[maxloh]

It's common for Asian people, especially Asian men, to work like hell for their parents and children, and not really think about what other life choices they have.

That's caused by social values and expectations – people think you are disrespectful to your parents if you don't provide them and carry on the family name.

That happened to my dad too. He worked really hard for his family, but as his child, it is crystal clear to me that he doesn't enjoy childcare.

The situation is improving as the new generation puts more focus on their own life. But it's still a long way to go.

[rayiner]

Is that an improvement, or is it just more of a western mentality? I was raised by asian parents (who had no life of their own), and my wife was raised by Anglo American parents (who “put more focus on their own life”). And from my perspective as a child, I’d rather have my upbringing than her’s.

And I’m happy to pay it forward and do for my kids what my parents did for me. I think “choices” are vastly overrated. I don’t think my kids would be happy if I quit my high paying job to pursue my dreams or whatever. Not that there’s anything else I would want to do! Part of what makes the Asian mentality work is that you avoid “grass is greener on the other side” thinking that will just leave you discontented. For all the talk of “choice”—Americans don’t really that happiness is itself a choice. You can choose to be happy doing what you have to do.

[yhavr]

> I don’t think my kids would be happy if I quit my high paying job to pursue my dreams or whatever

Wasting life on a lifestyle one doesn't enjoy, just to raise another generation of life-wasters? I don't get this ponzi scheme at all.

[jajko]

Raising kids well is extremely rewarding. Plus its very hard. But those rewards, you can't find them anywhere else. That happiness and fulfillment, dare I say, neither.

I've tried it before having kids - had total blast in European Alps - climbing, alpinism, ski touring, skiing, via ferratas, paragliding, but also ie diving in exotic remote places half around the world. ~5 bigger vacations per year. Traveled all continents except Antarctica backapcking style, ie 6 months in India and Nepal. Life-changing experiences, truly, but that backpacking part was the key to its intensity.

I've met folks who had way more intense lives than mine, since I was still working 100% and did all this during weekends, vacations and after work (or in-between work for long trips). Mostly they were some form of mountain guides who traveled world off-season. But even those folks, when they see me now with what seems like well raised kids so far, damn are they envious. I mean life that you hardly see on some 'influencer' instagram, those folks have no reason to brag about it publicly to compensate for something bad or trying to milk users for money. And most of them ends up in parenthood anyway for better or worse.

All those experiences means very little to nothing compared to experiencing my kids and see them growing up. Yes the hard parts are very hard and you question yourself and your whole life, but the amazing parts... mere words can't describe them. They give life to one's meaning that nothing else does, not even close. There is nobility to take hits for closest ones you love, to endure hardships, it builds and keeps character strong. Overcoming all properly hard challenges does that, do it for 2+ decades and it shows.

I am not claiming everybody should have kids, far from it, maybe not even half of population IMHO (I know, not sustainable, but we have overpopulation now so thats an afterthought). Plenty of broken people around, either inherited mental issues or ones acquired during childhood or even adulthood via traumas or drugs. Some could raise kids somehow but most are bad parents and then it propagates further down the line.

[rayiner]

What do you “enjoy”—and more importantly, why do you think you enjoy it? I suspect enjoyment is mostly socialized, and we enjoy or don’t enjoy what our culture tells us should be enjoyable or not enjoyable.

Prior to my dad’s generation, virtually everyone in my home country was a subsistence farmer. Most people still are. Are their lives less “enjoyable” than some childless millennial pursing his dreams of traveling the world?

I don’t think that, on average, the asians I know (south asians, to be fair) are less happy than the Americans I know. They just derive enjoyment and contentment from different sources.

[nostrademons]

I'm from a similar bicultural household as rayiner, though from comment history I'm guessing I come down more on the American side. I've got enough of a background in both cultures to parse out and explain the differences though.

It's not perceived as "wasting a life" or "not enjoying it" by the parent, and oftentimes not by the child either. Rather, it's different values, different time preferences, and different conceptions of self. Western cultures have a conception of self that is very rigid and individualistic. There's a hard boundary between your wants and everyone else's wants, and you're responsible only for your own desire. This is encoded in our structures of law, in contemporary business culture, in the concept of individual rights, in the goals of Western psychotherapy, and in the relationships between family members that we view as normal.

In most traditional Asian cultures, there is much more of a soft boundary between members of the same family. You are expected to consider the welfare of everyone in the family. And that leads to a sense of obligation between parent and child, and then between child and parent as they get older, and between sibling to sibling when it comes to dealing with the outside world. There is a comparatively stronger boundary between the family and the state, eg. many Asian cultures feel like it's okay to snub the rules of the wider society for the benefit of the family, while in American society this is considered grift, nepotism, and corruption.

Likewise, there is a difference in time perception. Americans have a hard boundary between the present and the future or past. This shows up in popular culture through lines like in Rent ("No day but today", "How do you feel today? Then why choose fear?", "Forget regret, your life is yours to live") or through popular aphorisms to "Let go of the past", "Live for the present", "The future is yours to write", etc. Asian cultures often consider the past, present, and future as one: the past informs the present, which becomes the future, and the "you" of today will soon become the you of tomorrow. As a result, it is perfectly natural to preference "future you" over "present you". And that shows up through things like savings rates (where Asians are consistently higher than Americans), long-term investments, business continuity, and willingness to invest in family and raise the next generation. Denying present pleasures for future gains is not a lifestyle that they don't enjoy; it's simply being smart, and the enjoyment comes from the anticipation of the future payoff.

There's a good illustration of the difference in the two cultures from two movies that both came out in 2018/2019, Crazy Rich Asians vs. The Farewell. Crazy Rich Asians is foremost a Chinese-American film. When the grandmother (who is considered the villain in the film) smugly says "We know how to build things that last", she's exemplifying the values and time preferences of Old China. And the film's climax and resolution is all about choosing present happiness over an indeterminate future, basically a victory of American values over traditional Chinese ones. The Farewell, however, more closely depicts the web of obligations in a traditional Chinese family, and is comedic to American audiences simply because the farces that the family goes through to preserve the feelings of the matriarch make no sense to Americans. Sure enough, Crazy Rich Asians was a smash hit in the U.S. but an utter flop in China, while The Farewell was a sleeper hit in America but did very well with Chinese audiences.

[pcwalton]

The emphasis on filial piety in east Asian cultures is undeniable, but I think this thread is overlooking the significant complication that east Asian countries also have some of the lowest birth rates in the world. Americans have more kids than the Japanese, for instance--not fewer--and birth rates across southeast Asia are collapsing, including in China.

[selimthegrim]

I am probably one of the very few people on HN who came from a very similar household to rayiner but descended from pre-1965 south Asians in the US so I can tell you that all his suppositions do not necessarily hold for that group

[rayiner]

I’m sure that’s true. Who were the pre-1965 south asians?

[selimthegrim]

My father's mother's family. My mother is an 80s immigrant.

[rayiner]

Great summary. I’d add that it’s largely unconscious. It’s like, fish are happy swimming. Why wouldn’t they be?

I will have to check out the Farewell, didn’t know about it!

[makeitdouble]

> Not that there’s anything else I would want to do!

That's the key part IMHO. If you're happy with the balance you landed on, why not.

I think some kids really benefit from the traditional Asian style, and they reach levels that would be hard to reach otherwise. The main issue is not all kids are in that boat, and they'll need to be miserable for a pretty long time before the parents change course and try alternative approaches (if they ever do).

Only the parents can decide if they want to force the square peg into a perfect round hole, and if the kid will thank them later or hate them for life (or jump through a window, shortening the waiting time). Even in Asia not all parents want to take that risk.

[rayiner]

> That's the key part IMHO. If you're happy with the balance you landed on, why not.

But I would go further and say that lots of american kids who feel aimless would be happier if they were raised in a culture that tells them what to do and then socially rewards them for doing it. The efficient market fairy is a bad way of thinking about how the economy works, but it’s also a bad way of thinking about how people work.

I agree that, in asian society, some portion of kids suffer from being a square peg that parents try to shove in a round hole. But I think Americans overestimate the share of the population that’s square pegs, and underestimate the share of the population that would be happier being told what shape they are and what hole they fit into.

[selimthegrim]

> I think some kids really benefit from the traditional Asian style, and they reach levels that would be hard to reach otherwise.

I absolutely agree.

[KPGv2]

> or is it just more of a western mentality

Where do you get the idea that "have kids and treat them as a side thought" is a Western mentality? In the West, we usually use prophylactics to avoid kids until we want them. That's why the birth rate is so low.

[boringg]

Having seen both perspectives I think a happy medium is possible. The self centered nature of some parents of the western societies doesn't really end up helping out the children whereas the complete abandonment of self for the sake of family also has limitation.

[maxloh]

The contradiction of those traditional life goals: providing for parents and having descendents, isn't about abandoning one's children. Rather, it's about making those choices willingly and consciously, and without sacrificing your own well-being.

Many Asian parents treat their children as their "retirement plan", which places a significant "debt" on those children after they graduate from college (or high school). They're also often expected to have at least one male descendant to carry on the family name, who, in return, is expected to ensure their financial support after they retire, just like how they did to their parents.

This system is an infinite loop that places a massive financial burden on everyone in society, consuming their lives, and ultimately benefiting no one. It's good to provide for loved ones and raise children, but both are significant commitments and should be considered choices, not obligations.

[hnfong]

IMHO, the "western" style of retirement, i.e. using other people's children's money to fund the elderly's retirement doesn't look that great either...

[s1artibartfast]

>For all the talk of “choice”—Americans don’t really that happiness is itself a choice.

Dead on. This is the end state of materialism. An mindset where happiness is not something to be created internally, but externally bought or acquired.

[tw1984]

> It's common for Asian people

It is only common in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and Korea).

[thehappypm]

Sidebar but don’t those countries usually get called “ East Asia”? Northeast Asia would more accurately be Siberia

[_lvbh]

Southeast as well (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, etc). I don't know much about South and West Asian cultures

[ctxc]

+India :)