Parental Crisis

In five months I am going to be a father. Just the thought of being a parent is daunting me. Like most parents, I want my kids to turn out good, but I don’t want to be a helicopter parent either. I have witnessed so many Vietnamese-American parents who spoil the shit out of the kids. They give the kids everything they wanted. They beg them to eat. Yet the most intolerable is the lack of respect from the children.

The overparenting continues even when the children go to college. I knew a couple who would think twice about buying something for themselves, but would provide their only boy whatever he desires. They worked hard and paid full college tuition for the boy. They bragged about him every chance they get. The parents even apologized when the kid was angry. From an outsider perspective, I felt bad for the parents.

I was also a spoiled child and I still am feeling guilty about it. My mother would give me everything that I needed even though she didn’t have much. She was always there to protect me in any situation. When I grew up enough to face the real world, I had a hard time dealing with reality when I realized that no one out there gives a fuck about me. No one pampered me the way my mother did.

It hit me hard. I was devastated and it took me quite some time to make the readjustment. I do not want this to happen to my kids. I want them to be ready when they face the real world. I want them to have the space to grow. If they fail, I want them to get up and learn from their failures. I hope that I won’t be so blind when dealing with my kids like the way the parents I have observed dealing with their kids. It would be a definitely failure on my part to spoil them.