Education and Estrangement
When I was young, my parents insisted on good grades. This was relatively easy because I was terrified of them. It was sort of: You will do well in school...or else. And left unstated: You can be smart or you can work harder than your classmates, we do not care which.
Well, I was never very smart, so I worked harder than my classmates. But in our provincial schools and with our public school teachers, that was not a very high bar. In reality, in order to keep my grades up, I did not have to work very hard. But of course, I did not learn all that much either.
I don't think my parents cared about that last point. Grades were all that mattered. Other than that, my parents did not pay too much attention to my education. Or my actual lack of education. We do not care if you do not study Latin, just keep your grades up. The fact that the school did not offer Latin was not really a concern.
Now my mother did get herself elected to the school board. But of course, she did not have Latin added to the school curriculum. Her big idea for improving education was to extend the school year by a few days. The quality of the education was of secondary concern. And of course, her tenure on the board did absolutely nothing for the education of her own children. Looking back at this episode, I do not believe that was ever a goal. Eventually she gave up the pretense and sent her younger children to private boarding schools.
When I went off to college, for the first time, I had to really learn to study. Now I had to work hard to do well. Here it helped that while my parents did not really care about my intellectual development, they were very good at instilling industriousness. I have never been lazy; and I suppose I should credit my parents for this fact. I certainly cannot recommend their methods, but none of their children turned out lazy.
One way of insuring against a lazy child is to beat the child. Works every time. I have written enough on this site about my parents' Machiavellian methods. But oddly enough, for the parents who took a less violent approach, their children turned out just fine. In my observation, better, because anger and violence are heritable.
So once in college, I just learned a new skill and went with it. I found if I worked twice as hard as my typical classmate, I could do relatively well. And there is no exaggeration here; that is what happened. Of course, I could never catchup with my advanced placement classmates in Latin or Greek or calculus, but by the mid-eighties, colleges stopped requiring too many of these old-fashioned pursuits. I wonder if it has gotten any better today?
Of course, like any single-minded Bombay parent, my parents did not care if I got an education or not. They only cared about, first a degree, and then advanced degrees, which they saw as the ticket to a good life like their own. But more importantly, the accompanying reputational advantage that their children's accomplishments gave them. Do beware if you deny that parental desire.
Believe me, if your daughter gets into Princeton, everyone will know about it. However discreet your position or class requires you to be. Maybe you do keep it relatively private, but your closest friends will know. You know, the friends who sent their kid to the state school. My own guess is that if you want your child to go to Princeton, it is best not to beat her when she is very young. But that is just my own intuition.
As I have written here before, my parents did not actually want children, certainly not young children, they were not much interested in the project of child development, and they took the brutal, unjustified shortcuts.
They never paid for this. I paid for it.
And so I did not go to Princeton. Like so many others, the depression developed in my early twenties. It is a common story and I will not bore you with it here. Suffice it to say, I could not do it any more. In fact, there were months when I could not do anything. At the time, it seemed like failure. So I hid it. From others and from myself. And that was just the start of it.
It seemed like failure to me. I can only imagine what my parents thought. But whatever they thought, I am guessing it was shame that hurt them the most. Not the shame of their child's mental health issues or their certain responsibility for it. The shame of failure. And the loss of any reputational advantage they had spread.
Brutality, depression, failure, shame.
My parents no doubt assume that I turned out lazy and stupid. Their disappointment is palpable. Imagine decades of palpable disappointment. How fortunate that over the years they developed a nature over nurture mindset that nicely lets them off the hook. They did all they could. How could they be in any way responsible? But it is the shame that they cannot forgive. The shame I caused them; they take no responsibility for it.
Luckily they had other more accomplished children to benefit their reputation. As well as their idea of their own worth as parents. Children who were less abused and educated in fancy, expensive schools, before attending the best universities in the world. Here with cynical duplicity, it does seem to be nurture over nature. Their reputation demands it.
They must have been great parents; just look at their children.
It has taken me decades to understand the betrayal.
