From: alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia)
Subject: Re: Pressure
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:26:33 GMT


In article <1iadp4INNfp0@menudo.uh.edu>, mba2@Rosie.UH.EDU (Puneet_S) writes:
> Subject:	Societal /Parental Pressure placed on young children
> 		in our culture to attain "greatness"
> 
> Question:	Is our culture /parental pressure too demanding of
> 		our children to succeed? 
> 

Yes. The reason is that Indian parents who came here in this generation,
came mostly through their high accomplishments back home. They tend to
see 'high educational achievements' as the way and many times the only
way to succeed in USA. Partly it is due to their unawareness of the other
avenues to success and partly it is due to their upbringing in India
where social status is directly related to the job one does. Doctors
and professors have the highest social status. Doctors in addition have 
a very high financial status too (professors lose on this account).
Indian parents as such want to see their children become M.D., Ph.D.,
J.D. (due to high money for lawyers in USA) etc.

Funny thing is that many of them tend to look for degrees (M.D., Ph.D., J.D.)
etc while looking for a marriage match for their children. Degrees and castes
as measures of marital compatibility is severly erroneous.

> Question:	Why do our parents seem to think that the most intelligent
> 		people become doctors?  I ask this, because my parents 
> 		want to find me a good indian doctor who is conservative.
> 

I don't think parents think that doctors are the most intelligent or
vice-versa. Parents want to find doctor's as marriage matches because they
make a lot of money and are regarded to have a high social status.
Indian society is highly status conscious - both socially and financially.
Doctors fit the bill on both accounts. Doctors are not the most intelligent
of the lot - in general terms. Specific doctors may be quite intelligent.

> 		Alok, I'm not familiar with your marraige situation, but
> 		when you were looking did your parents also want you to
> 		get married to a doctor?  I pose the question to all the
> 		rest of you also....

My parents never told me who to get married. They wrote to me with several
proposals which came to them from the parents of the girls who were
doctors, teachers, researchers, still studying or had finished degrees
in law, science, commerce etc but were not working.

It is I who had to make a decision whether to pursue any or none of them.

I was reluctant about these proposals and was looking on my own here in USA.
I looked around on my own for several years. The American girls (both IA
and non-IA), I came across through advertisement or school or work were
not compatible or were not willing to marry a II  (at least so was my 
perception). I got tired of their attitude. I tried to meet through
the II parents, however I found them using criterions as they do in India:
caste, degrees, family status, visa status, language group etc. This sickened
me and I decided to opt for marrying in India as soon as I became a US Citizen 
as the waiting period for spouse was now only a few months. I would have opted 
for marrying an IA woman had I met the right one, but one can only look for so 
long ...

I went to India with an open mind about the proposals in India and I 
married in next 2 weeks. There was some pressure from my mother, sister-in-
law as well as sister to decide and get married soon. They wanted to send an 
Indian girl with me :-)

I yielded. The girl is an engineer and was working as a manager in India.
Instictively I had an appeal to a girl from engineering profession
being an engineer myself and also because there are very few women engineers 
in India. As such this girl appeared to me as an exceptional 'candidate' 
and caught my eye. Ofcourse there were additional criterions like physical
beauty, nature, family etc.  She appeared to fit my basic requirements
on these criterions.  With little pressure from women folks in my family,
I was married in a few days. Rest is history.

Never underestimate the feminine pressures. These are very subtle :-)

Alok
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