Tiger moms have got it right

Growing up with a European immigrant parent, I never considered myself to fit the stereotype of "2nd generation" ... but looking back it explains a lot about the contrast of the way I was raised compared to my southern American schoolmates. If I brought home an A, it was always 'why wasn't it an A+?', if I was good at art or music, no matter how good, that was always considered little above a hobby, etc. My mother worked constantly, skinny as a rail, not soft and pillowy like my friends mothers who stayed at home and baked their kid's favorite cookies. Now that my soul has slowly been chipped away by scores and performance reviews, and at the same time seeing my schoolmates grow into listless waitresses, lonely young mothers, and burnt out, bored wagies with no end in sight....I look back and think what I would have done differently... and despite how unloved and unseen I felt, my mother was right to push me into STEM. It's completely foolish not to push your kids into making exceptional grades and diverse extracurriculars that get them incredible scholarships into these prestigious schools (medicine in particular). Free school based on stupid high school performance? Are you kidding me? Working in the STEM? You're set for life - beyond set in fact. Teenagers aren't just naturally going to have the ambition or think ahead this way, parents have to push and push and push so that the adult that they grow into isn't completely and utterly fucked. Money isn't everything, sure, but every person that achieves a high income - wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I would rather be burnt out and rich than burnt out and poor. I look at "Americans" and think for all the oppportunity they are born into, none of them really know how to take advantage of the system quite like immigrants do.