"Unfinished child" has become a hot topic recently. Under the manipulation of short-video marketing accounts, everything can be "unfinished."
Push your child halfway and then realize they are not cut out for studying — that's early-stage "unfinished";
If they lack momentum and choose to coast through high school or college — that's mid-stage "unfinished";
Study abroad and end up unemployed after graduation — that's late-stage "unfinished."
The term "unfinished child" is gradually being demonized. It's one thing to be mocked by strangers online, but many parents are now using it to manipulate their children.
Some parents even become so paranoid that they demand their children follow every decision they make — from what major to study to what job to take — and only feel satisfied if their children adhere to what they consider a "reasonable life trajectory."
For today's international students, as long as you don't take the "ordinary" path, you're considered "unfinished."
Apply to SPS, and be "disciplined" by your dad.
Open Xiaohongshu or Douyin, and Columbia is a "diploma mill," making you a "study-abroad unfinished child."
Let's be real: no matter how "diploma mill" SPS may be, you still need at least a 211 university undergrad, a TOEFL score of 100, or an IELTS of 7 😅
If only parents could cut back on short videos a bit, they wouldn't be dragged into this baseless anxiety along with their kids.
Is Middle-Class Push Parenting Resulting in Widespread "Unfinished" Children?
A post titled "18 Years of Push Parenting in Haidian, Ending with a 582 on the Gaokao" shattered the middle-class parents' composure.
A girl in Haidian was pushed from age 1. From childhood, she never missed a beat in piano, painting, English, and dance.
The tutoring fees in her senior year alone cost hundreds of thousands. When the gaokao results were released: 582 points.
Middle-class parents had a meltdown: after 18 years of push parenting and spending millions, is this all that's left — an "unfinished" child?
Marketing accounts peddle anxiety, and short videos fuel the fire.
The three combo moves that send the middle class into poverty: a multi-million mortgage, a stay-at-home wife, and an international school.
How to tell if a child is "unfinished"? It's entirely up to netizens' loose talk.
Unemployment, bankruptcy, or disrupted education funding? Definitely "unfinished."
A lower-tier 985 university or an Ivy League humanities degree? Still "unfinished."
Graduated from a top school but can't find a match from a top-20 family? Again, "unfinished."
This generation of parents, swept up in the anxieties manufactured by short videos and marketing accounts, end up making their children the victims.
Watching the Winter Olympics, parents were thinking about how to raise their kids to be like Eileen Gu.
When AI became trendy, the push parenting model shifted to the prodigy Demi Guo.
The Paris Olympics were full of academic high-achievers, and parents had another epiphany: truly exceptional children need to be planned from the womb.
Zheng Qinwen's father said: "We didn't win at the starting line; we started planning before the starting line."
An Olympic tennis champion, a top student at Huake University, worth tens of millions at 21 — Zheng Qinwen represents the pinnacle of push parenting, but it's not a life everyone can replicate.
Chinese parents try to cultivate the next Eileen Gu or Zheng Qinwen, yet they cannot accept that the "Harvard girl Liu Yiting" ended up being ordinary.
The so-called "unfinished" outcome of middle-class push parenting sometimes has little to do with the child.
For instance, blindly following the trend of sending kids to study in Hong Kong, only to underestimate the high tuition fees and living costs, and lacking sufficient risk resilience, forcing them to bring the child back to the mainland.
Is the child really "unfinished"? It would be more accurate to say the parents lack risk awareness and planning ability.
The term "unfinished child" is itself a false proposition. Are children like real estate, where a showroom is considered a success and a bare shell a failure?
East Asian parents pursue conventional success: attending prestigious schools with famous teachers, landing a job at a top company after graduation, and marrying a well-matched partner. It's as if every step must be perfectly calculated to live the "showroom life" — otherwise, it's considered "unfinished."
Parents' attitudes actually greatly affect their children's mental and physical development, and many international students' mental health issues are related to parental suppression.
You've spent millions to study abroad, isn't it all about broadening life's horizons and opening up more possibilities? But there you are abroad, your mind still imprisoned by all these rules, unable to feel even a bit happy.
So nowadays, some more open-minded middle-class parents have decided to lie flat. Rather than spend millions raising a resentful child, they'd rather keep the money as a safety net for the kid.
Since they stopped push parenting, the pressure of the school district mortgage is gone, no more burning money on international schools and summer programs, the mother's blocked milk ducts have cleared (a metaphor for stress relief), the child is no longer rebellious, and the parent-child relationship has reached a whole new level.
Push Yourself, Not Your Child
Push yourself, not your child. The Beckhams are super competitive, but Brooklyn just gets to be a full-time son.
Yi Nengjing is hailed as the dream mom of East Asian kids precisely because she is so open-minded. Even when facing outside skepticism, she still respects and supports her son Enli's choices.
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Even Ivy League admission criteria are not uniform, so why should we confine the possibilities of our lives with rigid rules?
A boy diagnosed with a learning disability received an offer from Princeton University.
He was diagnosed with a learning disability from a young age and was bullied by classmates.
If he had a traditional East Asian tiger mom, this story might have ended with the child's depression and failure to achieve anything.
Fortunately, he had a patient and open-minded mother who helped him discover his love for fencing, painting, and photography, and the talent he showed in these areas gradually gave him confidence.
He stuck with fencing for 10 years. During the busiest time of 12th grade, he slept only 4 hours a day but still felt full of motivation.
Only true love can ignite true passion.
Among families today who use sports as a way to Ivy League admission, many choose niche and expensive elite sports like fencing, ice hockey, sailing, equestrianism, or skiing. But how many parents truly consider their child's preferences?
Why is it that even when East Asian parents succeed in raising accomplished children, those children still aren't happy and may even become estranged from their parents?
Focus less on gains and losses, and more on support and companionship. There is no "unfinished" life, only untapped possibilities.
"Water Brother" from The Brain said: "In a garden, some flowers bloom in March, some in April, and if it never blooms, it's just a tree."
Whether it blooms in March or April, whether it's a flower or a tree, there is no superiority or inferiority.
True education is about subtle influence and teaching according to aptitude.
I hope every study-abroad family will treat their children kindly, and that there is no such thing as an "unfinished child."
Obsessing over results and endlessly comparing will only backfire. What's more important is to let children grow up as healthy and happy as possible, adapt to the rules of society, and be content with what they have.
I also hope that all international students can keep a calm mind, communicate more with their families, and walk their own ideal life path that suits them.
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