Is your kid "manufactured"?

Parents Forum
41

Sometimes, we “manufacture” our kids without even realizing it.

My husband and I play musical instruments and enjoy it. When our kids were old enough to start music lessons, they were glad to do so. Both learned to play multiple instruments and participated in school bands for many years. One continued to participate all the way through college.

On the other hand, neither my husband nor I ever played an organized sport as children. So perhaps it’s no surprise that one of our kids had no interest in playing sports and the other played only in low-level recreational leagues.

We didn’t try to push music or discourage sports. Actually, we didn’t even think about it. But it happened.

42

If the former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford (for 10 years) was frustrated about the number of “manufactured” students they were admitting, she should have talked with the Admissions office. There are a few people on CC who rhapsodize about the special insights into applicants’ psyches that admissions staffers have. Presumably, something either went wrong with the special insights, or else what the admissions staffers were looking for is not what the Dean of Freshmen wanted. 10 years is a long time for this situation to continue. Also, the Dean is just talking about it now, after leaving that role in 2012?

I agree that the entire family in question may well be American, and that calls for them to adapt to the dominant culture are misplaced. So this may have been a fine admit, and not a “manufactured” student at all, despite the reaction of the Dean of Freshmen.

43

Referring to the

statement, I don’t know that everyone who doesn’t go to college has unhappy lives. That’s a whole different topic, but please don’t assume that college is the be-all and end-all dream someone might have.

44

I interviewed a young lady last month, a recent graduate from a very well know east coast school with a good reputation. I was a bit surprised to find her mother came with her. When her mother stood up to come along, I basically let her know I would be taking her daughter back to my office for the interview. I debated telling the applicant this isn’t the best picture to present to a potential employer and that it would be best if mom stayed in the car but didn’t want to overstep boundaries.

45

Why is anyone surprised about the events described in the article? Aren’t adcoms professionals, experts as putting together well-rounded classes? They didn’t make a mistake choosing Arjun. They never make mistakes. Rather than manufactured, why don’t we call these kids “polished” or “sharp”? Manufactured seems so “GM” like.

46

The adcoms make mistakes all the time. They say they do.

I don’t know about “manufactured,” but Arjun of the story comes across as anything but “polished” or “sharp.” The opposite, really. Or maybe whitewashed-to-resemble-polished-from-a-distance, but fundamentally a fraud. (Or maybe, as someone suggested, a perfectly wonderful student conforming to a set of social norms which are not those of Stanford University.)

47

Arjun might have been totally fine once his dad left the campus.

To the extent that Stanford was really admitting “manufactured” students, and leaving Arjun out of it, I am inclined to blame the “nobody-ever-got-fired-for-buying-an-IBM” syndrome. (My spouse was actually told that by an IBM salesman at one point, when making a major computer purchase.)

In its admissions variant, it means that admissions staffers don’t get fired for admitting the STEM students who are national award winners of some variety. Who could fault them for that? In fact, it’s probably the right decision at least 95 times out of 100. But it reduces the room available for others.

48

^^ this.

Also, Arjun may even have been completely fine with his father there. I’m always a bit skeptical of clearly cherry-picked and possibly selectively edited anecdotes presented by a reporter who has a clear agenda, you know?

49

IMO , it’s one thing to provide a student with opportunities which may help them in reaching their goals in life. It’s also one thing to provide a little nudge when you may meet with a little resistance. It’s totally another thing to plan out and push so hard that a student loses himself in the process. I think there’s a wide continuum between having a “dream school” and having no ambition. Balance is the key. I don’t believe that we are helping our children in the best way possible by molding them into the " perfectly packaged" college applicant . What happens when that student’s outcomes are different than you planned? The thought that just because you do everything right on your end will provide you with your desired outcome is unrealistic . There are always other forces in play. I think if we are able to instill a level of realistic optimism in our children ,we’ve accomplished more than any college counselor or prep course could for a successful college journey. I know that this may not be the most popular opinion on CC , but it’s how we are approaching our college preparation and is working for us, and that’s what’s really important for our family.

50

I found this an interesting sentence. The great immigrant experience was that the “kids” of these immigrants got dropped off a the nearest public school speaking barely one word of English with no ESL and no other safety nets. Sink or swim. At least that was my father’s experience and dozens of his childhood neighbors and friends. I’m all about cultural traditions but I’m also not about enabling kids to NOT assimilate. I also think that generation of the great immigrant migration wanted their kids to assimilate as fast as possible and they, themselves, had very few “public” safety nets, fewer possibly than their off-spring.

I can’t speak to “manufactured” kids as that is not the experience of our friends and their children looking back as we dip our toes into our sixties, but I do see it more with “younger” parents whose lives seems much more consumed with their children and their children’s activities. Anecdotal but even if you follow some of these younger parents on FB every single post is about their kids…very few about them or what they and their spouse are up to. Makes you wonder if they do anything besides go to work, their once a year big family vaca, competitions, sports league games, dance recitals, and other kid things. Where are the little unstructured moments?

51

I have to say when parents do overstep their boundaries, either from an employment or educational setting (and my experiences are exclusively limited to the realm of professional schools JD/MBA) my responses while fair, have been terse and rather blunt–“this does not involve you and I appreciate you resist the urge to contacting me again on topics that are the exclusive domain of your daughter/son.”

There have been the rare contact to the Dean’s office to seek further traction and tattle tell (I can see no lower form of development than the grown up snitch) about my unfair treatment of their children-- and all those inquires died a quick death. The more interesting response is from the children themselves: some remain petulant like they have not received juice during rest period, but for an equal number of the others, they respond swimmingly, and realize it’s their race to win or lose. Woe to the group in the former…

52

@ momofthreeboys Exactly!! I’ve said the same thing to many of my friends and family.

53

Probably not according to what he and his son thought was the the expected family behavior.

Look, I deal with Chinese, Korean, Indian families constantly. The tendency is for the parents to get a little intense sometimes, but the roles of parents with regard to education – including at the cusp of college – is different in other cultures than here in the States. Let’s just isolate the Indians for a moment, because I have had so much interface with them and have great relationships with them. It is not uncommon for the father to be more deeply involved in the child’s education (at all levels) than the mother is. Sometimes this is (additionally) a language issue, if (even if the mother is English-fluent), the father is more fluent and quite articulate, but sometimes the father still takes charge when both can communicate equally. I’ve had long conversations with them with respect to tutoring and college admissions. The style is to be very thorough in presenting/explaining because they assume that education is a family affair, and as I have said elsewhere on this forum, in some ways it is. The very thoroughness and formality about it all is a sign of great respect for education and for those who educate.

Now, I understand two things:
(1) this was college-level, not pre-college, but I still maintain that the kind of “total” independence that is a social expectation in the States – miraculously and sometimes artificially at 17 or 18 – is not shared by all other cultures. In other cultures continuing parental interest would be a sign that the family was maintaining a serious sense of duty about education and was responsible enough to communicate with colleges. The student’s silence in the presence of parents and college officials would not necessarily be a sign of being managed, let alone manufactured, but a sign that the student is being respectful of elders. Allowing the parent to “control” the meeting – or even be present at this age – would not indicate that the student is immature, has no mind of his own, is overly docile, etc.

In other cultures, you have to be prepared to have long talks with people sometimes – and not just about education. Just because we Americans are always in a rush to “get to the bottom line” does not mean that everyone else can or should immediately understand that and adapt, pronto.

In my encounters, respect for elders and academic independence are not mutually exclusive. If the whole family comes in to see me (not unusual), the student typically takes the back seat. More westernized parents will often turn to the student to suggest he or she speak up and verify or challenge what is being said. And when that happens, the student always does, and often has a different angle on what the parents have said. And then when they’re alone with me it’s clear that they’re just as independent and mature (for their age) as any American counterpart.

(2) Choice of major --and career/life goals – invites many more problems and is open to a lot of criticism. However, in this case, I doubt we know whether the student in question was being forced into a field he didn’t want. In many of my situations, I do know that because it is admitted by both parties, and the frequent emotional breakdowns are further evidence. However, I have never seen it in Indian families; that’s just anecdotal, but I have known maybe a hundred such families, and never once is the parent deciding “for” the child. (The same long conversations with those in education/academics are also held within the family.)

To be fair, I have sometimes seen this thorough engagement within Chinese families, when the parents discuss the long talks they have had with their children and the (obvious) care they are showing to respect the child’s wishes and needs, and then air those with me. It’s very sweet, and I’m very touched. I just have less occasion to see it, and some of that may have been different kinds of opportunities and different personalities involved.

It’s very possible that none of this is relevant, because I notice in the Merc article an abrupt break between the scene with the Indian family and the less directly related (i.m.o.) discussion of the author’s points about helicoptering, over-shaping, high student stress resulting from that, etc. But if the author being quoted does think that the meeting in question is by itself a good example of helicoptering, I disagree, for cultural reasons.

54

And it’s not just South Asian families—it occurs to me that a lot of the comparisons with “American culture” aren’t really drawing a comparison with American culture, but rather with the upper- and high upper-middle-class (and urban, and white, and so on) cultural assumptions one tends to run into on CC as the assumed default. You may well get many of the things people have pointed to on this thread as “Indian” or “Asian” behaviors from lower-middle-class or racial/ethnic minority or whatever families whose immigrant backgrounds are enough generations ago that they don’t really have a meaningful echo anymore.

55

The “manufacturing” definitely began with the American white upper middle class, and all of the other groups are just competing with the structure that is currently set up. However, it would appear that due to a whole host of socio-cultural factors that have been discussed in many threads, certain ethnic groups have now taken the lead on the “manufacturing” line.

56

This reminds me of a youtube video, in which Elaine Chao (after she had stepped down as the Secretary of the Department of Labor) was invited to give a talk to a group of college students in China. When her father was invited to go up to the platform toward the end of the talk - likely before the question and answer session (mostly just to honor him only), she subconciously walk outward of the center of the platform and let her father be in the center. This is likely to “pay her respect” toward his father. Her father really said very little from that point on because most questions from the students were for her rather than for her father. But still, she stood not in the center and somewhat behind her father from that point on. (She spoke in English in this interview. I think she once mentioned , not in this particular talk, that she had to speak in English in any more public event – kind of hinting that she needed to do so because the US government needs to make sure what she said would not result in any “damage” to her country, or something along this line.)

In some other interviews, whenever the father happened to have something to say, the daughters would immediately keep their silence, until their father finished all that he wanted to say. (For some reason, the mother has never been interviewed (language barriers and/or cultural reason?) – but a building in Harvard Business School was named after her, a year after she passed away. It was named after her because these daughters and their families wanted to honor her. BTW, the father once said his eldest daughter, Elaine, was the poorest among all of her daughters but she achieved the most. So he had to pass more of his money to her. There was an article in which it is said Elaine’s own family became wealthy mostly because of the money passed down from her father, neither from her husband nor from herself - because both of them have been working for the government for their whole life – but I have side-tracked here.)

In other interview, I heard that when the parents had invited guests to their family to have a meal, daughters were not expected to sit and eat at the same table at the same time with the guests and their parents (i.e., elders). They were supposed to eat afterwards - just in case they might be called to “serve” the guests/parents when needed. This family’s dynamic was still like this when the daughters were quite grown and Elaine had become a government official (but not the head of the department of labor yet). Some guests finally protested and said they felt “uncomfortable” being served by them and their family changed this practice.

57

Haha, I’ve always kept my mouth shut around my father because he knew so much more than I knew even as an adult.

58

It is a carefully curated image that many adults like to portray on FB.

59

Facebook should be Fakebook.

60

Facebook is the conflation of a curated life, mixed in with more editing than Vogue magazine, and sprinkled in with folks with way too much time on their hands.