TAP That!

A lot of people often dream about owning a time machine. To be able to go into your past and correct mistakes or make better decisions armed with knowledge from the future is a much sought after ability. After all, they say hindsight is 20/20. But more so than reliving your past, I believe that the draw of owning a time machine is looking to the future and seeing what lies ahead. With the endless possibilities of life, I would love to see what route I take and whether or not I'm happy with the choices I make. In the second entry of the TAMMIE series (Typical Asian Male Mutual Interest Enterprise) we have the opportunity to peek into the not too distant future of TAM. Where will I be a couple years down the line? Well ladies and gentlemen, to answer that question, I give you TAP. Brian is my alum from Beta Alpha Psi and is a couple years my senior. Where I am, he's been. Where he is, I hope to be. He has his own blog (www.xanga.com/chumeister) and graciously offered to write a guest entry for me. The following is a sneak peek into what could be the next step for TAM (maybe).
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I have a sinking feeling that when I someday have kids, I'm going to be a typical Asian parent (a.k.a. a TAP). I'm fighting so hard against it, but somehow I just know that at some point, my Asian parenting gene will kick in and I'll start sending my kids off to violin practice, tennis lessons, and ballet classes. They'll learn to do multiplication by five, algebra by ten, and heaven forbid they be unable to take a first derivative by the time they hit puberty. And all the while, I'll be kicking myself for turning into the kind of dad that I don't want to be. The one that watches his son pick up a Playskool golf club at 10 months, and suddenly sees the next Tiger Woods in front of him. Nevermind the fact that the only thing that was probably going through my son's mind at the time was, "Oh, look at the pretty multicolored stick!" The next thing you know, it's personal training sessions with a golf coach that specializes with two-year olds, hours at golf courses practicing driving and putting, and entries into youth tournaments before they've lost their first baby teeth.

I like to believe that I'm trying to do my kids some good. And that they'll "thank me later". In Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, Outliers, he describes something known as the 10,000 hour rule. Essentially, he states that in order to become an expert at anything, it requires 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. Outside of maybe sleeping, eating, and watching TV, I can't imagine having spent 10,000 hours doing anything. And yet, to truly be world-class at anything, that's exactly what it takes. So maybe it's too late for me to become a world-famous chess player. And maybe my NBA aspirations should be put on hold. But if I want my kids to reach that point, then I have to push them. Right?

Yet a part of me feels conflicted over becoming the type of parent who hires foreign language tutors for their children before they turn three. After all, there's something to be said for the simple pleasure of enjoying childhood. The truly ironic part is that my parents, God bless them, were never the pushy type. Sure they wanted to see all of their kids succeed. But when my sister wanted to stop playing the piano at 12, they never pressed the issue. And when I chose to watch Animaniacs over taking Chinese lessons in the afternoons, they were amenable, if not openly supportive. But there are also times, especially as I struggle to communicate with my relatives in Mandarin, that I wish they had pushed me a bit more. Forced me to drag myself out of bed for Chinese school on Saturday mornings so I could learn to say more than, "The book belongs to Mr. Lee" or "I would like the Chicken Fried Rice, please." Not that I blame my parents for my own laziness. It's not like I was particularly thrilled to study when more entertaining options were available to me. And my argument of “Why would I ever need to learn Chinese? I live in AMERICA!” seemed reasonable at the time. In my defense, who would have expected China to go from Communist home of cheap labor and goods into Economic Superpower in less than two decades?

I think my compromise will be to cultivate talents that my kids show an interest in, rather than forcing them to do things that I think would be “best for them”. Admittedly, that’s not an easy task. Even as a kid, I went from wanting to be an astronaut, to a CEO, to a basketball player to a fireman in a span of roughly 10 minutes. So I can appreciate the difficulties of trying to determine what a child truly shows a passion for and what is just a passing fancy. Yet kids still need assistance to help them develop the talents that they do possess. Their talents and passions won’t simply progress through dumb luck.

But at the same time, I truly appreciate the fact that my parents let me spend my childhood being a kid, rather than a vicarious vessel for them to pour their own hopes and dreams into. So I’ll do my best to be a “good” dad. One that nurtures my child’s predisposed talents and creates opportunities for them to succeed. But if their talents aren’t what I expected, that’s fine. Or if they aren’t particularly “gifted” at anything, that’s okay as well. I don’t need my daughter to be the next Marie Curie. Just as long as she’s not the next Amy Winehouse.