Is It OK To Be White? I'm Not Sure

My wife and I are not Asian but I’ve often spoken of following the Asian-American model of parenting. White Americans USED TO parent in the same way, til permisiveness, frowning on corporal punishment, and lack of judgment (who are you/am I to judge?) became en vogue.

My close friend of 31 years is Asian and I grew up with many of them.

There’s nothing stopping any couple of any race of such parenting (e.g., having a kid practice math for two to three hours after school, a smack across the face for gross misbehavior, attending school and sporting events, being involved in the arrangement of marriages, shunning sloppy appearance, and SHAMING misconduct, etc, etc) and that’s what was expected 50-plus years ago here.

Most boomer parents I inew up as a kid, as I reflect on the subject, were in freaking outer space and resembled Al Bundy – checked out mentally after work, parked themselves in front of the TV, accepted ANY boy/man, including degenerates, to go out with their daughters, physically and emotionally lazy, and so on. My dad was the most negligent man I know, but that’s another private story. I got other stories I can share when I get back to this.

Parenting can be a whole other thread.

2 Likes

That’s funny about the shaming and the corporal punishment. I was never beaten/abused at all, but I got whooped plenty.

I remember asking my grandfather why he didn’t have any tattoos or piercings while his employees did. “Because I’m not a weirdo and I like being able to get jobs.”

My best friend growing up got into growing and selling a bit of pot in high school. I never joined in. I was dead certain my dad would kill me if I got busted for pot.

2 Likes

Neither me nor any of my four siblings ever experienced any form of physical punishment. We weren’t even slapped. Ever.

However, as Bill Burr eloquently framed it, there was always an implicit and very real threat that if we fucked up something really bad, we’d get our asses kicked despite never having experienced any form of corporal punishment.

1 Like

Good parenting…with or without corporal punishment…was not, and is not exclusive to white Americans.

1 Like

Here here. Making it a race thing is just silly. On its face.

I’m yet to stumble across 'white parenting 101’

Apparently you didn’t understand or read all of my post which indicated my admiration of Asian parenting.

Considering I grew up with many and one of my closest friends is Asian, I have great admiration for much of their practices and behavior generally.

Just where did you read in that post that I said it is exclusive to whites considering I’m damn well aware how parenting in white households has slid downhill in the past fifty or more years!

I’m actually SHOCKED by your statement considering what I wrote!

2 Likes

Get to know Japanese parents. I have a share in a music school with mostly Japanese kids and in over a decade we’ve seen hundreds of them. We consider ourselves barbarians compared to them lol.

1 Like

I, too, was astounded by his response to your post…considering that your post was about Asian-Americans(I took that to mean “not white”) being better parents than white Americans.

Edit: I think we need to remember that Asian-Americans may be “whiter” than European-Americans. I believe they’re more successful, on average; so, obviously, they are oppressing broadly-defined groups of less-successful people

1 Like

@NickViar Correct. I also write this above.

Did you see what recently happened with them at an elite school recently?

I think I was going to add a link to an article about it, but decided against doing so.

1 Like

concentrates…

1 Like

He also apparently overlooked the words “USED TO” which implies that some others are NOW doing better.

He didn’t overlook it. He quoted it. You said white parents used to parent the same way.

Meaning (not sure if there’s another possible meaning) they don’t anymore

Well, they did parent in a similar way, which would mean such parenting practices were exclusive to them. Hence the word similar. If it was exclusive to them, there wouldn’t be any same way.

Anyway…

What he overlooked was my recognition of prior parenting by Asian Americans on average. It was written clearly.

Why would that need acknowledging? It was a pretty black and white statement.

It seemed the core of your statement was around the decline in the quality of parents. You were the one that interjected ‘white’ into the equation.

Mufasas comment that it’s absolutely not a byproduct of race is 100% correct

There are lots of well known. issues with the classic strict helicopter Asian parenting style. I would never want to be raised that way and I have no plans to raise my kids that way. Idk if that has been your experience though.

My hope is to raise a happy well rounded, well adjusted sociable kids who have some perspective and a good amount of appreciation for “culture”. Hard work, risk, failure and success are expected. Forcing a strict formulaic path from birth is a shit way to parent IMO.

That’s cool and all, but your children will increasingly have to compete for good jobs with hungry Asian kids with strict parents driving the whip.

So while I’m going for emotional intelligence and making sure my kids know they’re loved and safe. I don’t want them to have any illusions about how nice the world is and how difficult it is to really get the life you want.

Ideally if they want to go to an Ivy league school I want that option open to them. If they want to drop out, surf and do drugs have at it. I will just make crystal clear the gravity their choices have.

1 Like

Well…I was taken aback by the statement itself, @BrickHead.

We’ll move on then if your meaning was not to confine good parenting to only specific races and/or groups of people.

1 Like