We've all heard those jokes about Asian parents and so-called "tiger moms."
I believe in open communication with my peers and my professors when I'm having a hard time, and because of this, I get a lot of feedback on why people think I'm so stressed much of the time. They want to explain away everything into something simple.
This is what I hear often:
"Oh, I totally understand - you Asians are all like that."
"You're a perfectionist. You're Asian. Of course you are."
"I'm sure your mother placed a lot of pressure on you to do well."
I know where this comes from; I was surrounded by people whose parents did pressure them. And yes, my mother had high expectations for me as a child, but she knew my potential and she wanted me to reach it and expand it. Would you be surprised to find out that she never once blamed me for my mathematics grades consistently being lower than those in musical and English courses?
In elementary and junior high school, our parents would occasionally get those cute little cards that they fill out to be given to their children later. When the time came, my peers would eagerly open their cards full of words and words and words, overflowing with affirmation.
Mine came from my mother and always contained only three words: "Happy. Healthy. Confident."
Back then, I couldn't understand why she would do this. Everyone else gets long letters, I told her. Her reply never changed: of all the hopes and dreams she could ever have for me, those are the only things she really wants me to be.
I still didn't get it during college application season, but the last three semesters in college have seen me sick and bedridden every few weeks. I come home stressed, overwhelmed, burnt out, sometimes so sick that I have to miss school but so obsessed with doing well that I feel the need to push myself into continued attendance anyway.
Now that I'm learning self-care and actually allowing myself to do it, I still ask my mother for advice on what to do with my future. Music therapy is the combination of my two greatest passions (music and service) and yet... I have so many more things I love, so many more activities I want to do and careers I want to pursue.
But when I ask for this advice, my mother no longer tells me much. She doesn't say what people think she would say as an Asian mom - none of that "go be a doctor/businessperson" kind of thing. Even now, with no card, my mother still reminds me: "happy. healthy. confident." Everything else will come naturally from there.
And if I'm all of these things, then what more could I ask for?