On the education of the young, translated…
Almost all parents want their children to get into good schools, even head off abroad to study, making them proud. And, with this belief system, having the children, hitting the books became the parents’ responsibilities.
My friend recently inquired about savings insurance, and after we chatted for awhile, I’d learned, that it’s her two sons, wanting her to support them in their dreams of studying abroad, and, she also believed that she needed to send them abroad, in order to do the ancestors justice. But this, is no small amount of money, plus, the afterschool program she operated, was impacted by people having less and less children, so, she’d hoped, to use the savings insurance, to lessen the economical burdens.
After my friend explained everything, I had disagreed with the two children’s ways of approach. Why do they only want to depend on their parents, to make their own dreams come true? The dreams are yours, so, shouldn’t the children take full responsibilities for their dreams? Parents have responsibilities toward their young, sure, but, the requests must be reasonable, more importantly, to not allow the responsibilities, to turn in an overload of burdens.
Maybe, in the traditional beliefs of traditional parents, having the kids study abroad would be bringing glory to the ancestors, so the parents would do all they possibly could, to send their young to school. But, the times are changing, and the values are also shifting too, there are, other ways, to make the elders proud, not just by going abroad for school, it’s time, that the parents need to change their belief systems then!
So, this, is a very traditional Chinese belief, and, maybe, it’s how the cultures are different in the East and West, but, the parents don’t HAVE the obligation to provide for the kids beyond college, in my opinion, besides, by the time we graduate from college, we’re in our twenties, and, we are, considered, adults, aren’t we? So, shouldn’t these twenty-year-olds be starting to learn to take responsibilities for their own lives?