Tiger Mother

"Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can't. Once when I was young—maybe more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me "garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn't damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage."

     This is the second time I've read this article and it still strikes me the way she expresses the way she felt when her parents disiplined her through calling her worthless. Personally, I've had this kind of experience within my family. It's different when someone else calls you worthless, when your close relatives call you worthless and when your parents call you worthless. When someone else calls me worthless, I blow them off because it just means that they don't like  me very much. Their opinions don't matter to me.  When/If close relatives call me worthless it means a lot because typically, they are supposed to be very supportive. It's only when you are a great disappointment that they would ever call you that. For me, it would be the ultimate insult and wake up call that I am messing up everything. If my parents call me worthless, I don't feel worthless at all. In fact, it gives me motivation to prove them wrong.
    Being called useless and worthless by my parents tells me that I've become so hopeless that they have no other methods to make me do better and are forced to result in making me demote myself to a level they raised me to never want to drop to. My parents said they were ashamed that I was their daughter one time and I remember thinking "Ok then. Be ashamed.  But I'm going to prove you wrong because whatever you think or say, I know you will always see me as your daughter and nothing will ever change that between us. I'll do even better then you'd ever expect to prove you wrong and to prove to myself that I am not as useless or shameful as you say I am." Yep. It was a great motivation for me to better myself for myself and my family,