Entries Tagged 'Children' ↓

So my hubby and I just finished watching Beauty and the Geek Season 4. This is one of my guilty pleasure shows and it’s about a bunch of socially inept geeks and a crowd of gorgeous people working together to change themselves. The winners are supposed to be the couple that went through the largest transformation. This season one of my husband’s college classmates was on it. At first he would laugh at me when I watch the show and then he saw the lone female geek Nicole Morgan and said, “wait a minute, she looks like my friend Niky”. Then I looked up her bio and indeed she really is my hubby’s former classmate. It was quite amusing when he pulled out his Caltech yearbook and found Nicole’s picture and then commented, “they made her geekier looking for the show.” Since then he has rooted for Nicole to win, but unfortunate the final winner was determined by a vote and I think Nicole’s partner Sam was not very popular with the voting audiences so they lost as a team. The prize is $250,000 split between a couple, and as the host announced the prize he said, “a couple’s life is about to change!” My hubby and I both said along the lines of, “that’s not enough money to change their lives!” So after the show I thought about how much money people would need to change their lives. I thought about the events that defined the state of my life, and perhaps I was wrong to say that half of $250,000 can’t change someone’s life. Here are some ways someone’s life could change and their associated costs.

1. Get an education – $125,000 is enough for someone to go to college and get a degree that propels them into a good career. Or it could be used for a professional degree or vocational training that could be used to start a new life.

2. Pay off debts — I think $125,000 can make a big dent in most people’s debt. I truly believe that being free of debt that continually drains you is a good thing that can change people’s lives.

3. Get married -- Previously, I wrote about how much a wedding costs these days. Nevertheless I think it’s important to have a wedding without going into debt. Marriage is absolutely life changing.

4. Have a child — One of my friend is pregnant right now and another one had a baby about 1.5 years ago. The process of raising a child could cost up to a million dollars, but every mommy I have met say that having a child changed their perspective on life.

5. Donate – I sincerely hope that donating a bit of money or items every month or year changes someone’s life out there. A small donation of $20 can buy a flock of chicks for a family in need and feed malnourished children. It really doesn’t take much to change someone’s life by giving.

Everyone’s circumstance is different, but the important thing to remember is how we use our money. We don’t necessarily need millions to change our lives, but we need to be open to change and be willing to direct our resources towards improving our lives. I hope the winners of Beauty and the Geek will use their windfall wisely, and truly change themselves and the world.

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I spent quite a few of my formative years in Honolulu, Hawaii and only moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when I started high school. The middle school project that I remember most clearly was named “The Cost of Living in Paradise”. The Hawaiian Islands is often addressed as paradise, but the cost of living on these islands is very high and so our sixth grade English teacher wanted us to learn about the financial burdens our parents go through. The project worked like the following:

1. We all picked an educational degree out of a hat
2. We all picked a marital status out of a hat
3. We all drew the number of children we had randomly
4. “Married” people were paired up with partners.
5. We had to look in the newspaper classifieds for jobs according to our educational degree. (This was 12 years ago and online job ads were not very common)
6. We had to find housing in the newspaper. (no craigslist yet!)
7. Then based on the pay rate of our “jobs” we set up a budget and calculated how much money we have left at the end of the month.
8. Finally we had to create a poster with all the classfied ads we found and present our budget, and tell the whole class what the cost of living in paradise is.

This is how my fate in paradise turned out. I had a high school diploma and I found a job as a carpet shampooer paying $2000 a month. I was married, and my “husband” happened to be my best friend, who had an associates degree in the culinary arts so he found a job as a chef paying $37,000 a year. It was pretty funny because he was a chubby boy and the whole class laughed and said they could see him as a chef (in reality he is in law school now). Fortunately, we had no kids. The few details I remember about our budget is that our rent was $700 a month, and we had one car and I took the bus to work because public transit is very abundant on the island. We also only budgeted $20 a month for entertainment. In the end we had about $760 left in savings every month.

It sounds so childish when I write about it now, but I remember being very proud of that project because we had the most savings out of the entire class even though we weren’t graded on our savings amount. Some kids budgeted $400 a month for entertainment and $600 a month for clothes and ended up with 0 dollars for savings, and some of the “single” kids said it wasn’t fair that they had less money. Some of the presentations were quite funny,too. For example, a boy explained that he needed to use a lot of money for entertainment to buy the things his parents didn’t buy for him. The takeaway from that project was 1) stay in school to get better paying jobs 2) budgeting lets you see how much you can spend 3) Hawaii is expensive. I don’t think the lesson got through to everyone, but it was still a worthwhile exercise. It is probably the only personal finance lesson I actually had in school, and that’s why I remember it so well. Now that I am really married and working I think I am a little less frugal than my 12 year old self, but I still manage to save a lot with the hubby. On a side note, I sincerely hope the spendthrift kids in my class aren’t living in the zero savings budget they drew when they were 12. Anyway, I think this project can be replicated anywhere with any literate kid and a few newspapers. Of course, it is a lot more fun with more kids in a classroom.

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About fourteen years ago the term “Generation Y” was coined to describe people of my generation. Recently my generation has started to enter the work place and I am reading a lot of articles about how hard it is for companies to manage and retain twenty-somethings like me. I would like to address what I have read in the media about my generation and work from my own experience.

A Sense of Entitlement — This is the number one thing hiring managers complain about Gen-Ys in the workplace. Basically they say that Gen-Ys want to be paid well and do not want to work their way up. Here is how I see it. If I have the same title as 50 year olds and I perform the same job, why shouldn’t I be compensated at the same rate? Why should I be paid lower if I can produce just as much quality work as people much older than me? So I don’t see asking for a good compensation package as a sense of entitlement, but as a sense of fairness. Recently a hiring manager told me that I am paid very well for a 24 year old and I am asking for a lot, but my answer to that is I am worth it and age shouldn’t matter in determining a salary. Additionally, it’s illegal to discriminate in hiring based on age. I did get an offer on that particular job but I turned it down. Another key thing companies have to realize is that years of experience do not equate to quality work.

No Respect for Authority? — Research states that Gen-Ys have a lot less respect for authority than previous generations. I don’t think this is true at all. I have a lot of respect for my highly intelligent and sensible managers, but I am not afraid to tell a person higher up that I think they’re wrong and suggest something different. I think most of my peers are the same. We have respect for those who deserve our respect, but when we encounter stupidity we will question it. The worst thing that can happen is that we get a new job. I think a lot of older managers are not used to this type of questioning from their subordinates and conflicts arise when they’re stubborn and want young people like me to follow directions to the tee. Basically, if a boss wants the best out of me he/she has to be at his or her best as well. Respect has to be earned and not taken for granted and abused. So I would say it’s closer to the truth that we have no fear of authority, but we do respect our supervisors if they are good coworkers.

Loyalty Has To Go Both Ways – Another big complaint of companies is that Gen-Ys switch jobs much more often than their predecessors. The reason for that is companies aren’t loyal to their employees anymore. I am young, but I am not stupid. I’ve seen how corporations lay off thousands of people in a blink of an eye for their own bottom line. Most hiring agreements are at-will and if companies are all about their own individual profit there is no incentive for me to stick around if there is a better opportunity. With the cutting of pension plans and benefits there is very little incentive for Gen-Ys to become “lifers” at a company.

Work Is Not the Most Important Thing in Life — This is a paradigm that isn’t practiced very much by older generations. I think a lot of people of my parents’ generation realize that work shouldn’t be the most important thing in life, but still work so much that they don’t spend time with their families. As children of these workaholics Gen-Ys want flexible working schedules and more time off because they want time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Of course, this behavior is considered lazy and demanding by a lot of traditional workplaces. I think the growing popularity of telecommuting and flexible work hours is a change for the better and our older coworkers could benefit from it if they choose to.

Try to See Us as Equals and Forget About Age — I think most of us want to be treated as equals by older coworkers. I can see why people would be resentful when they’re being managed by those who are half their age when they feel more experienced and skillful. Heck, I have experienced a bit of this resentment when I interviewed older people. When there is a huge disparity in age in the workplace the older workers greatly underestimate the ability of the younger workers. I think everyone needs to just take age out of the equation and objectively examine the quality of work of each person. Otherwise, underestimating the ability of anyone based on their age is discrimination.

With that said, I am constantly learning from those around me regardless of age. I just think there are quite a lot of misconceptions thrown in the media about twenty-somethings. We are not lazy, and we don’t have an easy and coddled life. In fact, we’re facing lower pay, less social benefits, and higher costs so corporate America really can’t blame us for constantly searching for a better life. I think a lot of readers of this blog are young professionals like me and would agree with my observations, but I would like to hear about what you consider as a misconception about our generation. Also to my older readers, what irks you the most about twenty-somethings in your workplace?

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Today I read some pretty bizarre news about former State Representative Ted Klaudt. Basically the guy is on trial for rape because he performed vaginal exams on two foster daughters and the girls allowed it because he told them he is testing them for egg donation. He also told them that each egg could sell for $5000 or more. The tests this guy performed were for his own perverted pleasures, but the egg donation industry is quite real.

What I find funny is that when you sell genetic material you’re considered a “donor”, because to me donation means giving away money or services. When I was in college I saw ads in our school paper looking for intelligent and attractive women to sell their eggs. Eggs have to be harvested with a surgical procedure after the woman is injected with hormones and sells for anywhere from $5000 to $25000. I can see why having such an advertisement in the Berkeley campus paper makes a lot of sense. A lot of these collegiate women are not working and could really use the money to buy things and pay off debt, and being college students they are sort of prescreened for intelligence. Even so, a lot of these egg donation ads also ask for standardized testing scores from tests such as the GRE and SAT. A lot of these young women are also at the peak of their fertility. A news articles from last year reports that college towns are ripe for egg harvests and business is booming.

At first glance, it seems like selling a few cells for thousands of dollars isn’t such a bad deal. After all, it is impossible for a woman to use up all the eggs she is born with. “Donating” eggs does help a lot of infertile couples have children, and that is not a bad thing. People are encouraged to give blood all the time to save lives, and giving eggs creates life so it really seems like a win-win situation for all parties involved. However, I have quite a few concerns about selling eggs. The first is that since the egg dispensing industry is quite young it is not well regulated. There are predators like Ted Klaudt who trick young women into humiliating tests. Also, the health impacts of the hormones injected into these women isn’t very well studied. If a woman donates regularly she would be exposed to hormones that she would not produce naturally. That just seems a bit dangerous to me. Additionally, once the eggs are fertilized there is no telling what the fertility clinics are doing with them. There was a Law and Order episode where a fertility clinic sold one woman’s embryos to multiple couples without the original woman’s knowledge. Even though that is fiction I can see it happening. Basically you have no idea that your eggs are actually going to the one couple that is paying you. This causes problems because if you have children of your own and you have no idea that they have a bunch of half siblings out there it is kind of weird.

In one article I read a Rabbi said, “In Third World countries, [women] go into prostitution. Here, because they have good SAT scores, they sell eggs?” He is concerned that young women are setting prices on their genetic material based on their looks and college credentials. I think that’s not what concerns me the most because technically we do use our credentials and looks to some extent in other parts of life such as work and relationships. I definitely wouldn’t equate selling eggs with prostitution. What troubles me about selling eggs is that families with money can buy a designer baby and choose the genetic profile of their children pre-conception. One of my all time favorite movies is GATTACA with Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, and in that world most humans’ genes are prescreened and parents receive a baby that is an “optimal” combination of themselves. I think buying eggs or sperm is just a type of gene selection. That really scares me because as gene therapy and selection become more and more prevalent and popular eventually the rich will be able to purchase intelligence and beauty before they are even born. Technology is changing how we reproduce drastically, and that created the egg-trade.  With all of that said, I don’t think I will ever sell my eggs even if I were in a financial bind.

Since selling eggs is so lucrative, if you were a young woman who hasn’t started in your career and really need money to pay off debts, would you ever sell your eggs? If you are a man who really needs money, would you ask your wife/girlfriend to sell her eggs?

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So, once again it’s Monday. I am taking a couple days off before I start my new job. Today my article about saving for retirement and saving for a house was an editor’s pick on MyTwo Dollars Carnival of Personal Finance! I’m very honored that David picked my article. Another editor’s pick is Grad Money Matter’s Should Parents Try to Influence Their Kid’s College Applications. I read this article before it was featured in the carnival and wrote a pretty long comment on it because I have had some personal experience with that. Grad Money’s article is what is prompting me to write this article about how Asian parents influence their children’s success in life.

Anyway, when I was in college one of my friends was talking about Asian parents and we came to the following conclusion. Basically the following are the only acceptable careers to our parents: doctor, lawyer, engineer, and financial professional/investment banker. Then my friend mimicked his mom’s accent and said that these were the only acceptable colleges, “STANFURD, HAHVARD, YALE, and MIT”. The whole room busted out laughing and then one guy said, “Well, I guess we’re all failures since we’re at Berkeley”. We may have hyper-stereotyped our parents, but it’s funny because most of what we concluded is true.

Pretty much all of the Asian kids with first generation Asian parents I have met have felt pressure from their parents in choosing a college major that may lead to a high paying career. I think this family enforced career selection may be one of the many reasons why Asian households have the highest average incomes in America. I think it makes sense that parents want their children to be successful, but a lot of Asian parents’ perception of success is very narrow and consists of a high GPA and then a high paying job. So many children are pushed to be doctors and engineers whether or not they like it. I have known several girls who were pushed into engineering and medicine only to despise their majors and found their coursework to be too difficult. Not everyone is meant to be an engineer or doctor, and some Asian parents do not seem understand that. I have also seen Asian parents that pushed their kids to succeed to the point of hurting them. For example, a girl I knew in high school was scolded by her parents on her graduation day for not being the Valedictorian. That is just very unnecessary and cruel.

Cultural clashes occur between first generation Asian parents and American educated children because in America you are encouraged to think outside of the box, create, and be yourself, but in most of Asia you are expected to memorize, repeat, and obey. When Asian children step outside of the box of what their parents consider to be successful, conflicts arise and for the most part I think the parents are just worrying too much. For example, my second cousin was groomed by his dad to be a doctor and he went to an ivy, but he chose to major in photography instead. It didn’t please his dad at first, but now he is successful as a technical game artist. Generally people perform better in what they love to do, and people find success in all kinds of random things in America. I think it is much better to do what you’re passionate about than to go to a job you hate everyday. In fact, some of the pushy Asian parents really stunted their children’s success because when their children end up in a despised career they are usually lugubrious and do not care to excel in any manner. I have seen many examples of these engineers who absolutely hate what they do and want to get out everyday.

Despite all the slightly negative stereotypes about first generation Asian parents in this article I do believe that like all parents they want the best for their children. The parents are right in wishing a good career on their children, but ultimately for their children to achieve success they need to learn to make decisions for themselves. It’s problematic that a lot of these parents do not take the time to understand their children’s strengths and preferences and just try to push their children into a mold of what is considered successful in the Asian community. It’s true that when we are young we are not absolutely sure what we want, and parental advice is always helpful but I think it is unnecessary for Asian parents to throw a ballistic fit when their children consider a career in fine arts. There are many ways to succeed, and parents are human beings who can make mistakes too.

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