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I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

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Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#101

Post by btilly »

jerkstate wrote: post #73

Quoted post unavailable.

Spoken like someone whose parents never did anything that most find unforgivable.

https://www.amazon.com/Singing-Songs-Meg-Tilly/dp/0929636627 is beautifully told story about growing up in an abusive family, written by a movie star. Who happens to be my sister. She eventually admitted that it was autobiographical. She didn't have to admit to anyone in the family though. It was hard not to put the real names back on the people I knew well.

Maturity for me meant understanding and having sympathy for why my parents acted as they did. To find in myself how it is possible to become the monsters that they were. Which I have to be able to see clearly to avoid carrying on the pattern.

But I do not forgive them. Nor could I ask for forgiveness if I had acted as they did.

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#102

Post by golemotron »

XorNot wrote: post #100
jerkstate wrote: post #73

Quoted post unavailable.

> I've felt for a while that you truly become an adult when you forgive your parents for fucking up your childhood. This is absolutely, voraciously bad advice and no one should listen to it. You are absolutely an adult when you're an adult. You can cut those people right out of your life and that is an adult and valid thing to do. You are under no obligations to forgive or have a relationship with them. If they only…

You forgive them not for them, but for yourself.

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#103

Post by true_religion »

wahern wrote: post #33
irjustin wrote: post #8

Wow Will was such a part of my childhood watching Star Trek. Obviously, he didn't appear often but he was memorable simply because there were so few people as young as him on the show. Sad to hear this all around. This also brought back memories of me being required to play piano growing up. I hated piano, performing (recitals), playing in general. I was terrrribbleee (still am) and was put up in lessons for 12 years…

> Music is a very "asian" or "chinese" thing to put your child through. Asian culture simply adopted American and English culture in this regard. In the United States circa 1950s and 1960s it was very common for children to be taking piano lessons, and owning a piano was also relatively common. Both the lessons and the piano itself were important status symbols, and having both were considered markers of being middle…

> Asian culture simply adopted American and English culture in this regard

Since the OP mentioned China specifically, I think it’s good to note that the Chinese elite have venerated art for millennia. Poetry writing, singing, and playing musical instruments were a staple of every young nobles education during the times of the Imperial dynasties.

It’s not at all something simply copied from the British during colonization.

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#104

Post by [deleted] »

vnorilo wrote: post #30
manmal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clarification: I‘m talking about self-actualization & leisure time here, not chores. > What is a healthy amount of pushing vs too much? There is no healthy amount of pushing, period. If you stop applying pressure, children will find their own thing, and that’s the best outcome for them. Just make sure they know the possibilities of what they could do. What would you have liked to do instead of learning piano? Did you…

Some amount of external pressure may help you try something that's slightly difficult and not the most obvious instant gratification available. The main thing is to not chase some dumb good-parenting metric but to give your kid suitable obstacles so she can experience overcoming them and feel success and gain self-confidence. That's what parenting is all about: the little push that helps kids reach their potential. E…

[deleted]

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#105

Post by Gordonjcp »

wahern wrote: post #33
irjustin wrote: post #8

Wow Will was such a part of my childhood watching Star Trek. Obviously, he didn't appear often but he was memorable simply because there were so few people as young as him on the show. Sad to hear this all around. This also brought back memories of me being required to play piano growing up. I hated piano, performing (recitals), playing in general. I was terrrribbleee (still am) and was put up in lessons for 12 years…

> Music is a very "asian" or "chinese" thing to put your child through. Asian culture simply adopted American and English culture in this regard. In the United States circa 1950s and 1960s it was very common for children to be taking piano lessons, and owning a piano was also relatively common. Both the lessons and the piano itself were important status symbols, and having both were considered markers of being middle…

> In the United States circa 1950s and 1960s it was very common for children to be taking piano lessons, and owning a piano was also relatively common.

Growing up in Scotland in the 1970s and 1980s my friends and I all thought it was a bit weird that some people we know *didn't* have various musical instruments scattered about the house. My son was about six months old when he discovered that guitars make a noise, and since then my "living room" guitar has been tuned to open D ;-)

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#107

Post by cycomanic »

khazhoux wrote: post #44
manmal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clarification: I‘m talking about self-actualization & leisure time here, not chores. > What is a healthy amount of pushing vs too much? There is no healthy amount of pushing, period. If you stop applying pressure, children will find their own thing, and that’s the best outcome for them. Just make sure they know the possibilities of what they could do. What would you have liked to do instead of learning piano? Did you…

> There is no healthy amount of pushing, period. Surprised to read this. There have been many well-documented cases of children not wanting to learn math, science, history, etc, or go outside for exercise, where the parents denied their children’s agency and forced them to do so. Long-term studies indicate a tendency towards positive outcomes.

Can you link to these studies, I'm genuinely interested.

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#109

Post by Osmose »

golemotron wrote: post #102
XorNot wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've felt for a while that you truly become an adult when you forgive your parents for fucking up your childhood. This is absolutely, voraciously bad advice and no one should listen to it. You are absolutely an adult when you're an adult. You can cut those people right out of your life and that is an adult and valid thing to do. You are under no obligations to forgive or have a relationship with them. If they only…

You forgive them not for them, but for yourself.

If that helps you, sure, go for it, but for many people forgiving their abusers gives no closure and only enables them further. Sometimes people hurt you and they don't get to receive forgiveness, ever.

Re: I was forced to be a child star. It was never my dream or my idea

#110

Post by sdoering »

osrec wrote: post #74
jazzythom wrote: post #17

My parents pushed me hard, but sent me to a liberal arts school, and I’m hardwired for engineering. Hilarity ensued. The grinding of gears was a memory I would pay to erase. Deeply resent spending hours every day learning languages for countries I had no interest in visiting and how glaciers formed. What a waste of my finite precious time. If only I could go back I’d run out the gate and get on a train never to be se…

I imagine that airing it out on TV is somewhat cathartic for him; perhaps also a way in which to get closure on the topic. I also feel like he wants to inflict some of the pain he felt back on his parents, and embarrassing them on TV is the only way to make them take notice. I doubt it's going to do much to heal their relationship, but reading the post, I doubt either party is interested in a reconciliation.

I recommend reading about his Star Trek experience. Because in 'Still just a geek' he describes how unseen by the writers he felt. While his fellow cast was great to him the writers didn't seem to understand the innards of a teenager between adults much and so he actually did not get closure from "airing it out".

The book is quite interesting and I enjoyed him reading it very much. Even if it was quite heavy in parts.

He also revisits his own not do nice things about his past, his insensitivity and other aspects. Quite open and interesting.

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