When The Going Gets Tougher

Back in the day, I was dating this Chinese girl for a while. Clueless about her culture, I tried to understand her on a deeper level. I remember that one of the things that hit me, was the fact that she was one of 12 people to be selected in her district to study abroad. Mind you, close to 20,000 applied.

Now that's some stiff competition right there. Yet, most people from our part of the world don't realize that our future generation will face a competition much like China’s. The more the people, the greater the effort to be accomplished, even survive. Although the Chinese know this very well, Westerners have yet to grasp this reality. The stereotype of the strict and demanding Chinese parent did not arise by accident. It was a natural output of their environment. One that will soon become a necessity for Westerners as well.

Most Westerners, bring a child into this world believing that the traditional recipe of love and support will be enough for them to have a healthy and happy life. This strategy though has proven to be detrimental to the last generation. Most millenials remain helpless children. Too weak to compete with a growing number of globalized competition, they have resorted to entitlement politics. Meanwhile, they are being faced out from disciplined Asian students that grew up in families with the “tough love” recipe.

Children from countries such as China, Korea and Singapore, appear to be more prepared for the challenges of the real world. Yet, they didn't grow up with the unconditional love and endless care we are so accustomed. They were pushed, yelled and forced to do things. If you still believe that our Western kids had “positive” childhoods that “fostered growth” then look around you. The use of medication for depression and anxiety has blown through the roof over the last two decades. The heavy users are the boys and girls that had ironically an “awesome childhood”. Meanwhile, countries like Korea who were much stricter in their approach had the least use.

Next time you see a parent yelling at a child for not having good grades or because they didn't perform as good in their sports, remember what the real world looks like, not what the recent narrative of “proper psychological support” has sold us. There is no right way to raise a child. Suffering and discomfort are much more useful than constant praise and just “enjoying themselves”. The problem with our kids today is that we raise them for a place that reminds home while they are later on thrown into a jungle. Remember, we are a Apes that evolved on a very challenging planet. If our ancestors followed the same parenting strategy as we do today, we would have gone extinct.

If you have decided to bring a child into this ever increasing populated planet, remember that they are going to have much harder time surviving than you did. If you got used to “letting your child be”, well, much like your house cat, they will get fat, comfy and overly jumpy with every single noise. Meanwhile the feral cat that lives on street won’t budge. You wouldn’t release a house cat to the wild. It would never make it.