P.A.R.E.N.T.S.

Goodness Gracious Me: Typical Asian Parents!




I'm not sure how many of you guys have seen this video before. It's been lurking on YouTube for almost 20 months and has earned itself more than 400,000 views thus far... It's basically an illustration of the stereotype of over-demanding Asian parents, albeit terribly exaggerated. (But hey, the exaggeration is actually what I find the most amusing, hahaha! =P)


BUT! I shan't focus on that topic. (It's totally overdone, seriously.) I shall zoom in, instead, on the parental role division shown in the video. I'm sure you've noticed too... It's a typical father-mother role division-- the mother is more sympathetic and understanding, the father stricter and more demanding. (Not saying there aren't exceptions, cos there are!)

I don't know about you, but all my life I've pretty much taken it for granted that that's how parents behave... That is, until I came to UB. Enter modules COM101 and PSY101, and I began to realise there's actually a lot more to this whole parental roles thing. WHY do parents distribute their parental duties this way?


1) Women are run by their emotions, men keep theirs inside.

Which also goes to say that women probably express affection much more than men do. (As always, there are exceptions, but let's just generalise for the sake of this post.) This difference in level of expression automatically renders the female the better candidate to shower love and affection upon the child, and the male the more suitable choice for dispensing cold, hard discipline. It would probably be very awkward if they were to switch roles, huh...


2) Women do "rapport talk", men do "report talk".

When talking, women focus more on make sure a solid relationship is built between speaker and listener. On the other hand, men focus more on simply delivering the necessary content. Once more, this places the female in a better position to provide sympathy and understanding for the child, while the male sets the demands and expectations for the child's performance.


3) Men are inflicted with colour-blindness much more often than women.

... Hahaha just kidding. This probably has nothing to do with the video.
Just thought I'd mention it for fun! =P


So... there you go. See you next time, folks! =D