When given the choice to continue an expected weekend routine, or partake in a historically boring, past time with Asian parents, I found myself oddly choosing the latter because of my principle to take the less readily available option in my current lifestyle. The conversation of Asian parental academic expectations, regrets, hopes doesn’t always end after college graduation, although the imminent focus steers from the academic & professional space to social marital pressure. Once we left the house for college and our real time presence with it, the discussions continue- and through this, I felt like an invisible eavesdropping bystander.

Parenthood is truley a science. Without a doubt- I would not be the one to speak. But it’s also strange to think that I’ve thoroughly graduated out of that initial “Phase x” of sending your child through K-12 and college, and all the parental anxiety that pervades in those years. I havn’t really taken a look from outside of that hour glass, and connect the circle of all my “family friends”, how they were raised, and what these family friends are up to now. It’s something I’d imagine none of us think about in this way, since as the experiment, we couldn’t really imagine ourselves turning out much different from who we are now. But through the eyes of parents, who for many have given up their careers to dedicate their time and energy, we are the ultimate product, and test of their efforts. And with that- I can’t help but question, and see correlations between positivity, possibility and confidence. All the frustrations of pressure and limitations that first generation Asian American children can identify from the way we have been raised, of course, stem from their utmost desire to want the best for us, and sometimes the difficulty to express it in a mutually perceptive manner can be devastating.

After dinner and conversation over warm white tea, the exhausted, recycled conversations about children began. It was hard to witness the after- the-matter, tender emotion laced with vulnerability surfaced at the table, entrenched to the understanding that in real life, those feelings had somehow funneled into bitter conflict and resentment. So who then are the more blinded ones? There seemed to be a serious disconnect between the intensity of care and the recipient’s level of awareness and reciprocation. In the end, how we feel on the inside could be so vastly removed from the final delivery, and the perception received by others. I felt it was an appropriate time to voice my opinion about the common first generation way of raising children (closely huddled to negative re-enforcement and self-doubt, instead of positive validation, a pillar I continue to find myself trying to internally rediscover and preserve) can be toxic and long-lasting on the delicate bud of self-worth. I suddenly felt an immense awe for the persistently positive people I’ve come across in my life irrelevant of a particular up-bringing, and silently applaud them for their contagious energy.