My parents have always worked very hard throughout my life to cut me off from people who inspired, encouraged, or helped me to make the most of myself. They attacked me for socialising with people who motivated me to do well in school and provided me with opportunities to practise many of the skills I would later need in university while I was still in high school. They discouraged, prevented, or forbid me from associating with people who supported me. They did everything that they could to deprive me of the intellectual cultural background shared by my future colleagues, and continually criticised me for being in the company of the kind of people that my teachers and my classmates’ parents were always trying to inspire their students and children, respectively, to become. But the fact is that throughout my life there has always been a perfect correlation between my productivity and my sociability, and my parents’ eradication of my enjoyment of the company of others led inevitably to the collapse of my ability to do any work whatsoever.
The only way for me to return to work was to complete my Research Proposal. I couldn’t write it, because every time I sat down to write all I could think about was how my father had beat me, locked me out of the house, and threatened to disown me for writing about essentially the same thing back in high school. I felt that the only way forward was to write my proposal (or at least its first draft) in a way that reflected my high school interest in quantum information and quantum computation, despite the fact that obviously a lot has happened in the field since then.
I discussed my writer’s block with my counsellor, and learned several things which have somewhat clarified the situation for me. The first was that I was deathly anxious about being judged or asked questions on my research. After I had finished writing my Research Proposal, the next step would have been to give an oral presentation on it to my thesis Advisory Committee, at the end of which they were to question me on it. Even the thought of this made me ill.
The cause is fairly obvious. When I was studying quantum computing in high school, my father had interrogated me on what I was studying. He listened to my answer only long enough to determine that it was not “for school”, immediately dismissed it as “worthless” as soon as he did so, and ordered me not to study it again. When I continued in spite of his prohibition, he screamed at me or beat me whenever he caught me with any papers or books on the subject. And when I continued visiting the university library against his wishes, he locked me out of the house. And lastly, when all of that had failed to stop me, he threatened to deprive my brother of a university education and to disown me unless I complied with his wishes. When I resumed studying quantum computing after my brother had graduated from university, he finally disowned me. And during this entire time, my mother continually attacked my friends and colleagues who supported my interests and helped me, and did everything she could to make it unpleasant for me to spend any time around them. The severe punishments I had received at the hands of my parents, which ended with their disowning me, all began with my father’s questions about my research into quantum computing. Naturally, the oral examination that was to accompany my Research Proposal caused me an extreme amount of stress.
My reaction is obviously as irrational as it is uncontrollable. The members of my Advisory Committee had no reason to punish me for my research, nor was it within their power to do so. And they most certainly were not going to dismiss it as “worthless”, especially considering that it is within their research areas as well. But my body reacted just as stressfully as if I was about to be interrogated on my research by my father. There was no way out of this. I simply couldn’t face the prospect of an oral examination. And I couldn’t explain this to the members of my Committee without also telling them about how I grew up with abusive parents (and especially a father who beat me for studying the subjects upon which their scientific careers had been based), which was something that I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to be treated any differently on account of my personal history, and I thought that if the Committee members knew about my situation then they might hold back from making legitimate criticisms or asking tough questions.
Of course, I was getting ahead of myself. I couldn’t even write a first draft of my Research Proposal, and for essentially the same reason. The idea was stuck in my mind that I had to write it the way I would have written it in high school, which would have made absolutely no sense to anyone else. I most certainly would have been asked to revise it, which was to be expected in any case, but there were certain elements that I felt had to be included which I would not have been able to defend without explaining my personal history. And so, every time I sat down to write my Research Proposal, my thoughts turned instead to how I could explain my personal history to others, which led naturally to my writing of this autobiography.
Another thing that came out of counselling was that I had developed a pathological form of perfectionism. Besides the reason given above, I was unable to produce a first draft of my Research Proposal also because I didn’t want anyone else to see it before it was done. I was not always this way — in high school, I used to show rough drafts of my essays and stories to my friends all the time, and repeatedly made revisions based on their feedback. But whenever my parents caught me working on a project before it was finished, their interference would inevitably bring it to a premature end. And so I had learned to keep secret anything that I really needed to get done. But I suppose that I should have known that it would be impossible to complete a Ph.D. degree before my parents realised what I was studying.
(As an aside, I had managed to obtain two Master’s degrees under similar conditions. But things were not as stressful with them. During the course of the research for my two Master’s theses, I had made use of skills that I had acquired by doing things which my parents had punished me for doing, but I was never directly studying something which they had forbidden me from and threatened to disown me for studying.)
Since I couldn’t work, and had effectively dropped out of school as I was unable to either physically go to any of my workplaces or even maintain virtual (i.e., electronic) contact with my colleagues, I decided that I needed a change of environment — and so I travelled to the Middle East.
I had been saying and writing since high school that it was very important for scientists from different countries to work together, especially if their respective governments are ideological or political opponents. My parents had always criticised me for this. I had stopped making a big deal out of this belief since I entered university, because I didn’t want to give my parents yet another excuse to attack me. But this appeasement did not stop my mother from continually accusing me of promoting collaboration between scientists from the West and from Iran anyway, presumably because it was the sort of thing that I would have done if I had been free to act without worrying about my parents’ harassment. There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with this activity, and in fact I think it should be commended — it was just that this wasn’t something that I was actually doing. But this provides yet another example of why authoritarian parenting is so counterproductive. If my parents had already punished me for something that I hadn’t done, then I might as well just go ahead and do it. My parents had in fact forced me to do many of the things that I had done in my life which have upset them, but they’re simply incapable of recognising their own culpability in the consequences of any of their actions.
Promoting scientific co-operation between scientists from different countries, however, was something that I had always wanted to do, but had held back from doing because of my parents. Since I was now free of their control, if not of their influence, I could travel to Iran and participate in the International Iran Summer School on Quantum Information, which took place in September 2008. And this was how I ended up writing and posting the first entries in this blog from Iran. So everything has come full circle.
Before I conclude this autobiographical series, I wanted to write a little bit about my thoughts on why my parents choose to behave in the way that they do. I could see that it was partially due to the fact that they had bad parents themselves, but far from exonerating them, this actually makes them much more culpable in my eyes. When I was in elementary and high school, I could not understand my father’s anger towards me, because I was everything that all the other parents wanted their children to be.
My parents continually punished me for doing well in school and for being popular, while I could see for myself that some of my schoolmates’ parents expended a considerable amount of energy, effort, and money, often in vain, in attempts to convey these same advantages on their children. For the life of me, I could not understand why my parents were so upset when they were getting for free what some other parents were apparently willing to pay any price to obtain. (Incidentally, another thing I could not understand was how some of my schoolmates’ parents could fail to see that lavishing money on their child’s associates was a sure way to guarantee that he or she had no genuine friends.) In retrospect, I think the fact that my parents didn’t actually have to make any effort at all to obtain the results that other parents wanted was precisely the problem.
They couldn’t help but interfere, because otherwise their claims that they were responsible for my achievements would not be credible. I had learned how to do so well in school during their absence from my life, and they really couldn’t say that they had anything to do with it. (Unfortunately for them, the other thing I had learned was to never give in to bullies.) By continually disrupting my studies, they could claim that it was their “discipline”[1] that was responsible for whatever I managed to achieve in spite of their interference. This theory also has the advantage of explaining why my parents continually attacked anyone who helped or supported me — they didn’t want to share the credit for my accomplishments with anyone else.
In addition to his selfishness, I think that another reason my father has always attacked me for my scientific and other intellectual pursuits was his towering insecurity. He has an incorrigible inability to admit his ignorance and his errors, but expects everyone to respect him and to treat him as an authority anyway. What else could explain the numerous egregiously stupid statements which have spewed forth from his mouth over the years, such as that theoretical computer science is not computer science, or that he had never heard of a practical use for quantum mechanics (but insisted that I get a degree in electrical engineering)? His attacks on my books and papers on science were, I think, an effort to remove from his presence anything which might have exposed his embarrassingly appalling ignorance and lack of education (as opposed to schooling). This was, of course, a self-defeating enterprise. In contrast, for example, according to Richard Feynman’s autobiographical accounts, although his father was not a highly educated man, he had always encouraged him to study science and to think for himself. I think that it’s actually worse to have a parent who has a Ph.D. degree which he believes entitles him to speak with authority on subjects he knows nothing about than to have parents who are uneducated but humble.
In one of my earliest posts on this blog, I discussed my reasons for writing this autobiographical account and making it public. I have wasted far more time, energy, and money on managing my parents’ abusive behaviour than I have on any other activity in my life. Along the way, I have made decisions which in hindsight were very obviously mistakes, such as allowing my parents to bully me into minimising my public presence. I hope that other people will benefit from reading about my experiences growing up as a gifted child with abusive authoritarian parents, whether they are in a similar situation themselves or are just interested in different aspects of the education of gifted children.
And now, finally, I will begin writing again about science.
– davinci
Notes
- ↑1 「管」 This is a traditional Chinese concept describing how parents should relate to their children. The word can mean “to control”, “to train”, or “to discipline”. Outside of the context of parenting, it is also used to describe how military commanders relate to their subordinates or how jailers relate to their charges.
What kind of education do your parents have? They don’t sound like scientists or engineers to me.
I am quite glad that my parents have Ph.D’s (incidentally, my dad’s adviser was Iranian), as they seem quite willing to support my interest in mathematics (although occasionally my dad does say my category theory is “useless” sometimes; he’d much rather have me working in partial differential equations). My mom, who is divorced from my dad, and who I had been living with during high school, supports me completely in everything I do, although sometimes she does so with a controlling hand. Without their Ph.D’s they would define success differently, in terms of wealth or other traditional Chinese measures.
Feynman’s father also relayed some of his deep physical insights to a young Feynman, in particular, distinguishing between really knowing something and simply knowing the name.
I don’t know, I just thought I’d thank you for sharing this series of posts. I can’t imagine the state I would be in, in your circumstance.
I’m looking forward to your science posts in the future.
Hi, Bill:
My father has a Ph.D. in geography. I don’t believe my mother has anything beyond a high school education. Obviously, there’s a lot of variation in the Chinese community, but there’s still an “ideal” of a professional father and a homemaker mother. I think that your situation with divorced parents and a mother with a Ph.D. is somewhat unusual, although it’s probably a lot more common than I think it is. But it might explain why they’re more open-minded than people who adhere more strictly to “traditional values”, which frown upon divorce and place very little emphasis on the education of girls. Your father sounds like he actually knows what category theory is, as opposed to dismissing it as “useless” simply because he had never heard of it. In what fields were your parents’ degrees?
Hi, Chris:
Thank you for the encouragement. I sometimes can’t imagine the state that I’m actually in, myself.
I couldn’t tell you how alone I’d felt for so long until I read your blog. The way your parents treated you was exactly the way I was treated; the physical and emotional abuse, the authoritarian approach, humiliation, and their ideas about extra-curricular activities and learning… everything. But I was born in Australia and am the older daughter. So my ideas were dismissed as “Australian/Western brainwashing” and a lot of my female and sexual identity was thrown in the mix.
My name is Stephanie and I’m A 22 year old University of Sydney honours graduate, and ran away from my Chinese parents when I was 17. I have been seeing a family psychologist since I was 15, and am still doing so as I have recently felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness and despair, especially after I had ended a 4 year relationship with my then-boyfriend.
I read at one point that you regret not running away when you were a teenager. I can’t stress to you that no matter how soon or late you could have escaped them, you’d still feel the same exhaustion, anger and regret. It has been 5 years with no contact and I still blame my parents for so much. What springs to mind most is that I struggle with relationships; I am independent and dependent all at the same time, both needy and commitment-phobic, and unable to trust. I date furiously, without ever feeling satisfied. I have some awful idea about conditional and unconditional love and it all falls back to the relationship I have with my parents.
Five years on, my parents have assumed I dropped out of university but they couldn’t be more wrong, as I am invited to do a Masters with a scholarship (after a First Class Honours bachelor) next year. I hate them so much that I can’t even bring myself to show them evidence of how wrong they are, as that would be falling back into the same “show-off-results” habit I had as a teenager. I’ve deferred my studies because I truly went off the rails after I graduated, was hired into my dream job (and made redundant as a result of the GFC) broke up with the long-term boyfriend and moved out of his house in a span of 3 months. Over Christmas too, which is a highly vulnerable time for me having no family to share it with.
God I couldn’t tell you how much I wish you were a friend within reach; a real life person to meet up and connect with, rather than some identity over the internet. When it comes down to the core of this issue, I never feel as though my friends TRULY understand.
This is a mere hello. I’d love to talk to you more.
I’m sorry I’m just to excited to leave it at that.
To add, I did a Bachelor of Music (Composition), which I’m sure you know, is awful news to any Chinese authoritarianism parent. Isn’t it funny how I need to tell you what I study and which university to give you a sense of my identity? It’s hard to let go of old values I guess.
I was climbing up and down lovely orchestral halls and recording music. It was such a wonderful thing. The occupation required me to be both physical & creative. It also meant it was important to network and socialise in order to get anywhere in the industry. It wasn’t like being an engineer/doctor/lawyer. It was an occupation my parents could not grasp.
I think it’s wonderful that you have identified the issues. Can you imagine how many others are stuck, unable to articulate why the couldn’t achieve what they want to achieve?
Hi, Stef,
Thanks so much for your comments, and sorry for not responding earlier as I didn’t see this comment until now. A large part of the reason that I have put what I have written about my experiences with my parents online is so that others with similar experiences can find it and read about it. I was actually wondering if anyone would, or if my efforts had been futile.
I did consider running away when I was in high school, but some friends talked me out of it. I suppose that you’re right that I would have had to deal with a lot of problems either way, but I think that it would have been better if I had dealt with them earlier when I was a teenager, when I knew other people in my peer group who had similar problems with their parents, and I could have availed myself of various child protection agencies. It’s much more difficult to deal with these problems while in graduate school, when one is surrounded by people who seem to have very supportive parents. I imagine that relatively few people with unsupportive parents manage to make it into graduate school, although I might be wrong about that. Also, there are no governmental agencies for helping adults who had grown up with abusive parents.
I had to look up “GFC”. I guess that’s an Australianism.
When I was growing up, I met many people whom I think had the same issues, but who tried to hide it or deny it. I do feel somewhat good about the fact that I’ve identified and written about my problems, but I haven’t gotten unstuck yet.
You’re welcome to contact me by e-mail. My address is davinci(at)stargrads.net.
– davinci
A gifted child is also a handicaped child. He/she needs extra care, at least
till adult age. Being highly sensitive, he/she could be in trouble without being aware of it. For example, he could run into discrimination without knowing that he was
being discriminated. He knew something was not right, but he could not figure out
why. This could hurt his development. A highly gifted kid is like a sharp knife,
but it can be easily blunted.
There are examples of success, but the cases I know of, require parents’ dedicated
attention for years; there is a lot of sacrifice involved.
In this case there is an extra complication with the field of study, which is highly
demanding (both the field of theoretical physics and theoretical computer science
normally require years of study even for the outstanding scholars; we are talking
about the best minds of the world). The fact that his background is EE is not a
good start, so in some sense he was misguided. That is just a side remark. Hoever, Waterloo is undoubtedly the best for this study.
All parents have the best interest of their children at heart, but they have to
realize that however educated they may be, knowledge is not just one dimension or one
area. In this case, for example, there is a lot to learn about educating a gifted child.
Hi, FC. Thanks for the comment.
I pretty much knew that my parents’ actions were going to be very damaging to my career in the future since I was a little child. What I couldn’t figure out was how to get them to stop behaving in the way that they were. The only thing that I could do was to learn to cope with it, with help from other adults in my life.
I don’t know how far back in the autobiographical series you’ve read, but I did try to enter a science program to study computer science and astrophysics at the end of high school. My father forbid me from doing so, and insisted that I get a degree in engineering instead. Nevertheless, I don’t think EE is necessarily a bad background for quantum computing. There are many experimentalists at IQC with EE backgrounds. The problem is that many of them are Iranians, which triggered another set of reactions from my parents that prevented me from working with them.
So I felt out of place with theoretical computer scientists and theoretical physicists, because my father had insisted that theoretical computer science “is not computer science” and that theoretical physics “has nothing to do with computer science” when I was in high school, and punished me very severely for studying those subjects. And I couldn’t interact with the electrical engineers in my field, because my mother kept telling me that doing so “upset” my father, and continually interrogated me about my colleagues until I could no longer work with them.
I don’t know if gifted children are necessarily more sensitive than other children, but I don’t think that one has to be particularly sensitive to be damaged by being severely punished by his parents for doing things that other adults, such as his teachers and classmates’ parents, praise him for doing, while a child; and which are vitally important to his career, and which his colleagues expect him to do, as an adult. And while my experiences have been that of a gifted child, my parents’ way of parenting would have been extremely damaging to any child.
I don’t agree with the statement that all parents have the best interest of their children at heart. In an ideal world, that would be the case. But some parents are narcissistic and selfish to the extent that they always put their own interests ahead of those of their children. You see this sort of thing all the time in children’s sports or beauty pageants, where the parents live vicariously through their children with complete disregard for their comfort or enjoyment.
I do agree, however, with your insight that a gifted child is also a handicapped child.
– davinci
No comment
There are some (paternal) parents acting like dictators or supreme rulers
in the (typical Chinese) family; they enjoy power and vanity and don’t want to have their authorities challenged. Some of them fail to recognize the far-reaching
consequences of sending their young kids abroad too early too soon.
The general and bigger problem is about “culture shock” and its consequences that the
Chinese or oriental youngsters have to face and cope with in US/Canada.
Ideally one would want to have the best of the two cultures; unfortunately,
it does not work out that way even for the most mature.
The university systems are sound in US/Canada. However the same cannot be said for
their public grade school system. The negative effect of its high school education far outweights its opportunity.
Most of the oriental kids are doing extremely well academically here in high schools, but so far there seems a lack of evidence to support their projected successes in society; it appears those who come here for graduate study (especially in US) are doing far better in their career than this group who go through grade school here (with some
qualified exceptions).
what an awful experience that must have been. try to remember that the earth is over 4 billion years old and our time here is “quantum” in its length. do what it takes to put this mess behind you and get on with the wonderful work you and others are doing in the field of quantum computing. you have a unique and special gift and a chance to be part of something that may well change things in a major way for those who will follow you in the next billions of years. i attended the u of w in the mid 60′s and studied math computer science. what i have seen happen in this field over the past 50 years is stunning. it is people like you and your collegues at the perimenter institute and the IQC that may well be part of changes that will dwarf those of past and time is not your ally.
good luck
Thanks for the encouragement, nick. I’ve left the field. I wish I can add “for now”, and I want to go back, but for someone who has left academia (and in particular, someone who has dropped out of school, as I have), the probability of getting back into academia again is quite slim.
– davinci
sorry to hear that you have left the world of acedemia. you obviously struggled
with the decision but appear to have interalized it and are at peace with it. glad to hear about your love for and talent in the field of music. hope it brings some happiness and fulfillment in your life. i have lived with a family member who has suffered from depression all of their adult life and the one thing that has complicated it throughout is a lack of self estem and social anxiety. if these two things are part of your experience i urge
I’m not really at peace with it and want to go back. I’m just being realistic about the fact that it probably won’t happen. I’m not depressed about my situation. Now I’m actually kind of angry about it.
(Also, I’m not the musician — I think you misread Stef’s comments above as a part of my post.)
– davinci
i apologize for misreading stefs commment. should have been more careful. however, wherever life’s path takes you i wish you well and thanks for sharing your journey so far.
Ask not what your parents have done FOR you; ask what you have done FOR your parents!
Ask not what your parents have done TO you; ask what you have done TO your parents!
Think about the many sleepless nights they had when you were a baby, when you were sick, when you ……
Haven’t your parents done a single “good” thing that contributed to what and who you are today?
From your blog, I believe your parents are first-generation immigrants from China or Hong Kong. Do you realize how difficult it is to be uprooted from they place when they grew up and re-settle in a new country? Do you know how difficult it is to give you a safe shelter and to put food on the table?
While your parents’ way of treating you were ridiculous, I don’t believe they did so to intentionally destroy your life. You might not appreciate their dream of your future, I think your parents worked hard to save dime by dime to send you to university. Did they drive luxurious cars? Did they go out to eat all the time? Did they go on holidays during March breaks? Did they buy extravagant clothing? Did they ever leave you hungry when you went to bed? Did your mom prepare you breakfast before you went our of bed?
I believe your parents and you have one single thing in common — that is to make sure you will succeed in your life. The only difference between them and you is the means of doing so. Your parents wanted you to follow a path that they thought might be best for you, and you wanted to do it your own way. That was where the conflict was coming from.
You know what you WANT, your parents know what you NEED (to survive in this competitive world).
There are many people who have life objectives different from their parents’ expectations. Many of them were able to fulfill the dream of their parents (for example to be a medical doctor), and at the same time were able to pursuit their own dream (for example to be a musician). Are you not aware of examples of people who are medical doctors and musicians? Or engineers and artists, scientists and humanitists, etc.
I understand your resentment of the ways your parents treated you, I don’t really understand why you are so angry.
Your parents have spent many hard working years to bring you from a baby to a grown-up man. Now, when they are getting old (I don’t know how old they actually are), where are you?
Human being differs from other species of animals in one thing, that is to return the work of their parents in their upbringing by taking care of them when their parents need the care.
You can continue to perpetuate your anger toward your parents. You can continue to blame they for your depression and the eventual dropping out from your doctoral study.
Who will benefit from your anger? Who will suffer from your anger?
Who will benefit from your blaming your parents? Who will suffer from your blaming your parents?
Will the perpetuation of your anger lead to great success in your life? Will the perpetuation of your anger lead to a healthy body for yourself?
Will the perpetuation of your anger bring back your original dream (to be of the greatest minds in quantum computing)?
I think you will be a parent one day (or very soon). You will then realize it’s a much much more difficult and thankless task than you think.
Give my words some thought, young man.
I have answered most of your points here. If my parents had sexually abused me, would your advice be any different, and if so, why?
If you’ve read the rest of my autobiography, you’ll see that, like many abused children, the roles were reversed in my family. I was the one making the sacrifices for their careers, health, and so on. Furthermore, all the good things that contributed to who I am today were done by other people in defiance of my parents.
You are simply wrong about my parents’ intentions. They prevented me from applying for scholarships and accepting jobs that would have paid for my education and put me in an advantageous position for my career. It was more important for them to be able to brag that they had financially supported me, than it was for me to actually be in a financially good situation. I took on debts that I never would have incurred without their interference.
On what grounds can you claim that anyone’s parents knows what he needs better than himself or his teachers? Whenever my teachers or professors told my parents what I needed to succeed, they would actually go out of their way to prevent me from doing it. Again, they were primarily concerned not with my success, but with being able to take credit for my success.
I appreciate that you have good intentions and don’t want to believe that some parents are horrible human beings, but the fact is that there are horrible people in the world, and some of them are parents. Refusing to acknowledge this doesn’t do anyone any good, especially abused children who are constantly told by society to suppress their emotions to their own detriment.
– davinci