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Hello everyone and welcome to America under the microscope advanced episode. Hi lulu.

Hi, James.

So let's continue talking about parenting and I’m kind of want to start off by talking about the role of fathers.

I mean I've seen you around your kid, you are amazing dad. Honestly, you're very hands on and very responsible, a lot of the things I've noticed that you do instead of your wife.

Well, in our situations, mostly because I spend more time with him, as I work fewer hours. So I have more time to do activities while she has to go to the office and work. So that's just more about our practical situation. But she's also you know, does things with him too, books, art, class, all kinds of things. 50s

But would you say that child care is like divided between mom and dad like equally or it depends on the situation like you said?

It's going to depend on the situation, both parents are supposed to be involved, so like in the situation of thinking like dad just goes to work and earns money, and mom does all the child care, that's an outdated view in American culture.

So that's not really what happens, so it's based on like, yeah, if you have to go to work and you come home late, obviously you'll spend less time with your children, but you will try to do things with them. So the dad, would like my dad, we would do things on the weekend, like do yard work together and go shooting, fishing, things like that together. So we did do things together and that's pretty much part for the course in America.

I think what I've noticed is sometimes in China, I know it's changing, but still sometimes in China, it's more like the mom takes, even though both are working, both sets of parents are bringing home the money, but still mom gets really much more involved in the kids’ education, and dad is somehow given more of a free pass. I think if you get involved, hey, you're a great Dad but if you don't get involved, that's also okay as long as you're providing for the family. In America, if a dad is very successful at work but has no time for the kids.

What would be the general impression that Americans would have for that kind of dad?

They would look down upon him because he's not putting his family first, he is not putting his kids first, he’s putting his job first.

See, this is the thing I think the stereotype is you know Chinese were so much about family, and Americans, they don't really care that much about family. I think the more you talk to actual American people, you realize that is just not true.

It's not true at all. Americans care a lot about their family. That's probably I think the difference is like Americans probably don't care as much about like their extended family.

Oh, so like aunts, uncles.

That's not always as big of a deal for many Americans, but your parents, your children, your spouse are very important. And your siblings, if you have siblings.

I see, then what's your view or what's the general Americans view on the sort of the idea of tiger mom or we call this tiger mom wolf dad.

Well, we think it's like we call that over parenting because a lot of Americans don't think that it really produces better adults, like a lot of Americans aren't convinced on whether that is good or not because you know we see things like they become a lawyer. But we also hear anecdotes of like but now they hate their parent, or when they get to university, they go crazy, they go nuts, they go wild because they weren't allowed to explore and grow on their own in teenage years.

But earlier on, we did talk about that from an early age that American parents would want their kids to be independent to rely on themselves not instead of like 啃老，rely on them.

The idea of tiger parenting is like the parent is like you need you can't do these activities, these aren't suitable for what you want to do. You have to do this this and this; this is regimented, organized, structured instead of letting kids kind of follow their own passions. There are tiger parents in America. They absolutely exist. Yeah, we find that we view them to be kind of overbearing. There's the idea that you should let kids be kid.

Now I'm going to talk about the opposite end. Because on one end you have the helicopter hyper parents, on the other side you have the completely hands-off free-range parent that don't let their kids run wild like…

That is also… we look down upon it. You gonna have that nice balance, you know, you gonna have a little discipline in your children, you know how to behave, not screw up too much. These kids will screw up because they are kids, but know how to handle it when they screw up. But you also don't want them to go, like do whatever and that also doesn't fly.

But I'm going to ask you because you're coming from a parent's point of view. I'm very curious in knowing how would you reward your son and how would you punish him.

Reward is easy. He gets rewarded with TV time, sweets…

Toys?

Toys, books, new things like that, rewarding is easy. Punishment is just taking away those things.

But you gotta give it to him to take it away.

Some corporal punishment, I do use some corporal punishment, not a lot, but I'm not one of the parents that's against spanking, as some parents are against spanking and one of them.

I mean spanking is not really hurting the kids to that extent, it hurts them but it doesn't hurt them, that sort of thing.

Giving a stern talking also.

Do you put him like in a time out corner?

Doesn’t work.

I wonder.

Doesn't work. Not on my kids.

Well, I know that your kid is still quite little, but what about when they grow up to be like say a teenager then you constantly hear this you are grounded.

Well, yeah, grounded is just you're forbidding them from going out. So nowadays what parents do with their teenagers, the biggest punishment now take away the internet.

You have to take away their devices because otherwise they can still use …

You can change the WiFi password.

Yeah, but you can still use mobile data.

Usually they can't, because their plants are their parent’s plants, so the parents can actually shut it off. They can contact the cell phone companies like can you shut off the internet for this phone for my child and they're like okay.

Honestly if I think about myself and how addicted I am to my phone and devices, I think that is a very cruel punishment right now.

Yeah, but we also grew up before that time.

So now if you're saying that it's even harsher on today's kid.

I think it is a harsher because if technology was taken away from me, I was like ok, I'll just do something else because I remember playing pre internet and post internet, so you were that kind of the bridge generation that was analogue and digital.

I see, I see. OK, so that's punishment and rewards. What about this whole thing coming back to independence, once they reach a certain age, they get kicked out of the house.

Well, they don't get kicked out. Some parents do kick their children out. What it is is kind of they are asked to leave home or pay rent. It's not as done as a mean thing or being cruel. It's just the idea of teaching important adulting skills that you can't rely on parents for everything.

What about the financial situation? Financial ties between parents and kids once the kids are grown up, can they borrow money from their parents?

Some, that's going to be a very family to family issue, there is no cultural obligation. So like I have been completely financially independent from my parent since I was about…

18?

19.

19. ah~

I have not asked them for money, I have not borrowed money from them.

Yeah, I think I'm slightly older, maybe 20, 21, well, maybe 22 for me. I do agree with you, I think it's less culture, it's more family.

It's just from family to family because you got, because Americans is a melting pot, you got people from all sorts of different cultures. People from different cultural groups do kind of bring things from their own culture into the family dynamic. So that's why in America that one is just all seen as that's a family thing, different from group to group.

So that’s money. What about career choices? Would parent have a big impact on their kids’ choice of a career path?

They can, there are parents that do try to encourage their kids to go a certain career path. But I'd say for the average American, their goal is to have their child to be you know a happy, successful, productive adults. So they are usually okay for children to forge their own path, go their own way.

So a lot of parents don't control too much about what their kids do like which university they're going to go to, what they're going to study, what job, like you get disagreement, so some kids like I want to go join the army, you'll get parents like I don't really want you to join the army it's dangerous but support their kid anyways.

Because they are adults.

They are adults, they turn 18, they don't need their parents’ permission.

The last topic that I would like to discuss is peer pressure because I have some personal friends when their kids were little, they are very cool, they are like I would never participate in that, I would never be dragged into this whole 鸡娃。

But once their kids reach a certain age, then they start get really involved in these pushing their kids very very hard to compete because of the peer pressure. They feel and also their kids feel.

What about in America? Do you feel a lot do parents feel a lot of the pressure from other parents with kids roughly their kids age?

It exists. But I wouldn't say it’s that strong because most Americans don't compare their children to other people's children because kids are all different, so they must just care about whether their kid improves like whether their kids do what they like, because you get Americans that kids have a wide swath of extracurricular activities and do all kinds of things. Where I grew up, this is like, this kid does shooting competitions, this kid does swimming, that kid does car repair stuff.

Oh, so it's difficult to even compare.

Yeah, there's just so many different things that kids do, there are so many options available and plus all these different like pushing your kids to win a competition doesn't really get you much in America because it's not gonna get you into a better high school and won't do anything.

But you do hear this whole extra curriculum activities are useful when it comes to university applications.

It can help you and university applications but still university applications the primary thing is having good high school grades and good exam scores. Those are still the number one and two factor. Now the extracurricular activities these can push it a little bit but it is never the deciding factor.

Ok, just one extra question like do parents in America generally, once they have like a final exam, for example, when they come home, obviously they get the report card and transcript, would the parents ask how well did the other kids do?

No.

It suddenly dawned on me because you guys don't really have ranking to that extent in class like the teacher will not say you're ranking number 25 in the class.

No, if they did that in public in America, the parents would rebel.

So they literally don't know what other people.

Don't know and they don't care, because that's not their problem.

I see, okay. Certainly very different, shed a bit of light on the education and parenting in America. I need to remind all of our listeners because I know some of the listeners they probably had experience of living in other countries or they might even be married to people from other countries. Still we have to say that we cannot make blanket statements in terms of parenting. There are some general situations if they are things that you have experienced that are very different share with us don't get agitated.

No, because no one has figured out how to raise children probably yet.

Exactly.

They would get a noble prize if they did.

All right, and thank you James for coming to the show and share your experience and your thought.

I'm glad to be here.

And for those of you who are parents or who are about to become parents or who remember how your parent parented you.

Please share with us. We'd like to know.

Exactly. We'll see you next time.

Bye everyone.

Bye.

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