We are not the product of our environment, we are the product of our expectations.

What this means to me is very relevant to my family, a very typical situation that occurs in Chinese families. That is, parents have expectations of what they want their children to be, or unfulfilled aspirations from their own youth that are forced on you in an I'm-good-for-you kind of way. Some Chinese parents most often instill in their children ideas like "I suffered a lot to have you." "Why don't you be considerate of me." "Everything I do is for your own good." "I'm your parent, how could I harm you." That is, moral abduction. 

And the way these parents do what's best for you is to take away everything that interests you and that they don't think is useful. What they think is useful is studying. They can understand you studying until midnight, but they won't praise or even think you can do better, once you try to relax. They will say things that will make you feel mentally condemned and stressed at the same time.

They will say, "Look at your classmates, they can do it, why can't you". This classmate can also be anyone who is good in the eyes of the parents. With someone in the family who is good at everything, that reference will be there every time you relax, every time your grades fall, and all the time.

Chinese parents try to provoke their children to be competitive in this way, so that they can achieve their goals by condemning them. If it seems to them that you are not living up to their expectations, then they will say more vicious things about you, or worse, they will be violent. 

Traditional Chinese parents will never understand how much they hurt their children with every word they say, and if they can't handle the hurt, you will look like a useless person to them. Having traditional Chinese parents is very suffocating. People who grow up with such parents in China spend almost their whole lives running away from their families of origin or reconciling with themselves. 

My family is not exactly traditional, they are just like a normal couple. My father worked and my mother helped to take care of the family. My father did not interfere in the matter of education, although he was reminded that my brother needed his guidance. My father was the unsmiling type who focused on his work. My mother did most of the work of educating me and my brother. I had many arguments with my mother: she compared me to her friend's daughter because of how good she was. There were arguments because she was still putting a lot of pressure on me to do things she was not good at. And these arguments have been too many to remember, all to fight with my mother to write her more ancient traditional ideas. For example, in her opinion I was already 21 years old, she would say that if I could study, I should study, but if I couldn't, I should find a man to marry and start a family. Now once she mentioned it to me I would try to communicate with her until she understood, like a debate.  Until now they still have expectations of me, they want me to study well and then be responsible for my own life in the future. I don't resent this expectation and even understand it because they are doing it for my own good.

Last winter I met a friend last semester, and through her story. I had a one-sided feeling of suffocation. Her parents are the mother who earns the money and the father who takes care of the family. Now the relationship between her parents has broken down. Through my conversations with her, I learned that her mother would think that anything she wanted was a waste of money. Even if she earns her own money to buy the things she wants, her mother will blame her for not honoring her mother first when she earns money. Her mother will not praise her for her B+ grades, she will think that if you can get a B+ why can't you get an A, why not do better. My friend's health problems are also attributed by her mother to not studying hard enough. I've also seen her break down in tears after receiving a phone call from her mother. I felt a sense of suffocation, a sense of not being able to fight against her parents. Comparing her parents with my own, I'm glad that my parents and I can communicate and understand each other.