I have already written previously about how counterproductive authoritarian parenting is, but this is a fact that I simply cannot emphasise enough. Educators are always talking about the importance of encouraging children to read and write, but my parents have always discouraged me from both. Maybe this sounds unbelievable, but I think it is quite common among parents from certain cultural backgrounds. My parents dismissed anything that I read or wrote outside of what was required for school or a job or some other official purpose as “frivolous” and a “waste of time”.
My parents had mostly ignored my writings in elementary school, but I think this was because they had assumed that everything I wrote was “for school”. My father would occasionally pick up something I had written; he would frown or glare at me, or make some negative remarks, but at that time he did not order or pressure me to stop. I think his comments at the time were mostly directed at the school system for what he perceived to be a waste of my time for requiring me to write essays on topics he considered unimportant — or, even worse, fictional stories… » [Expand post] [Permalink]