Struggle

Qian Julie Wang, a graduate of Yale Law School, wrote a moving memoir of her moving from China to Mei Guo as an illegal immigrant at the age of seven. The direct translation of the Chinese word for America gives clue to the memoir's title Beautiful Country.

If you guess the theme is Qian's harrowing hardship of poverty in America, you could not be further from the truth. Her parents used to be university professors in home town, but ended up working in sweatshops and freezing sushi processing plant in America. Qian struggled with a white frilly dress covered with the yellow-brown of raw eggs and vinegar. And her brown skin.

And if you think Qian should have been made for China, she won't agree with you. The way everyone has to do the same thing at the very same time gives Qian headache. When she was at prekindergarten age, she was required to take a nap for an hour every day, at exactly the same hour as the whole class. She could never follow the ritual, and would rather have rather spent the time dancing, drawing, or playing in the dirt outside. 

The more we parents have overregulation, as most educators will tell us, the more risk you will raise a child who won't take risk. 

Ask Steve Jobs and he will say, "Why join the navy when you can be a pirate?"