[nfb-talk] Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

[Brian Miller]

	Hi Joe,

The problem is that parenting is no more a constant than any of the other
variables we've referenced -- school, teachers, peers, social barriers,
legal or extra-legal discrimination,  ethnicity, language -- pick your
poison, they all play a part.  

I tend to side with your former teacher, though, in that without an internal
spark there is little hope for an individual, all the parenting and teaching
notwithstanding.  All the things I've accomplished in life, if I can be said
to have accomplished anything, I did because I really wanted to make those
things happen... Not a sufficient, but certainly a necessary variable in the
equation of success.  

I once participated in a roundtable discussion with a dozen or so other
blind guys who would all be described as successful, at least in terms most
people would recognize, and not a one could identify that magic ingredient
of success despite the odds -- except that they really wanted to achieve
something, that they were self-motivated, self-driven.  Now, it's possible,
indeed probabhly likely that something or someone in their past got their
little engines started, and that it is simply too difficult to disentangle
which of the many threads in their life was the one that tied it all
together for them, and they [we] are left with only what we know, which is
ourselves, and what we perceive as our own drive, or in some cases, lack of
it.  

The challenge is that we always want simple answers for life's tough
questions, and there just aren't any -- and that's the hardest thing of all.

Brian Miller

-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Joe Orozco
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2011 6:33 PM
To: 'NFB Talk Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

Brian,

I think prejudice is certainly a factor.  Yet, enough people have succeeded
despite it.  That's what I meant by pointing out that successful blind
people are not special cases.  We all face the same prejudice regardless of
our abilities and backgrounds.  Still, some of us make it.  Others of us
don't.  The only other possible constant is parenting.  It's a tenuous
argument, I know, but we have to somehow try to wrap our arms around it.

All that being said, I called up the teacher I mentioned in my earlier post.
She pointed out that in her experience there are students with sufficient
intelligence, great parents, and superb teachers, but they still fail
because the spark just isn't there.  She feels the person has to want to do
something before they can have a hope of seeing it through.

I don't know.  Maybe I'm trying to dig too much into a quagmire with too
many complications for clear answers.  Maybe that's what makes it
interesting, though I must confess it is also what makes it sometimes a bit
discouraging.

Joe

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves,
some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing 


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