Late at night, my father stumbled into my room, questionably
over the legal drinking limit. He staggered over to me and bent over as to give
me a kiss goodnight on my forehead. And then he noticed I was awake and paused.
“Hey, son.”
“Hey, Ba.”
I suddenly had a feeling of dread.
And he went on to tell me about how old he was getting. How
wonderful doctors were for helping him for the past few decades. How great
doctors were for giving him a new chance at life, he said as he gestured
towards his leg. How he needed a doctor to care for him especially when he grew
old. How I could become a great doctor, all I had to do was study for it.
Even in his possibly drunken state, my father could still remember
how proud he was of me.
*sigh*
At some time in our lives (and probably all the time for
Asian students), our parents wanted us to be doctors. A high salary and the
chance to benefit society sounds like a good future to anybody.
As a kid, I wanted to satisfy my dad, so I aspired to become
a doctor. And so did more than half the class. I gave up on it in middle school
and now I’m undecided.
Yet my dad asks me about it all the time. “What would you like to be when you grow up?”
he would say and I would stand there silently, unable to lie or to disappoint.
This kind of pressure from parents with high expectations to
succeed over everyone else in such a competitive job is ridiculous. The shame
of disappointing your parents by not becoming a doctor versus becoming a doctor
and not being happy. It’s a hard decision for anyone, considering you’d be
unhappy either way. Unless you actually want to be a doctor, in which case, you
have one less competitor.
It’s unfair to expect anyone to make this decision. What’s
more important: the happiness of the people that raised you or your own
happiness? My own father named me Victor because he wanted me to become his own
version of success and victory: a doctor. At the same time, my father already
gave me something to worry about: how to tell him I wouldn’t be getting a PhD.
We all become individuals at some point. We leave our parents
and we go out into the world to fulfill our purposes in life. After all, at
some point, your parents will put you down as a child and never pick you up
again. When it happens, it’s not necessarily a bad thing but maybe the
beginning of a great thing. Maybe you’ll become a parent yourself and finally
understand why your own parents wanted you to become a doctor when you were
younger.
I have a question for Mrs. Mathews as a mother: Would you want your son to become a doctor if it meant he had a secure future or would you prefer it if he had his dream job?
