DL requested that I change the blog title to something more appropriate. Haha.
Guest Chinese-American Blogger DL returns to discuss and address the issue of Asian-Americans' propensity to be approval-seeking people-pleasers. I'm always delighted by DL's posts, because he offers a fresh perspective on being an Asian-American male treading against the current of family and cultural influences as well as societal pressures. If you haven't had a chance to read through the Keep it on the DL series, you definitely should. Here's part Two, Three, Four and Five.
When I was a teenager, my cousin Susan married a White man, Walter, who had gone to
Berkeley with my cousins and whom everyone acknowledged was just as smart as any of them,
but he took a “dead end” 9-5 job instead of the more ambitious six-figure corner office jobs that
my cousins pursued. Once, at a BBQ, they asked him what made the difference and he
shrugged, “I didn’t have Asian parents putting me down all the time, manipulating me into
seeking their approval with accomplishments.” This struck a chord with me at the time but I
forgot all about it until I read that Wall Street Journal article on Amy Chua’s “Tiger Mom” book.
The thing about Walter, though, is that he is much more content and confident than any
of my cousins. And therein lies an interesting paradox – berating your children so that they are
desperate for your approval may produce more productive, ambitious people, but not happier
ones, and certainly not confident ones, not leaders, and absolutely not ladies’ men.
In a lot of Masir Jones’ posts, he talks about how Asian men are often emasculated in the
media, which I grant is a real problem, but I think a much greater problem is the emasculation at
home by Asian American parents, particularly mothers. We are told that we have no inherent
value, that we have to earn approval and validation from others, so many of us become
desperate, unassertive people-pleasers. This is made worse by the fact that Hollywood idealizes
the “nice guy” like Turtle from Entourage, whom a lot of women I know think is “soooo cute!”
because he tries so hard to impress girls, even though in real life, Turtle’s behavior would
rightfully earn him the label of weak and creepy loser.
I have seen way too many Asian guys try to win over girls with expensive gifts, over-
eager attempts to impress, and obvious but indirect shows of interest, all of which made the
objects of their affection creeped out and lose respect for them, and all of which stem from their
approval-seeking natures. The gifts and attempts to impress come from a place of “her affection
is a prize I need to buy or earn.” The indirect shows of interest are rooted in the dual desire to
show interest but fear of rejection. You know what I’m talking about, the “I’m kinda interested,
but maybe I’m not serious depending on how you react” moves that we all pulled in our
adolescence but an unfortunate number of us are still using in adulthood. In case you’re one of
these people and you haven’t figured it out by now, everyone can see through what you’re doing
and it’s pathetic.
But it’s not all on you. As I mentioned above, if you grew up with Asian parents, you
were probably raised that way. The article on Chua’s book contained an excerpt in which she
called her daughter’s self-made birthday card “trash” and humiliated her for it. This particular
event contains a number of lessons for the girl, particularly; “you are unworthy unless you
impress me” and “any and every misstep is a horrible failure.” If you grew up with that kind of
mother, you also probably grew up to be terrified of ever having to face rejection, especially
from a woman.
My mother tried to drill in me the idea that I would never be anyone or amount to
anything unless I did exactly as she said. It wasn’t TV and the media that told me White girls
would never be interested in Asian guys, it was my mother and other Asian people. My mother
believed that so much that in high school when I brought home a White girlfriend who had all
the classic Nordic traits – pale skin, blue eyes, blonde hair – my mother said to me, “What’s with
you and this Mexican?”
It’s not all Asian American mothers, of course. And it’s not exclusive to Asian American
mothers either – I’ve heard similar kinds of stories about Jewish mothers. However, I’ve
personally seen the problems this kind of childhood has caused for me and many of my Asian
American friends so I felt I needed to speak on it.
Not only does this kind of childhood ruin a person’s confidence, so that s/he lacks self-
respect, accepts insults and bullying without fighting back, tolerates abusive relationships
personally and professionally, and becomes overly risk averse, it also badly damages the child’s
ability to find fulfillment.
In her book, Chua acknowledges that for all her very impressive accomplishments
(becoming a law professor at Yale, for example) she felt empty and unfulfilled in her endeavors
because she was always working for the payoff. That resonated with me deeply. Many of us
work towards our ambitions not because we enjoy the process, the challenges that come with the
work, but because we think, “Once I accomplish X, once I have Y, I’ll be happy.” Of course,
that’s never true, but it’s what the manipulative parenting that Amy Chua and many Asian
Americans parents provided taught us: “You hate doing this, but maybe if you do it perfectly,
you’ll get the validation I always withhold from you.”
So we as Asian Americans toil and take shit from people, we don’t demand respect in the
we should, we act like approval-seeking people-pleasers because we think there may be a payoff
and because we’re so afraid that if we don’t do exactly the right thing, we might be rejected and
humiliated when in reality it’s that inability to stand up for ourselves that invites the rejection
and humiliation. We focus so much on the payoff that we can’t enjoy or derive fulfillment from
the process even though process consumes the vast majority of our time, and the payoff is never
as lasting or satisfying as we imagine.
It may seem as though I wrote this article to rant against Asian American parents and lay
the blame for unhappy, sexually frustrated Asians Americans (especially men) at their feet.
While I admit that I do have a problem with Asian moms (you may recall from my previous
posts here that I almost never date Asian women) the point of this article is actually to highlight
a big cause of many Asian Americans’ problems with self-confidence that doesn’t get much
attention so that we can address it. The next time you fall into approval-seeking behaviors or fail
to stand up for yourself, recognize it and force yourself to act otherwise.
I agree with Masir Jones’ friend from his A Question to Asian-American Women &
Why More Asian-American Guys Should Date Non-Asian Girls post. Sitting here getting
angry at the way Asians are portrayed in the media is not going to change anything, and it’s
certainly not going to make any of us any happier. Unlearning some of the terrible lessons our
parents taught us and asserting ourselves might.
