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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As I’ve gotten more senior in my career (former Biglaw), I’ve realized that all the striving leads to a dead end.  We have enough money now to sustain our relatively modest life. I ask myself whether I want my kids to follow a similar path.

In other words do they bust their butts to do well academically, work in a high-pressure, thankless job, and then get disillusioned with their lives thus far?  Or do they take the long view even from high school, and realized that a balanced life, well lived is better than a high-achieving burst that burns out after 15 years.

And I’m also Asian, second generation American with parents who grew up in a country with a national test for college.[/quote]

"We have enough money now to sustain our relatively modest life" is key here. Median income is 70K in the DMV. Would you be happy with 70K? Or is 200K+ your definition of "relatively" modest?

If my DC didn't have to "strive" to guarantee themselves an UMC lifestyle, let me know how to achieve that.  I do know many "nonstrivers" from my high school that are struggling with their bills and dealing with much more stressful LMC and MC problems, rather than DCUM's relatively banal UMC problems.[/quote]

Agree.  UMC is expensive.  Your income and your lifestyle are a direct reflection of you working very hard for many years. It builds character to apply your maximum effort and develop a stellar work ethic in the process.  The grass isn’t greener on the average/middle class side.  There are plenty of them wishing they would have worked harder, had more parental support with academics, etc. so they could have had the ability to obtain a higher paying career- while their life may be “balanced” they are shut out of a lot of opportunities and experiences for themselves and their children bc they can’t afford them, not to mention if a disaster happens and they don’t have enough savings to cover.

How hard you work in high school, college, and the early years of your career definitely sets the trajectory for the rest of your adult life.  Slack off early on and it is hard to recover.  If you front load all the work, mid career you can start stepping back.  [/quote]

Your kids will not be doomed to financial mediocrity if they do not strive to be "the best." Yes, work ethic is important within reason, doing well in school is important within reason. But striving at the cost of your kids' mental health is clearly self-defeating. And for what? Bragging rights?

My older step kids went to small liberal arts colleges that DCUM would scoff at and both are doing extremely well in their careers now. They got full rides and were at or near the top of their classes in college without trying too hard. Neither of them had to experience the high stress culture of HYP strivers in high school. They are no less financially well off than my husband and I were at their age, and we went to elite universities and chose high-stress competitive careers. I do not want our kids as stressed out as we were. Past a certain level of effort, the gains are not worth it. It's important to teach them balance.[/quote]

You are missing the point.  They don’t have to do “the best,” but they should be doing their best.  Giving half effort at school and taking easy classes and not challenging and applying themselves will become their default.  It will carry over into other  aspects of their life.  [/quote]

I think you are also missing the point. Pushing a kid to do "their best" can also be detrimental. Each kid can work X number of hours and do reasonably well relative to their own ability level without negative mental health outcomes. They should still have downtime and time to socialize and not be anxious at this point. Or you can push them to work twice as hard for a supposedly better outcome at the expense of their mental health, simply so they can perform at their best. At our school we see plenty of kids pushed beyond what is reasonable, because parents always think they should be able to do better. [/quote]

Their best is subjective- and of course it is a balance.  The much much larger problem facing kids is the US is parents not caring or pushing them academically at all.  Outside of UMC districts and private schools, majority of kids aren’t even proficient in core subjects.  Sports are king. [/quote]

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