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GOLDSEA | ASIAMS.NET | ASIAN AMERICAN PARENTING
Confessions of an Asian American Wife
PAGE 2 OF 2
One evening he put his arms around me and whispered, "You're going back to work. I'm going to stay with the kids."
For a hard-driving man on track for partnership, taking off an entire year to stay home with the kids was unthinkable. Yet he meant it and followed through. We never discussed it, but I know in my heart that his willingness to risk his career had everything to do with the wholeheartedness with which I forgave his affair. Thanks to his sacrifice, we survived that year with flying colors. It also gave our infant daughter and toddler son the kind of emotional grounding enjoyed by far too few children of professional couples.
That was followed by a dozen happy years until our kids entered their teens. As so often happens at that age, their futures began to take center stage in family conversations. Both were exceptionally promising and we felt the world could be their oyster. Unfortunately, my husband and I differed on how best to make it so. Paradoxically, my husband, the lifelong striver, felt they should de-emphasize scholastic achievement and take the time to enjoy extra-curricular activities and full social lives. I, on the other hand, wanted them to realize their academic potential early on in order to enjoy more options when they were ready for college.
Without being aware of it, my husband and I were engaged in a subtle war for our kids' futures. Whoever of us happened to be chauffeuring them would insinuate personal biases into the conversation. And we saw each other's psychic footprints in everything our kids would say. There was never any direct confrontation between my husband and me, but we were equally determined to win this proxy war.
[CONTINUED BELOW]
To anyone who has never been a parent, this contest might seem oddly immature, especially between two people who had so much love and respect for each other. I'm not sure I can fully explain it either. I did recognize in myself a powerful urge to pass on my hard-earned wisdom and philosophy of life. After all, wasn't it really the only form of immortality allowed us mortals? And yet, each time I subtly steered my kids away from my husband's play-now-pay-later philosophy, I felt a twinge of conscience at what felt like my pettiness and selfishness.
But neither of us was willing to confront our folly until the day our son blurted out to me, "You keeps saying one thing and papa keeps saying another. Make up your minds or leave me the hell alone!"
That evening I sat my husand down and, in my most martyrlike tone, urged him to consider his impact on the kids. "Do you want them to become dilettantes who excel at nothing?" I beseeched. With equal feeling he retorted: "Do you want them to become grinds with no lives?"
The argument continued deep into the night and left us both tense with frustration. After so many happy years, here was another crisis shaking the foundation of our marriage. Over the next several days my husband seemed to reach a similar conclusion. We both recognized that unless the issue was ironed out between us, our impact on the kids would end up being destructive rather than constructive. And yet neither of us was willing to yield our cherished visions for their future.
To our credit we did have the sense to declare an armistice. The kids' futures was declared a demilitarized zone. Neither of us would talk to them about it until we had jointly settled on a coherent policy. We also committed to meeting privately once a week to hash it out.
In retrospect those weekly meetings turned out to be among the most meaningful hours we have spent together. We had been married nearly two decades by then, but I had not understood how deeply my husband had been affected by a boyhood of sacrificing simple childish pleasures to the quest for achievement. And my husband was moved as I struggled to express the deeply felt insecurity of growing up in the shadow of the Japanese-American internment. No matter how much you accumulate, my parents had told us, it could all be taken from you at a moment's notice. Your education would be all you would have with which to rebuild a new life.
Sharing the painful sides of our childhoods brought us even closer together. We came to see the depths of feeling that lay behind each other's convictions about the directions our kids should take. Ultimately, however, we had to admit that we could not predict what life would bring. It would be unfair to push our kids down paths laid out for the purpose of avoiding our own worst memories.
In the end we arrived at three points of agreement: (1) our primary means of influencing the kids had always been and would continue to be the force of our own examples; (2) our advisory roles could be best fulfilled by honestly sharing our personal experiences rather than by setting ourselves up as infallible founts of wisdom; and (3) the kids should be free to choose their own paths since they would have to live out the consequences of those choices.
The agreement brought us together with a renewed unity of purpose as a family. The kids quickly sensed this new unity and came to feel more secure about themselves and in our love for them. We were once again a happy family.
As we enter deep into our middle years, we have found that the pleasures of professional achievement and social recognition pale in comparison to the pure satisfaction of seeing our children maturing into healthy, confident adults. It is a satisfaction that we can enjoy only because we survived the big crises to stay together for so many rich, fulfilling and, yes, happy years of marriage. May all of you enjoy the same!
| "After so many happy years, here was another crisis shaking the foundation of our marriage." |