The tweet hear ‘round the world attacked how Americans approach success

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[FYI this post makes massive broad sweeping generalizations. It’s intended as a directional argument not a fully representative one. For the purpose of my writeup, “Americans” here roughly means families that are non-immigrant]

Last Christmas, Vivek sent out a tweet that kick-started nationwide drama. The tweet is credited with him getting kicked out of DOGE. He’s now running for Governor of Ohio and will need to rebuild a bit of his national credibility esp. with the die-hard MAGA set. Here’s the tweet.

What Vivek’s missing is that Americans let their kids discover and explore themselves. They let them make mistakes by “being at the mall” and chilling with their friends. When they become adults, these same American kids might not optimize for salary, but they know who they are a bit better because they had a chance to evolve into it.

These kids are not instilled with same sense of rat race. In fact, they don’t really see themselves as a rat. They see their career roughly as an exploration of their interests and passions.

American parents see value in a well-rounded life. They want Jason to sit with Dad and watch the Super bowl. He doesn’t have to study extra for the science olympiad for which he’s assured a top 3 spot.

They want Margaret to make a big deal out of picking her prom dress because they know this memorable night will last a lifetime.

Indian kids, meanwhile, are pushed from day one to excel in piano lessons and Kumon. They rarely had the time to explore themselves or “be normal” with their parents very often. Those “normal” moments were a luxury and that usually came accidentally or through occasional family vacations.

To many Americans, The Real Dream was never about rising up in station or making lots of money. Rather The Dream is to live a stable life and make beautiful memories with their kids. Jack’s first baseball game with Dad is just as important as his first day of fourth grade. Life is meant to be lived.

This Real Dream is at odds with the “American Dream”, which defines Classic Immigrant Mentality.

The uncomfortable part for the American family is that somewhere in the last decade or so it became exponentially harder to get into that same college and compete for the same jobs. The good GPA, SAT score and one solid extracurricular just wasn’t enough. They needed to embrace parts of what they saw the automaton “Asian parents” doing so their kids wouldn’t fall behind.

The uncomfortable part for the Immigrant family is that we grew up knowing we were missing out on some experiences. As Indian kids having dinner at Chelsea’s house, we felt a different vibe sitting around her dining table. Maybe it was the topics of conversation. Maybe it was the lack of tension. We just couldn’t quite put our finger on it but we went back whenever we could.

We became adults and admittedly have some strained relationships with ourselves and our parents. This comes from an emptiness. An emptiness in ourselves: who are we really and what do we really want? An emptiness in our relationship with our parents: if we’re not discussing careers and next steps, what is there to talk about?

Our parents didn’t grapple with the above described dilemma. The Holistic Life wasn’t a consideration and success meant One Thing. I needed even define it here.

We are all hitting our 30s and 40s, realizing we’re might not be optimizing for the One Thing. Some of it is being born on third base and having the luxury of choice. Some if it is seeing what a healthy life looks like.

In an immigrant household, the term “well rounded” translates to checking all the boxes for a college app. Now we see well-rounded adults and know what that phrase really means. They have healthy relationships with free time, especially on the weekends. They don’t feel judged by their parents for getting married later in life or going through IVF. They’re comfortable in their own skin.

With many of us second-generation Indians having kids, its easy to think that we will do both. We’ll teach them to appreciate life’s little moments and they’ll be in the top of their class.

Sadly no. The truth is each family will end up indexing more one way.

If you’re a strong Type A, embrace it. If being chill goes against your innate programming, then pack the family vacation with wall-to-wall activities and tell the family you’re doing it. Push Neha to practice her times tables in the morning. My ask is that you explain why it matters.

If you reject that premise and want them to explore themselves in art school, then good for you! But then explain to Krish, transparently, what choices are being made and how those may impact his life later on. Most of all, you have to be okay with the choices, not him.

It will be fascinating to see how much we let our kids explore vs exploit the system. I’m not sure what I’ll do with my own kid.

What our parents weren’t able to do was bring us along this journey. Everything was “just do it”. Instead for us, whatever path we choose — “American” or Immigrant, Vivek’s tweet or the opposite — lets be honest about it with ourselves. And let’s be honest about it with our family.

Indian Millennials are always putting pressure on ourselves to do it all. Let’s find a way to not extend that pressure to our kids.