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My father raised me to think like a man but treated me like a female. When I was younger, he told me to make my own decisions and life and do what I love, yet he controls every aspect of my life, never letting me leave my family. He preached family values while he ignored the dysfunctions in our family. I have yet to find my own values in life because I was submissive to the way my father raised me. I was confused about how to meet his standards as a perfect daughter. Richard Rodriguez grew up as a homosexual in a traditional Hispanic and catholic family. Rodriguez’s essay, “Family Values” pondered on the true meaning of family values in America; the essay observes how family values that were stressed onto second generation children in immigrant families only resulted in enlarging the gap between those individuals and their families. Rodriguez excelled academically to prove to his family that he was on the same level as them, despite his sexuality. But after the fact, Rodriguez realizes that instead of growing closer to his family as he had hoped to, he became more distant from them. Like myself, Rodriguez’s goals were misguided because he had yet to find his own point of view on family values. In “Wrestling with Myself” George Felton describes his struggle to show his true self because of his service to society. Felton is a liberal arts professor and doesn’t find his love for wrestling to be an amiable quality to relate to his profession. Similar to Felton, I struggle with my personal interests because I don’t know how to conform to what my father wants me to believe. My father explains that he doesn’t tell me what to do for my career because he wants me to find my own calling, however, when I tell him about different career options I am considering, he sheds disapproving looks and hints at which occupations he finds unsuitable for me. Being female has only aided in keeping me from finding ambition because it is more suitable in society for females to be reliant on others for anything. Paul Theroux wrote “Being A Man” to voice his disapproval for the way men are raised in society. Theroux argues how society unjustly

identifies occupations with masculinity and how men stereotypically belittle women. Theroux is arguing that men should not have to behave towards society’s standards because they are skewed between men and women; however by writing “Being A Man” Theroux is proving that he succumbs to these standards because he is proving that he is a man, by writing literary criticisms instead of fiction. My father has made it difficult for me to define my idea of what is feminine and masculine because he has pushed me towards thinking like a man but controlling my life because I’m a female; like Theroux in proving himself to society’s standards, I don’t know how to prove myself to my father. All three authors’ essays show that they are in conflict with themselves. Rodriguez tries to grow closer to his family by attaining success on a professional note but finds himself growing farther away from his family because of it. Felton has an inner argument about showing his love for wresting because he’s not sure how it goes with his image as being an intellectual. Paul Theroux writes an expository essay on how society’s standards for men are unjust but in doing so, proves that he has failed to go against this standard, since he is writing the essay to prove something to his audience. Pieces from Rodriguez, Theroux, and Felton’s essays help illustrate why I cannot set a personal goal because I was raised with conflicting values on how to be a compliant daughter to my father; he disapproves when I don’t agree with him because I’m a female but turns around and tells me to make my own decisions like a man should. In “Family Values” Rodriguez writes, “What immigrants know, what my parents certainly know, is that when you come to this country, you risk losing your children. The assurance of family- continuity, inevitability- is precisely what America encourages its children to overturn. Become your own man” (Rodriguez 344). My father was keen on keeping me in touch with my Chinese culture. He pushed me to learn Chinese for six years trying to teach me

the language at home. Finally, he gave up and said I didn’t have the heart to learn the language. In reality, we had gotten into an argument about him controlling my life and I had used learning Chinese as an example. He said, “I’m not pushing you to learn this, you want to learn it for yourself, if you’re doing this for me than don’t do it at all.” I responded in agreement to that statement, telling my father that I had never wanted to learn Chinese. But after a few years, I enrolled in actual Chinese classes, believing that it was something I wanted to do, only now realizing I had done so to please my father. Even though he stopped teaching me Chinese, he still hinted subtly in daily conversation about how Chinese is so useful and how my future career must be based around China. Being his daughter, I felt guilty for giving up so early. I decided to take up the language again; his complaints stopped immediately. My father lectured me to find something I wanted to do with my life but at the same time, stressed that I needed to somehow connect my career options with China. He was telling me to make my own decision but directly making my decisions for me. My father believed that in order to teach me to think like a man, I had to act less feminine. Theroux writes in his essay “Being a Man,” “The youth who is subverted, as most are, into believing in the masculine ideal is effectively separated from women and he spends the rest of his life finding women a riddle and a nuisance” (Theroux 133). When I was younger, I wasn’t allowed to play with Barbie dolls at my Dad’s house or watch girly shows on the Disney channel. Whenever I had free time, my Dad encouraged me to go out and play basketball, go biking, or go practice my multiplication tables. He made it seem like being girly was toxic and contagious. He implied that being to feminine would make me useless when I got older. My father and I got along better when I was younger because I held an appearance of a tomboy; he sent me an e-mail threatening to disown me when he saw me with my Mother, in eighth grade,

with mascara on. He assumed that since I was starting to experiment with makeup, something obviously female, that I would soon get distracted from school work and fail in life and rely on men for resources. My father also told me that networking is a key success factor for my future. However, my father made me rely on him. I don’t recall ever hanging out with a friend outside of school on a weekend. My weekends have been spent with my Dad at Grandma’s house ever since kindergarten. I was given no opportunity to connect with anyone outside my family. As a female, I didn’t realize the disadvantage I had until I was older. Theroux writes “Femininity- being ladylike- implies needing a man as a witness” (Theroux 134). Since I was a girl, it seemed acceptable to rely on my father for everything. I didn’t rebel against that standard like how I didn’t rebel against my father. I never got a chance to network. Repeatedly, my father would tell me to do things but restricted my opportunities to do so. My experiences in childhood contradicted the values that my father taught me. When I was at my Grandma’s house every Saturday, my family was in front of me. Yet we hadn’t had a decent conversation because everyone was isolated in their own corners. The kids would always be downstairs and the aunties would be in the kitchens. My grandma sat alone in her corner in front of the television and my grandpa at the dining room table reading a newspaper. My father told me that we had to visit grandma every weekend so that she could see us more often and to keep the family together. From what I saw, my grandma saw the family but only individually since most of the people at grandma’s house spent time apart. Besides, I was different when I was with my family, never allowed to be myself. George Felton describes a similar experience in “Wrestling with Myself” Felton writes “To my students I am the helpful Mr. Felton. To my chairman I’m the responsible Mr. Felton. To virtually everybody and everything else I’m the

confused, conflicted Mr. F” (Felton 117). My father demonstrated similar characteristics described in Felton’s essay. When dealing with me, his only daughter, he was stern and harsh. But to my friends and his, he was friendly and seemed like a very laid back father. To my step mom, he was unloving but he was loving to his own mother. He made us visit his mother every weekend but never had enough time to visit my step mom’s family. My father tried to teach me family values but failed to fix problems in his own family. My father thinks I don’t mind spending eight hours a week at my grandma’s house talking to my aunts and uncles but he doesn’t know that I hated spending weekends at my grandma’s house because once he turned his back, my family asked me to explain to them why my oh so terrible mother wanted a divorce. My father complains that most Chinese parents don’t know how to raise their children. Stressing academics too strictly and not giving their children a chance to learn social skills. Rodriguez writes “But if Asians privately annoy us for being so family oriented, they are also stereotypically celebrated as the new ‘whiz kids’ in school. Don’t Asians go to college, after all, to honor their parents?” (Rodriguez 348). My father told me to take as many AP classes that were available in high school yet when I had to stay up late and go to my own room after dinner, he lectured me about not spending enough time with my family and not managing my time well enough to finish all my homework and spend two hours talking about everyone’s day at the dinner table. Similarly every time I had to drive back home after the regular eight hours at my Grandma’s house on Saturday, my father would start lecturing me about why I need to do more volunteer work on the weekends. Yet when I signed up to volunteer for the Red Cross and had to work on Saturdays, my father came to pick me up (since he didn’t think it was safe for me to drive alone) with looks of annoyance on his face asking me why it takes me to long to get out of the office; he was in a hurry to help my aunt with something at my grandma’s house. Even in the

present, when my Dad goes to visit my grandmas, he pops open his laptop and starts working. I think to myself, if you’re just going to come here to work, why bother coming at all. My father has always told me that actions speak louder than words. His actions have always contradicted what he taught me. Whenever I tried to reach for something that was important to me, my father would explain that my goals were unrealistic and unattainable. Yet he always tells me to do things out of the ordinary. I tried to prove myself to my father but always failed because I could do nothing without him. If I start seeming distant because I become focused on school, he pulls out the old book of family values and begins to lecture me again. When I’m old enough to make my own decisions and rid myself of my father’s burden of family values, then I can start living my own life.