— Unworthiness and the achievement-centric mindset
This is my first time publicly sharing such an intimate struggle. What I aim to point out is the psychological scar an achievement-centric society leaves in our children. I clearly remember a Chinese parent setting me as a role model to her daughter. My internal dialogue at the time was, “I don’t even like myself, you don’t want to end up like me”.
The story
It was approaching 12 am and I had lost the strength to keep crying. My eyes were burning and ears were ringing. A box of tissue had piled up to a mountain since 4 hours ago. All of this was triggered by my perception that I might have gotten 2 multiple choices wrong on my Chinese exam that day. That’s worth a total of 6 marks out of 100, which meant death to me. Seeing the clock ticking to 12 am, I felt the whole world coming to an end. I was supposed to prepare for the 2 exams happening tomorrow, but I didn’t study at all.
I occasionally experience flashbacks to my middle school days, during those intense final exams. I was from a very small city in China, but it wasn’t lacking in competitiveness. I had been consistently performing top of my class since middle school. This means there was a default expectation for me to stay where I was. If I don’t maintain first, I have “failed”. This also means everyone was watching how well I did, at least that’s how it felt. Schools put your exam ranking up in the front of each classroom, making your achievement and failure extremely public.
Looking back, I have no idea how stress didn’t completely crash me in middle school and high school. Even though on the surface I was achieving so much, on the inside I was a mess. I was constantly overpowered by anxiety, fear, and felt “not enough”.
The problem
How did this even happen, that I was experiencing so much insecurity and self-hate even though some people might have preferred to be in my situation? I never understood what was happening to me until I talked to a therapist for the first time. What I was experiencing is called unworthiness. Let me explain.
Since the end of primary school, I began to construct this identity called the “straight-A student” who does everything perfectly and is the role model for other kids. In societies like China, that could easily be a child’s sole identity. Because grades and ranking are the only things that matter in getting into a good high school and college, parents are obsessed with them. The child’s sole task becomes to perform well at school and make parents proud. Parents compare their kid’s performance in school to their colleagues’ and neighbors’ kids’. Relatives brag about children at family gatherings. Teachers give differential treatment to the “straight-A” students. A child’s character, interest, values, and personal happiness are ignored. The only thing people care about is: can you get into top schools? As a result, a child’s self-worth is tied directly to how well they perform at school.
I am sure my parents, relatives, and teachers cared about my well-being. I am sure my parents would have loved me no matter how I turn out. My intention here is not to criticize anyone but to express how kids like me might have felt. What I felt was that the attention and love from everyone around me were based on my achievement. I am worthy of their love because I make them proud. The moment I stop achieving or fail to meet their expectations, my sense of worth would be gone. I would be unworthy of their love. In other words, the love I was receiving was perceived to be conditional upon my achievement, rather than unconditional as every parent would like to claim.
If it’s just experiencing “unworthiness” in one area in one’s life, things might not have been too bad. What’s scary about what lots of children are experiencing in China is that there is only one identity they have-a student-rather than simultaneously also being a daughter, a friend, a citizen, a sentient being. When identity is singular and a failure struck, that part of the identity would be shattered and nothing would be left. The children would be left wondering who truly cares about them and the point of continuing to live when no one, including themselves, loves them. That’s a very dangerous zone.
China has the highest rate of teenage suicide in the world. Suicide is the No. 1 cause of death among people aged 15-34. A survey to primary and middle school students in Shanghai shows that 24.39% of students have contemplated suicide and 5.85% have made plans. I suspect there is some link between the rise in suicide and the psychological underpinning I am talking about here (which rose along with capitalism and the one-child policy). It hurts me to think that this many teenagers had chosen to end their lives because living has become too painful for them. Death takes away the last opportunity for us to try again. They had given up trying.
What should we do?
1. Individuals
The central piece of my message is that our children shouldn’t feel they have to “win” love by proving that they are worthy of love. By being a human, they should automatically be guaranteed dignity and respect. As soon as a child understands they can be treated differently based on their performance, either from parents, teachers, or a total stranger, they will go on the never-ending road of constant achievement as a way to maintain their self-worth.
Parents have the obligation to provide a psychological safety net for their children, that no matter who they are, they will be loved and valued. This is a fundamental human need that a violation of not only exhibits bad parenting but could even constitute abuse. Children are extremely good at picking up cues from their parent’s reactions and associating cause and effect. If parents reprimand the child after he brings home a bad score, the child can interpret the situation as “bad performance → less good temper from parents” and in order to consistently receive good treatment from parents, he has to bring home good scores.
I want to challenge not just the parents but everyone in society to be compassionate towards children and care not about their scores, what “value” they could bring to society, but their character and their well-being. It’s ok to be angry or disappointed about a certain action a child did, but at the end of the day, we need to make it clear to them that we are only angry of what they did, not for who they are.
2. Society
The psychological scar left in us comes from the culture we live in. We live in societies where a person’s value comes from their achievement from work. The more money they earn and the higher position they hold, the more valuable they are and the more respect they deserve. We label a person “lack of ambition” if they want to devote the majority of their time taking care of her family and her community. We too frequently overlook good characters — someone being a virtuous person, and instead, tolerate a surprising amount the rich people who sexually assault women and cheat on their wives.
An even bigger question to ask is as a society, as humanity, what are we optimizing for. Should it be GDP growth? Should it be well-being and meaningful life for members of society? Should it include the well-being of the environment too? If the latter ones, should we reconsider why we are so attached to our work and achievement? Can we give space for the individuals who are struggling and make them feel they are “enough” just for who they are, and not need to constantly strive for more? I leave these questions here for contemplation.
This blog is published with permission from Mojia Shen