/asianparentstories on Reddit is TOXIC

…yet I can’t wean myself away from it. The stories are interesting, awful/toxic (and often about their parents being racist or sexist (or both)), with many likely being fake, but I can’t stop reading them. And offering “advice” as an older, been there, done that woman (yes, “older” because many are GenZers). But I need to do this somehow. The stories tend be the “usual” such as parents forcing them to major in certain subjects, not liking their kids’ career or spouse choices, and for some, forced marriage (usually posted by women).

Some posts are indeed annoying and others almost toxic because cause mental distress due to what’s allegedly happening to them. These parents certainly have toxic parents, but their constant complaining (and not doing much about it, if at all) causes me to feel like I’m being pounded by MY parents. And to a certain extent, I can relate to them too. The university major thing, for example. My parents are STEM people. They studied math, chemistry and physics in university (double majors in two of the three). Me? Well, I’m more expression. Yet, when I was just a bit older than my son, my parents sent me to computer camp where I failed at coding a program. Sure, it was partially because I needed a new prescription for my glasses (the other was probably me getting lost with all those numbers, letters and other characters), but not having it work while everyone else’s did was NOT GREAT for my self-confidence. Neither was going to math camp and not being able to calculate something when I was in middle school. Especially when I was actually doing WELL in math at school. Theatre camp and journalism camp, on the other hand, well, those were AMAZING.

Another thing that feels toxic to me is how many of the writers are GenZers with GenX parents. The “traditionalist” views of these parents doesn’t seem too realistic to me. But then again, I don’t come across very traditionalist immigrant GenXers too often, nor do I know many from the old country. The only one who comes close is a family member I wrote about a while back (who doesn’t believe in therapy). And I’m not sure I can label this person as a “true” traditionalist relative to what these GenZers write.

Yet, I can’t stay away. I know I should probably spend more time on, say, Duolingo or here on Substack, but because I’m also on other subreddits including one for parenting, it’s just THERE for me to click on. And posts appear on my feed that are kind of clickbait for me.