[quote=joec]The power of the stay at home mom or dad is that they can shuffle them to all the activities to keep them ahead of everyone else.
I know plenty of Indian families who send their kids to Kumon, Mathnasium, physical sport activities, musical instruments, etc etc etc…
Also, having a stay at home mom means more time to read with the child, supervising their every move, etc…
When you have your kids in a day care or after school thing, it’s never as great since you don’t have that 1 on 1 attention. This is where the higher single income person who can afford to have a spouse stay home allows them to use time to help their kids get further.
International competition for work is a lot tougher since they are simply more hungry. I was watching Bloomberg and they interviewed some lady who was some VC in some business startup funding thing and the thing she hated the most is all the “entitled” workers she sees compared to the international hungry worker.
I think ultra high level success (billions, president of the US, head of corporations…) depends on connections mostly. Doesn’t mean you can’t do well in life, but the networking connections make it easier to get hired, most anything.[/quote]
I don’t know. I think there’s a balancing act. I’ve seen parents that push their kids all the time, and it ends up backfiring. Then again, I see kids that have the aptitude and just need to taught to “care” and then they end up doing it themselves.
The heavy handed approach didn’t work with me. Being surrounded by other high achievers to the point that it self motivated me, did…
The biggest risk of having minimal parental involvement (because both parents work too much and don’t spend enough time with kid(s)) is that you end up outsourcing values, work ethics to someone else, for better or worse…since you aren’t spending enough time doing that job…
