them we kept them busy (too busy ac tu ally) so they could sharpen their skills and tal ents. In truth, we also over struc tured their lives to pro tect them from the harsh world we knew grow ing up. So our chil dren worked hard for ac co lades and learned too soon to link ef fort and re ward. They trusted the in sti tu tions re spon sible for their over sight in ways our gen er a tion never could, and grew up 80 Immigrant Parenting pres sured to excel. Told they were “spe cial” and gifted, they came of age second-guessing those abil ities, hop ing never to dis ap point their pro gen i tors. To con firm our hopes of their bright ness, we scru ti nized every tran script, test score, and school ac tiv ity—push ing them to excel in every thing they did. They learned to care fully plan their ac tiv i ties, quickly be com ing ex perts in time man age ment. Team-oriented, the only way to sur vive such bru tal reg i men, they were far more afraid of fail ure than we ever were at their age. We watched them be come self-fulfilling proph e cies— young achiev ers, driven re peat edly by the draw of their own suc cess.2 Only now we won der if the over ach iev ing came at too hefty a price. On the one hand, they love their tri umph—four in five teens now be lieve they will be more fi nan cially suc cess ful than their par ents. On the other, they grew up too fast. High school stu dents these days walk around with de tailed five- to ten-year fu ture plans. Rather than a means to an end, suc cess has be come the sum mun bonum, gen er at ing fur ther ef fort, harder work. They know how to win the game they are play ing, and know that vic to ries will lead to a bet ter life (the more rea son to keep play ing it well). But my gen er a tion won ders whether our kids will find real in trin sic re wards in what they do. My guess is that the in trin sic satis fac tion came in the in-between mo ments, in per son with friends with whom they could bear their souls, their in se cur ities, their pain; or per haps on line with like-minded peo ple who shared their ques tion ing. While highly pro grammed to excel, they prob ably do not know other forms of ex cel ling besides the con ven tional ones laid out on their path. My gen er a tion ex peri mented, dropped out, and freaked out par ents and friends...