There are many things that my parents go through in terms of pressure and stresses, especially since they are first generation immigrants. Some struggles they face include communication problems, concern for my success, and other problems at work.

The first problems my parents face are communication problems. When my parents first immigrated to America, they knew barely anything about the new language. In order to communicate with other Americans, they needed to learn English. After months of studying and hard work, they overcame this language difficulty. I can be thankful that because of my parent’s hard effort, I can speak English and Chinese, which I have learned from them. This will strongly benefit me in the future because it will allow me to communicate with many more people. Not only did they overcome a language barrier, they also overcame a cultural gap, because people in China 30 years ago lived differently than kids today in America. An example of a cultural gap that they are overcoming is passing to me a good work ethic that they inherited from their Chinese heritage. Now, I can be thankful because I have a good work ethic.

Another problem is that my parents are concerned about my success. In America, the impetus of success is education. This case was the same for life in China. 30 years ago in China, the competition for academics was very intense, especially for my parents, who went to the best college in China. So in order to make me become a successful person, my parents made sure that I had a very good foundation in education. However, in America, there are many children that are not pushed very hard in education, while my parents stayed up to after midnight to study. Because my parents push me very hard in academics, I can be thankful that I am able to do very well in education. Even this huge academical barrier can be overcome by my hardworking parents.

Lastly, my parents are both very stressed out at work. My mom has to pick me up at the library at four, so in order to make up for this time, she usually wakes up at 5:30 AM and goes to work without eating breakfast. My dad drops both my brother and I at school, and usually gets to work at 8:30 AM. To keep his working schedule straight, my dad usually comes home at seven and still works on his computer when he gets home. Some issues that occur at work include the fact that my dad is the manager of half a dozen people and has to answer all their questions and listen to all their filed complaints. On the other hand, my mom has a very strict boss that is always telling her to do this and that. I am inspired by my parents’ hardworking personality and I am thankful that they make all the effort to help me in every way they can.

To summarize this essay, my parents are very stressed because of communication problems, obsession with education, and problems at work and lack of sleep. Some reasons and examples of these things occurring are that my parents have an accent, which doesn’t help when they try to communicate with native English speakers, they want to educate me very well, but they find that there are many distractions, and they have a long work day which results in less sleep.