I used to think that white parents want their kids to be happy, and Korean parents want their kids to be doctors.
Now that I’m older, I realize that Korean parents also want their kids to be happy.
It’s just that Korean parents can’t conceive of how their kids can be happy if they’re not doctors.
My indescribably beautiful daughter, who is going to be turning 7 in ten days, wanted to know if I thought she was funny-looking.
When I asked her what she meant, she told me that we should look at her class picture hanging on the wall. (Of the 21 kids in her class, 2 are Asian American, 4 are Latino, and 15 are European American.)
She told me that she was funny-looking because of her eyes — her sparkling, intelligent eyes, filled with endless wonder.
I wanted to argue with her. I wanted to prove to her with indisputable logic how exactly the opposite of funny-looking she truly is.
But then I remembered how little it helped all those years ago when my parents tried, in their own way, to do the same thing when I came home in tears.
So instead of talking, I listened.
Lord knows I’ve got a long way to go in becoming the father my daughter deserves.
But something deep inside of me tells me that the greatest gift a parent can give a child, or for that matter any human being can give to another human being, is to shut up and listen, really listen, to what they have to say.
Happy holidays…
In a particularly cruel manifestation of the Law of Unintended Consequences, even though those new big-screen LCD-TVs are safer for children than older cathode ray tube TVs, the number of children’s deaths resulting from falling televisions is up.
There are a number of reasons that big-screen LCD-TVs are safer than older TVs — LCD-TVs are not as front-heavy, and are often mounted securely to the wall with the electrical cords hidden from view. Also, there aren’t any obvious knobs or buttons on the front of the TV for a curious child to pull at.
All well and good.
But sadly, it turns out that displaced CRT-TVs are finding new homes on top of rickety tables or chests of drawers, where they are poised for disaster.
I’m a big fan of continuing to use outdated electronic equipment, rather than adding it to the landfill.
But in this holiday season, if you’re lucky enough to score a new LCD-TV or computer monitor, please, please, please find a safe place for the old one.
Happy Father’s Day.
(First published at www.geekyasianguy.com on June 15, 2008.)
I was at a hotel swimming pool two days ago. There’s a little boy (maybe 4-5 years old) playing in the shallow end with his mom. The boy’s father is swimming in the deep end.
The father swims into the shallow end, picks up the boy, and starts swimming back into the deep end.
The father is a reasonably strong swimmer, and it doesn’t appear for a second that the boy is in any danger.
But the boy is terrified — he screams, cries, and begs to be taken back into the shallow end.
The father continues to swim. The boy screams even louder.
The mother starts yelling: Matt, stop that!
But it turns out that Matt is the boy’s name, and the mother is yelling for her son to stop crying.
When they return to the shallow end, the boy is sobbing. The mother says that it’s time to go.
When he hears that, the boy starts shrieking — No, I want to stay!
The mother, visibly annoyed, tells the boy that they’re not going to stay if he’s not going to “swim” with his dad.
Defeated, the boy let’s his father take him for another ride into the deep end. He’s still crying, but it’s more of a whimper…
Growing up, I spent way too much time and energy worrying about whether I was talented — hoping that I was some kind of genius, but fearing that I was a complete fraud.
Now that I’m older, I’ve come to understand that the truest indication of talent is the ability to pour an endless amount of time and attention into something.
Unfortunately, I had it all backwards — I grew up thinking that spending as little time as possible on something and doing reasonably well at it was a sign of talent.
But that’s not talent. That’s ego.
Would your parents love you more if your grades were better? Would they love you less if your grades were worse?
I’ve never conducted a scientific survey. But I would bet a lot of money that the majority of Asian American kids would answer yes to both questions, and the majority of white kids would answer no.
How happy are you with yourself?
My guess is that an awful lot of AA kids would answer “not very.”
Hey — maybe that’s the secret to getting your kid to do well in school…
Suck it, Dr. Phil!
You find out what true love is between a parent and child the day you accidentally clock your five-year-old daughter in the head with a Wii controller, and she forgives you.
The hard part is figuring out how to forgive yourself…
(Oh, yeah, explaining it to your wife isn’t that easy either…)
Happy Father’s Day.
