Are My Kids Bound to be Less Successful than Me?
As you’ve read, we, the children of immigrants, attest much of our educational success and academic performance to our parents.
The commonalities that our mothers and fathers have exhibited in our upbringings through their roles, values, and beliefs influence our work ethic, habits, thoughts, and studies. Immigration has led to impressive academic outcomes, landed us in college, and helped us figure out our lives and priorities a little more comprehensively. Immigration experiences, our immigrant parents, and their particular values pushed us down certain paths, taught us to never settle, and schooled us to be harder, better, faster, and smarter.
But didn’t I also say that educational outcomes deteriorate as a link with immigration frays? The more generations removed from immigration that a student is, the poorer the academic success. We, this cohort of first-generation Americans, may have reaped some of the academic outcomes that came along with our parents being immigrants, but we will most likely spend our lives here in the United States without immigrating. Our lives here are already somewhat established, and there stands a good chance that I may only ever call the United States home.
In other words, though I am a 21-year-old college student, a mere junior at university who knows little about her future career path, marriage prospects, or childrearing potential, I must ask: Are my kids bound to be less successful than I am?
(Assuming, of course, as I have, that I have reached a modicum of academic success thus far in my life.)
Well, I’d like to think that as shared in Harder, Better, Faster, Smarter, our stories, our parents, and we ourselves share themes that stretch beyond solely one commonality of immigration to this country.
Parents who wholeheartedly, consistently involve themselves in homework, schooling, extracurriculars, and day-to-day life do not belong to only one demographic or one category of experiences.
Parents who tell it like it is, skip the sugarcoating for some straightforward reality, are also universally found.
The mentalities of viewing education as a worthwhile, lifelong investment, of prioritizing schoolwork and studies before all else, and of putting in the hard work so that you can ultimately reap the benefits of what you sow are common.
Non-immigrant parents also want stable employment for their children, hope that their kids attend college, and see higher education as a means of achieving and actualizing opportunities.
The parents who want and do the things that this book details are immigrants, but if anything is clear, these themes are applicable to all students and utilizable by all parents.
To all the first-generation Americans, fellow children of immigrants, I hope that you’ve found parts of your life echoed in these pages. Whether it was a conversation, expectation, or even a fight that you recognize from the stories of this book as being something that you, too have experienced, know that what you and your parents do and say are pretty typical. Things will turn out okay in the end (and sometimes, your parents know best).
For the immigrant parents who once made a leap from elsewhere in the world to these 50 states, understand that your kids are generally pretty appreciative of what you did. Maybe you encountered a teenage temper tantrum or two along the way, questioned what you were doing, or wanted validation that you were on the right path, but know that we, your children, have matured a little bit and come to understand why everything happened. Big thank you here from one immigrants’ kid on behalf of a couple of us!
To the curious and inquisitive, regardless of your personal connection with immigration, see that the academic success that varying students achieve have more in common than one might think. Whether that reassures, surprises, or intrigues you, take away the thought that while immigration has influenced the parents, children, and tales of this book, almost everybody can apply these themes to their respective lives.
Children of immigrants, grandchildren of immigrants, and distant descendants of immigrants can all achieve success: Combine the right attitude, mindsets, and expectations, and the world is your oyster. What’s next? That’s up to you.
