The Balm of the Tiger Mom
All parents want their children to succeed. Sure, it would be great to have another Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but these acclaimed figures are simply outliers.
What is most important is that children succeed at whatever activities they do so that their success can translate into a life-long effect. It’s a simple fact: parents want their kids to succeed. Of course, this desire for vicarious success is astronomical in tiger moms and helicopter parents, but no parents want to hover over their children or to be known as a less successful Amy Chua. As the battle hymns of the tiger moms grow louder, the standards for excellence are also set higher every year. It isn’t just parents who want their children to succeed; children themselves desire their own success, their own satisfaction, their own future. Despite many students’ struggles and endeavors, they simply don’t see their efforts translating into success.
No matter how hard they strive, they are just unable to please their parents. The competition even within their own schools is fierce, causing even more anxiety for parents and students because of the realization that every other student in the same grade level is simply competition. Not only are parents unhappy, kids are, too. This apprehensive relationship between children and parents reaches all-time lows over even the pettiest of topics, such as a C on a daily quiz. In order to combat the growing unhappiness and help students overcome the educational rat race, I have devised a novel approach incorporating modern technology.
The exponential growth of concerned parents creates an increasingly unreachable standard for students’ achievements and accolades. Enhancing students will produce countless benefits for both parents and students, especially by fostering more friendly relationships. These SuperStudents™ introduce cutting-edge technology as every parent can adjust his or her child’s innate capabilities in order to achieve mastery in school, extra-curricular activities, and social abilities. So, how does this actually work? The process is simple, efficient, and effective. During the embryonic phase of your children’s lifetime, they will be given minor genetic adjustments to create more capable SuperStudents™ embodying an upgraded version of the perfect student with less parental involvement on your part. Such SuperStudents™ will possess improved intelligence so that a perfect GPA is a breeze.
No more yelling, no anxiety, no complaints of excessive noise from neighbors, no public shaming necessary. No longer will your children bear marks of their father’s belts. No longer will your children walk to school with their shoulders slumped under heavy backpacks and bloodshot eyes from sleepless nights. No longer will it be necessary for your child to cheat to pass their 16 AP courses. No longer will you receive calls from teachers irritated by your child’s snoozing and drooling in class. No longer will you brace for the worst as you open up your child’s report card.
No longer. You and your children alike will be thrilled with the advanced intelligence that will easily ensure their academic success. SuperStudents™ will also possess improved athletic ability so it will be easier to be the top athlete in specific sports in order to get a full-ride athletic scholarship. Isn’t that the aspiring high school athlete’s dream? A full-ride athletic scholarship! Never worry about paying for college again! Not only will this create an ecstatic sensation for your child, you can also take pride in your own making of the next Jeremy Lin! You will open up so many possibilities for your children’s happy future all through innovative genetic enhancement. Not only can your SuperStudent™ acquire athletic and intellectual superiority, he or she will also relish the greater musical aptitude resulting from improved emotional musical receptivity. For practical music pieces, a dopamine-release will occur and your calm, focused SuperStudent™ will be able to express his or her musical genius for hours.
This musical endurance translates into a more complete physical, mental, and social endurance that will benefit your student by promoting well-roundedness and stress tolerance. Heightened social skills will also assist your SuperStudent™ in becoming a leader in the community. In addition to the essential qualities of courage, wit, and self-confidence, SuperStudents™ will also acquire a greater ability to identify with a public audience. By creating socially adept students, greater leaders for the future will be created: club presidents, Associated Student Body leaders, and community service organizers, just what your children need to meet Ivy League schools’ expectations. The benefits and possibilities of additional supplements to SuperStudents™ are countless and introduce a possibility to foster your relationship with your child like never before. Some may protest that my approach is unethical, outrageous, or even inhumane.
They say that genetic enhancement will simply create a new generation of hyper-competitive students that require further enhancement to stand out. Rather than helping students, this approach represents a proverbial arms race – simply entrenching the war among parents to create an even MORE perfect student and generating even MORE impossibly high standards for normal students to aspire to. Critics complain that it’s inhumane because it ruins what it means to be truly human. A human is the product of a natural process, they say, with both the blessings and limitations that entails, and should not be subjected to artificial enhancements. Yet, is it not natural to want to the best for your child, with as little conflict as necessary? Is it not normal to expect your child to portray a true representation of you, as parents? Is it not within your rights to control how your family name and your values are perceived in the world? Choosing to create your own SuperStudent™ enables you to rightfully depict yourself through three basic components: a more intellectually advanced community, a truer family identity, and a more stable parent-student relationship within the household. As those responsible for conditioning your child, preparing them for this brave new world, how could you, as parents, settle for anything less?
