I haven’t studied other children, so I can only make statements about myself. The only negative of my childhood regarding the lack of birthdays and whatnot is the inability to feign excitement for others’ celebrations as much as might be expected, simply because I don’t care about it for myself in the first place. It probably has hampered my ability to socialize or make networking connections in some situations where I wasn’t able to fit in.
Based on my experience going to college with a few kids like that, yes. They all resented their childhood and the fact that the only way to see their parents was to work in the restaurant.
One of my fears is that my kids will learn these bad American ideas from media. I saw my daughter watching a Disney show (Bunk’d), where a high achieving Asian girl was telling her parents they “pushed her too hard.” No wonder China is eating our lunch.
Slave like conditions can do that to a more moderate work-life balance culture.
If you don’t want your children to do this what are you going to do about it? Help them get real jobs without going to college? Accelerate their paths into professional jobs by accelerating their academic careers? Because if you don’t do something out of the ordinary you’re going to get pretty much the same results as other people in your position.
Kids need less money these days and are more focused on education vs work experience.
The only way for the US’ relative position not to decline with China’s rise involve megadeaths, just as after WWII it’s relative power could only decline.
That's an uncomfortable idea - growth of a nation being dependent on a few people working their ass off. Like sacrificial lambs. Though almost all of these people probably do it willingly.
I watched my poor Sikh friend exasperated with his two young daughters who desperately wanted a Christmas tree like all the other kids and bugged him endlessly about it. He lost. It was pretty funny. They've both now grown into fine young women who are proud of their Sikh religion, so no harm done.
The thing is, such a phenomenon exists. And kids pushed too hard may grow resentful or plain reject parents ideas and rebel. Not all them grow super succesfull. Plenty just grow feeling like failures.
It is possible to push children just right, of course. But there is such a thing as too much and those adults then complain (that is how I know).
China is eating our lunch? Excuse me?
But the folks criticizing the article aren’t just asserting that these things are good. They’re claiming that not having these things is so damaging that a woman who prioritizes her career over attending birthday parties and school events is a bad mother. But many children grow up to be perfectly well adjusted despite not having those things. That is evidence of the fact that, even if those things are “good,” they’re not “essential.”
My parents absolutely should have emphasized academics and my need to go to college to break out of the poverty trap my family was in. But they did that in violent and traumatic ways. They did that by using guilt and shame and burden as the primary engine to drive me to act. They are not alone in this. Friends of Asian-American heritage (East and South Asia) tell me their parents did the same.
Those things work when you're fighting for survival and then turn out to be incredibly harmful when you're not. It's taken me years of work and will take years more to undo that damage.
I understand your sensitivity to your daughter's situation. If you live in upper middle class America, and I suspect you do, your daughter is observing a deeply unnatural form of childhood. But there is a middle ground between squeezing performance out of young brains and being coddled into doing nothing. I hope for both of your sakes you look for it.
Those scenarios are what you make of them. They're not always doom and gloom. :) Honestly I think a family business is a better situation than a draconican employer that expects one to devote their life to them.
According to my children who went from not celebrating birthdays to celebrating them - yes.
I’ve read if you accuse someone in the religion of abuse and the only thing you have is he said she said, then the accuser is essentially iced out and ostracized from their religious culture/society. This includes children.
Unless I’m mistaken, it does seem like the Witnesses are having children miss out on what you stated and in general seem like a bad example to bring up.
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For both parents working all the time, it is a negative for most children.
Communities demand and give different things. Birthday parties seem a very small thing to give up if an actual community is what you get in return.
Regarding accusations why should making accusations be costless? If you’re trying to drum someone out of a community and fail to bring convincing evidence they kick you out. It’s just a community deciding on its internal norms. The US legal system has different burdens of proof and punishments when it comes to slander but the US system is still available to them. Communities exist outside the state.
Even BYU, the church-owned school, now sells fully-caffeinated Coke on campus. This was a fairly recent development.
As well, members are encouraged to avoid any media that includes sexually explicit, violent, or otherwise negative content -- not only avoiding R-rated movies. The church teaches that people should be careful about their media choices and consume media that enlightens or edifies, not just entertains. Active members of the church definitely vary in how they interpret that, of course.
I do love your point about sacrificing some things and getting a community in return. I work as a software engineer and at the age of 25 I already have two kids. My wife and I definitely sacrifice for them, but I hope we can build a loving family that will give us social returns that are lifelong. Growing up, I had a large network of cousins and siblings that were closer to me than friends were. I know much of this is because of the influence of the church.
It is also true that being a member gives you a network of people -- people are always around to help you move in and out, they're always there every Sunday, etc. Members are assigned "ministers", two people who check up on them, are officially assigned to love them, and report back to the leadership of each ward (congregation) regularly about any problems the people they minister to may have. All this in addition to the friendships that naturally form with people you see once a week.
Sacrificing alcohol, swearing, and other things -- tithing, Sundays, a two year-mission -- seems like a small trade in comparison for the creation of relationships with people who love you and who you love in return.
This has nothing to do with being a community in my mind. A community would help it's people develop and not keep them in (mental) chains.
Not disputing your points, just would be nice to have an equivalent without the religion and other negative side effects
I do not understand why communities often morph in this way.
this is true, these communities are walking on a thin rope. They are constantly in danger of falling out of balance.
> somethings not quite right with your faith. Else you would not fear independent thought.
I disagree. There is no indication that rationality and independent thinking are what is best for an individual. They have been hugely positive for humanity, but there is also freedom in submission. Being in a healthy community where you fully understand your role in life seems a lot better than being a nihilist (not the only outcome, but also not the worst one).
If you're wondering where the differences are, there are two critical ones. The GP's comment was mostly about personal experience, where your comment went generic—that's how we get boring flamewars. Had you shared personal experience in return, this might have been better. Second, your comment swerved into indignant rhetoric. When indignation levels spike up, the needle goes into the red for flamewar risk.
As a side point, I think you got your religions mixed up. That's a minor detail but it illustrates how generic the comment was. Generic comments on divisive issues are what we're most trying to avoid on HN, because they make discussion more repetitive and provoke other users into posting even more generically and indignantly (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20317078).
I have friends who left the mormon church after decades because of these "ministers". They were always asking when the couple was going to have another baby and constantly prying into their lives and reporting back. They found it creepy.
When they finally decided to leave, it got so bad (mormons ambushing them in the strangest places with aggressive questioning) that they had to file for a restraining order to keep them away.
The churches stance on homosexuality didn't help either, but it was the ministers that were the most invasive part.
Are younger generations in the age of social media who are eager to share their b'day celeb pics set their value right? That's a thing to be pondered upon.