<p>“Heck no! The types of comments I referenced were posted in the Parents’ Cafe Forum.”</p>
<p>I’ve seen them too.</p>
<p>(I’ve even seen a poster called “white trash” here. Oh wait. That was me talking about myself. Never mind!)</p>
<p>Hmm… When I grew up the stereotype was “Asians are passive” not “Asians are pushy.” Who makes this stuff up anyway? D theorizes stereotypes in the media are absorbed and projected on others.</p>
<p>“Who makes this stuff up anyway? D theorizes stereotypes in the media are absorbed and projected on others.”</p>
<p>That’s what I’ve been asking because the CC stereotype of Asian parents (which is what I’ve been talking about) is one that’s never before been familiar to me. But I’ve never considered admissions to top colleges, either, so it may be the combination of the two that has me out of my element.</p>
<p>“The real offensive part, as I keep repeating here is “It got even funnier when several kids were turned away because the parents were trying to sneak in middle school students to register for a program by invitation only for high school students. They were all Asian too.””</p>
<p>I, too, find it offensive when people similar to me act in an embarrassing way. I think it’s better to be offended at the behavior, than at the person who reports it, though.</p>
<p>I don’t see what’s so offensive – for example, high school sports generally mean that college athletes can’t come over and decimate teams, but as far as it goes it seems that middle school talents would be disadvantaged, not taking an advantage, by competing at the high school level.</p>
<p>" for example, high school sports generally mean that college athletes can’t come over and decimate teams, but as far as it goes it seems that middle school talents would be disadvantaged, not taking an advantage, by competing at the high school level."</p>
<p>Galosien, that’s a very good point. I think the reason for the rule is twofold. First, the program is jointly administered by the college and the participating high schools, and second, the cost is paid by a grant that is specifically targeted to high school students in NYC public high schools. I don’t think there is any ill intent toward the middle school students.</p>
<p>zm, when my D needed to complete an intensive summer language program to be eligible for the language sequence at her new HS (her JrH did not offer this language), I could not get her enrolled at any CC or UW. The reason? It did not matter that she was entering 10th grade; she was just 14 that summer (late summer B-day), and they would not take anyone younger than 15 even into the classes geared towards HS kids, mainly to avoid babysitting a bunch of emotionally and socially immature kids.</p>
<p>Bunsen, I never thought of it like that. To have 13 year-olds with 17 year-olds might not work so well.</p>
<p>This is what Dept. of Education says about one key aspect of parenting-</p>
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<p>Indeed it is a fine line between playing the role of a keeper of options and being a pushy parent.</p>
<p>You know, I was thinking about this very thing–the idea that a parent should help a short-sighted teenager keep options open–in connection with this thread, and similar ones. I think it cuts two ways, though. While I agree that a parent helps keep a child’s options open by discouraging wasteful activities and encouraging positive ones, I think that some parents may limit their own children’s options by pushing them into particular academic tracks prematurely. I think there’s a tension between our desire for our kids to have as many options as possible, and our desire for them to have economic security–and how we balance those interests is, at least in part, dependent on culture.</p>
<p>Nothing in post 469 is incompatible with allowing an 18±year-old to be self-determining with regard to his or her career choices. Nothing. No one has said that parents should not talk to their children “about the lifelong consequences of choices they make.” I sense that I do it myself <em>daily</em>. That is a very, very different thing than forbidding an 18-year-old from pursuing graphic arts in college, studio art in college, writing in college, and even architecture. All of these examples I am intimately familiar with; all were forced into science majors by parents, while talented in these other areas. </p>
<p>Obviously it is not the advice & counsel I object to. That’s one’s lifelong role as a parent. My Dad was still advising me months and even days before his death. And I always took his advice seriously. My children are inclined to, and strongest in, humanities and multiple arts; yet I have counseled them often to pursue pragmatic options simultaneously, to parallel their primary career interests, as security against possible periods of low employment or unemployment. That is a very different thing than announcing to them that they “have to” become a scientist or mathematician.</p>
<p>Yet I save my strongest disapproval for parents I know of a young woman who is as white, as Anglo, and as native-born as they come. They have no “immigrant status” or ethnic tradition to excuse their decision to require their talented actor & dancer daughter, who had already been accepted to acting/dance school, who had already been acting professionally, to instead attend a liberal arts college. Not only was it heartbreaking to watch, it was expensive. Daughter ended up losing that prime opportunity of a school acceptance, dropping out of said college, & pursuing 3 years later the dance career for which her beautiful young body was yearning. Expensively. With loans, and with lost time, and with a strained relationship with her parents. </p>
<p>Do not delude yourselves. You do not begin a dance career when you’re 40.</p>
<p>Like most other dancers in the real world, she’ll figure it out that she’ll need to begin also pursuing a pragmatic track alongside that before too long.</p>
<p>epiphany, Perhaps the parents of the young dancer in question regret it as well. It is amazing that parenting is one area where my inadequacy is so readily and quickly revealed by concrete proofs. My only consolation is that most of my parental actions have not led to irreversible consequences.</p>
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<p>You are not only too serious, you are too literal! </p>
<p>You want to make a big deal of the limits of parental involvement with a 18 year old vis-a vis a 17 year old. And I thought, the topic of this thread was the hilarity involving pushy parents of high school students. </p>
<p>Nope, I dont agree. Parenting once child is too serious a business to be left to Counselors and Career Planners.</p>
<p>“And I thought, the topic of this thread was the ‘hilarity’ involving ‘pushy’ parents of high school students”</p>
<p>You thought wrong. Pushy is your word, not mine and I’m the OP.</p>
<p>This Forum is ‘confidential’ so that all of us can express our views without fear or favor! </p>
<p>Therefore, it is disheartening to see some of the boarders ‘beating around the bush’.</p>
<p>The scene Zoserman described was comparable to the running of the bulls in our own neighborhoods.</p>
<p>And she wants to argue in terms of semantics.</p>
<p>"The scene Zoserman described was “…comparable to the running of the bulls in our own neighborhoods.”</p>
<p>And she wants to argue in terms of semantics."</p>
<p>What kind of spoon are you using to stir the pot?</p>
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<p>who said it first…</p>
<p>Chocoholic, that reference was NOT to the stereotype. It was specifically to the two or three families who I made very clear were not representative.</p>
<p>The gamesmanship here is remarkable, as is the need for “new” posters to jump in. I really do think there’s no answer other than than I struck a nerve.</p>
<p>“You want to make a big deal of the limits of parental involvement with a 18 year old vis-a vis a 17 year old. And I thought, the topic of this thread was the ‘hilarity’ involving ‘pushy’ parents of high school students.”</p>
<p>The limits of parental involvement were actually brought up much earlier, by other posters, who indeed “made a big deal out of it.” I have every right to weigh in on that. Sorry if that’s too serious for you (in case your last post was supposed to be hilarious.) I merely added to the discussion, did not hijack the discussion. </p>
<p>You also juxtaposed two unrelated comments of mine: your favorite “discussion” strategy. I did not say I was too serious about the department of education citations, nor about the aspect of parental involvement. I said that I didn’t get the humorous intent of the thread. You seem not to have very much discernment regarding such differences from one reply to another.</p>
<p>Then you added the nonsequitor of leaving parenting to counselors & career planners, as if that’s been a part of this discussion. I’d ask you what your point was, but actually I don’t care.</p>
<p>“…that reference was NOT to the stereotype. It was to two or three families who I made clear were not representative.” Hard to see it that way, though.</p>
<p>Original post: “We stood there watching and realized that of the 35 or so kids registering, mine was the only non-Asian and the only one not registering for calculus! It got even funnier when several kids were turned away because the parents were trying to sneak in middle school students to register for a program by invitation only for high school students. THEY WERE ALL ASIAN TOO!”</p>
<p>Not stirring the pot, mind you (heaven forbid), just setting the record straight.</p>
<p>Here’s the thing z-mom: If I had been you in that situation, I would probably have been slightly ticked that PEOPLE were trying to sneak in some middle schoolers. I would NOT have found it side-splitting hilarious; I would not have connected it to the “CC stereotype.” I would have, if anything, connected it to the ultra-competitive nature of college admissions among a lot of parents of the echo-boom generation at this point in time, which if anything is not funny, but kind of sad.</p>
<p>Food for thought?</p>