Rant of the Exiles

Every generation overcompensates for the preceding one. A teacher at my kids' former school shared how, as a child, she used to challenge her parents' decisions by asking why. And she would be rewarded by their terse response "Because I said so". She hated it. So much so that since then she has made it her mission (in line with the school's child-centered philosophy) to explain to her students in every situation the reasoning behind her requests. I've seen this first-hand in the classroom. A couple years ago, my son's teacher (not the one above) would bring teaching to a halt for several minutes so she could explain to a disruptive student why his behavior was causing the class problems, ask him to consider other options, and then respectfully wait for him to come to a decision. It was maddening, for both me and my son. John Rosemond has a solution that these teachers would hate. He advocates "because I said so" (BISS) because: I ha...

 According to one source , Jeremy Lin is an average point guard in the National Basketball Association. His season stats are pretty good but not All-Star caliber. His scoring is down slightly from last season because he has a different team and a different role. I couldn't be more ecstatic about this. It means that Jeremy is an ordinary NBA player. It means that he's not that big of a deal. It means that he's getting by at his job. To be average in an elite cadre of 500 of the best basketball players and top athletes in the world is nothing short of extraordinary. For overachieving Asian Americans, being average is garbage. Getting a "C" is failure. Getting a "satisfactory" is humiliating. Most of us won't attempt anything where we can only "get by". But the reality is there has never been an average Asian American NBA player. Yao Ming is exceptional both in ability but also in height. Being 7'6" does not make you normal....

I can't find recent data. Most of the stuff is at least five years old but by these estimates, the Asian American divorce rate is about 5%. I've got research from 2002 , 2008 for Asian Americans, and 2008 for Chinese Americans. The latest census data do not break out by race. In any case, a 5% divorce rate is about half the national average. Less divorce is a good thing. I would imagine that divorce does not bode well for personal fulfillment and many studies have shown it has a negative impact on children (too lazy to cite all the sources here). Of course, as one source argues, a lower divorce rate does not equate to a healthy marriage. There can be all kinds of abuse, dysfunction, and strife within marriage. All in all though, a lower divorce rate is one advantage of late marriage for Asian American men (and women). However, I believe a lower divorce rate is correlated with later marriage and there is no causation between the two. People who tend to be conservative, ...