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highlightsthe following is a self-report from an american mother who accompanied her son to study in the united states in 2023. in 2023, she and her son, who was in the third grade of junior high school in nanjing, embarked on the road to study in the united states. but looking back a year later, she said that she was not a traditional mother who accompanied her son to study abroad. under the glamorous appearance of studying abroad, there are unspeakable regrets. perhaps only after experience can there be cognition, and every family needs to find its own answer.

text丨wuwuwu edited by lulu

to be honest, 10 years ago, i never thought that i would bring my children across the ocean and start studying in the united states.

after all, in china, my husband and i both have stable jobs and live a comfortable life. compared to many parents who worry about their children's schooling, i have always been a buddhist mother.

when it comes to learning, i never advocate just following the crowd and studying with my children, but on the other hand, i will do my best to provide good teaching resources for my children.

because of career development, i had the opportunity to work in the united states, and that was in early 2023. we originally planned to come back after landing in the united states. at that time, my son was in the third year of junior high school and had completed 2/3 of the ninth grade courses and was about to enter the high school entrance examination season.

but then, my son met his childhood friends after many years and got a general understanding of his future high school life in the united states. in addition, the country relaxed its covid-19 prevention and control measures at the end of 2022. faced with the unpredictability of the future, we decided to stay in the united states to study for the time being.

at this point, i became an american mother who accompanied my child to study.

enroll in a us public high school

because the decision to study abroad was made too hastily, my son did not even have a toefl score when he applied for a high school in the united states. we have always attended public schools in china and have not done any intensive training in english. his previous english level was only enough to pass the high school entrance examination. after arriving in the united states, language became a big challenge for my child.

it would be a lie to say that i am not worried, but the child has no such concept. being able to escape the pressure of the high school entrance examination and enter a relatively free american high school made him so excited that he forgot about the north for a while. so,in the initial stage of studying abroad, our only preparations are: money and psychological preparation.

when you first arrive in the united states, you always have to stay with relatives and friends. many of my friends live in texas. if we choose texas, our cost of living will be lower because we don’t need to rent a house or buy a car. these friends can provide them to us for free.

in addition, my son could repeat the ninth grade in texas, but we finally chose boston, massachusetts. on the one hand, my son has a very good childhood friend who lived here a few years before we immigrated to the united states. choosing massachusetts, with the company of his childhood friend, my son will not be too lonely and can adapt to studying and living in the united states more quickly.

on the other hand, there is a very good public american high school here with good grades, good credits and high scores, which is the school we later enrolled in -lexington high school。

according to niche's 2024 state public high school rankings, lexington high ranks second in massachusetts, and its graduates go to several ivy league schools.the average sat score is an astonishing 1390 out of 1600, and the national average is 1050.

east asian families always attach great importance to education, but i know my child very well. he is not a very talented academic candidate, and he is not suitable for concentrating on academic research for a long time.

but this does not prevent him from being a person who loves life. he is very enthusiastic and energetic, and likes to make friends and participate in social activities. compared with being involved in the "big vines", i hope that he can find a field that he is good at and can live and study comfortably.

for a child like this, it is neither realistic nor suitable to ask him to go to a top private high school in the united states. as we all know, top high schools in the united states have requirements for toefl, gpa, and all kinds of extracurricular activities.

although we have a status, we do not have more awards and achievements. if we insist on choosing a private school, we can only settle for an ordinary private school.

ordinary private schools also face high tuition fees and competitive pressure. instead of this, it is better to choose a better public school!

many parents who do not understand american education assume that private education in the united states is superior to public education.the difficulty of admission to the top public high schools in the united states, as well as the advantages for further study, are no less than those of high-quality private schools.

although there are some very top private schools in the united states, the proportion is very small. most private schools are not outstanding and can be compared with average public schools. however, high-quality public schools are better than ordinary private schools.

my rule for choosing a public school in the united states is that the first one is good academic atmosphere!because the united states is a very free and open country, but sometimes freedom also brings some concerns. marijuana is legal in massachusetts, so in such an environment, we must make more cautious choices.

in the united states, if a school has a high rating, it will naturally attract better families to move into the area, and residents' incomes will be relatively higher. correspondingly, the houses will be more expensive because the quality of the people moving in is higher and public security will be relatively guaranteed.choosing a public school with a good academic atmosphere is, to some extent, also choosing a safe place to live.

on the other hand, unlike abcs who grew up in the united states, my son's eating and living habits are relatively chinese, and as a boy, his self-care ability is also average. he also experienced a short period of study in a private school, but he could not adapt to the life of living in the dormitory at all, so choosing to go to public school as a day student is more suitable for him.

regarding the admission requirements for american public schools, first of all, similar to the institutionalized schools in china, american public schools require "school district housing."

us law stipulates that any child living in this school district has the right to free education.

however, the criterion for judging school district housing in the united states is not property rights, but actual residence.because the united states does not have a household registration system, there is no need to see a property certificate when registering for school, so school district housing can be bought or rented.

the following documents are required for admission: 1. housing certificate (can be purchased or rented); 2. payment receipts for water, electricity, gas; 3. child's physical examination report; 4. child's medical insurance.

however, for international students, public schools do not provide student visas, and only private schools can provide i-20 and f1 visas. if you rent or buy a house to attend a public school with a tourist visa, you will most likely have to stay in the united states illegally, so i personally do not recommend doing this.

many people ask me:which is better, public school or private school?i would say it depends on the child's own situation.

if the child is an international student, then he has no choice but to go to a private school. if the child meets the admission requirements of a public school, but is too young to study alone and his family cannot accompany him, then it is definitely not suitable.

compared with public schools, private schools do not require parents to accompany their children, and private schools also offer richer extracurricular activities, so children can mostly complete their studies within the school.

andpublic schools in the united states finish very early, and children are required to choose and complete their own after-school time and extracurricular activities, so parents must spend more time and effort.

here we also need to talk about the differences in education between china and the united states. american teachers give children free rein, and due to the influence of american culture, teachers are accustomed to praising children, and even "poor students" can be praised to great heights.

they will not use a single standard to evaluate all children. this is exactly the educational philosophy that i agree with. i believe that the purpose of education should be to make children love learning, understand learning, and become lifelong learners with light in their eyes.

after a year of accompanying my child to study, i think that american education is not necessarily that good, butwhat is valuable is that it allows children to no longer be measured by a unified standard. children can find their true selves instead of trying to become "good students" who meet unified standards.

children here have a huge space to grow, and also have more opportunities and diversified learning methods.

my experience studying in the us

do children have to go abroad? is it really good to go abroad? in this way, studying abroad may not necessarily solve all problems, and may even bring new problems. especially when children are in adolescence or even younger, choosing to study abroad requires more caution.

i never say that studying abroad is the best path for all children. i also never say that it doesn’t matter if children don’t study well, as long as they study abroad.

i have seen many students who have achieved good results in studying abroad, but i have also seen examples where, due to the lack of good study habits, lack of self-management ability, and the inability of parents to communicate well with their children, their children completely lost control after studying abroad and were even expelled from school.

many children have average or even lower grades in china, and their parents hope that they will soar to success in the united states. i really want to pour a bucket of cold water on this.. in most cases, gold shines wherever it goes, while poor students will experience long-term pain.

for example, my son was an average student in china, and he was still average after coming to the united states. at the same time, he had to face language difficulties, adapt to the environment, and huge cultural shock.

everything here brings a lot of pressure, and as a mother i can only provide long-term logistical support. it is the children themselves who really need to overcome the difficulties.

if a child has very good grades in china, he or she may become less outstanding after entering the united states because of the difficulty in adapting, but he or she may also continue to improve.

if a child's academic performance in china is very poor, and he/she regards studying abroad at a young age as a lifeline, this will definitely not work;

the best case scenario is,the child is doing well in china, and going abroad is for greater improvement, rather than treating studying abroad as a backup option for academic performance. such children will have a calmer mentality and the highest degree of adaptability.

many people say that the exam-oriented education in china is too competitive, and they choose to study in the united states to "escape from the internal competition." in reality, is the american education system not competitive?

however, based on the general environment in the united states, you can roll if you want to, and you don’t have to roll if you don’t want to.. the situation in china is that everyone is competing together, and educational information is everywhere, while in the united states, it is a small range of people competing. for example, our asian group is very competitive, while native americans rarely care about these things.

of course, you might say that i will leave the asian community in the united states and stop being competitive. but if you come to the united states for your children to go to school, you must pay attention to their academic performance. if you want to get into the ivy league or other relatively good schools, it is probably unrealistic to be neither competitive nor uncompetitive.

studying in the united states, you also need to return to china to make up for your studies

back to the cost of "chicken baby",the cost of obtaining high-quality educational resources in china is lower, this cannot be denied.

so whether it is me or the families studying in the united states around us, we will more or less choose to let our children return to china for tutoring during the holidays. there are even rumors that gu ailing also returned to beijing for tutoring during the summer vacation. that's because compared with the training in china, foreign institutions are simply "weak".

generally speaking, after experiencing the language environment of an american high school, english listening and speaking skills will improve significantly, but there will still be big problems in grammar and vocabulary.

in the teaching mode of american high schools, teachers of various courses do not teach too much grammar.this has caused the english proficiency of some chinese children to deteriorate instead of improve.

toefl is a test of english proficiency for non-native english speakers, and is intended to test their ability to live. however, other tests, such as sat, are different in that they require higher vocabulary and grammar. in foreign countries, students are not exposed to much grammar, so if they do not take extra classes after returning to china, they will not be able to get high scores on the sat.

another point is that the study texts of various subjects abroad, especially humanities, are all in english, which makes it easy for students to have only a partial understanding of the content due to not understanding some vocabulary or grammatical structure. therefore, it is also very important to return to china for summer vacation to improve academic reading ability.

it is no exaggeration to say that china's basic education is considered good in the world.applying to american universities requires grades, and it is very easy to get grades using the chinese teaching method, so why don’t we choose to return to china during the holidays to complete advanced study for standardized tests?

my regrets and troubles

it has been nearly a year and a half since i came to boston from nanjing. i often suffer from "intermittent homecoming mania". i especially want to go back home after staying for a while. i will miss the days in china when i encounter some problems. occasionally, i complain about why i went abroad and why i immigrated.

therefore, my son and i will return home as soon as time permits. for me, returning home is a way to free my mind and to recharge myself.

many friends also asked me: "do you regret immigrating to the united states?" i would answer honestly:

”

of course you will regret it, but there is only one true heroism in the world, and that is to still love life after recognizing the truth of life!

many people believe that the united states has high air quality, affluent life, and considerable income, and that their children can have a better future in the united states than in china.

but the united states is, after all, a typical capitalist country that puts profits above all else. not everyone's "american dream" can be easily realized.

01

psychological gap

in fact, i have made great sacrifices in immigration and accompanying my children to study, and my personal career and social values ​​have been the first to be affected.

i have my own business in china and have a good income, but after coming to the united states, i found that my talents are no longer useful here. it is difficult to find good jobs in the united states for liberal arts and arts. if i want to find a job in the united states, i need to start from scratch, which is a big challenge for a person who is nearly 50 years old.

i have a mother who accompanied her child to study abroad. before going abroad, she was a professor at a 985 university and was quite well-known in china. but after arriving in the united states, she found that it was impossible for a professor of literature to find a job. there were two completely different systems. she really had to start from scratch and no one could help her.

but she couldn't stay idle, so she ended up working in an after-school, earning only three to four thousand dollars a month, which couldn't even cover the rent. but there was no other way, this was reality, the psychological gap that all middle-class immigrants had to face.

especially after buying a house and a car, if you do not have a stable source of income and only rely on your savings to live, then in a few years, you may have to do hard labor in the united states, such as delivering takeout, driving a truck, or working as a warehouse clerk.

if you cannot accept the huge gap in quality of life and social status, it is really not recommended that you blindly give up everything you have accumulated in china and immigrate to the united states with your family.

02

economic pressure

more obvious than the psychological gap is the economic pressure. although our public school is free, after all, there are two of us living in the united states, and rent and daily necessities are huge expenses.

when i was in china, i could work and earn money, but when i came to the united states, i earned very little, or even no money, and the balance of income and expenditure created a huge deficit.

my child and i need to spend at least 1 million rmb per year in the united states, and the rent alone costs about 400,000 rmb per year.in addition, the global economic situation is not very optimistic, so it is unrealistic to say that we are not anxious.

there are new immigrants around me who earn about 200,000 to 300,000 us dollars a year in china, which is 1.5 to 600,000 rmb. they can live a very good life in china, but with this income they can only live frugally in the united states.

it is too expensive to hire a nanny or order takeout every day in the united states. there is no so-called cheap labor here, because new immigrants themselves are cheap labor in the united states.

one of my neighbors in the united states has a very well-off family. in the past, he hired two nannies at home all year round. but after coming to the united states, he lost his stable income and had to accompany his children to school full-time, so he didn't dare to hire a nanny.

they currently have no channels to make money in the united states, so they choose to save their savings and earn the interest on the savings.

can he just lie back and relax in the united states by living off the interest? in fact, he was very anxious because he had been living off his savings and would worry about any unexpected events if he had no income.

not long ago, an american bank went bankrupt and his deposits were lost.he had to keep depositing his money in batches in different banks to ensure its safety and security.

he said that this kind of life is entirely for the children, and as long as the children go to college, he and his wife will return home immediately.

03

cultural barriers

many people would say that it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit hard, as long as the children are happy and have a good life. so, is the experience of children after immigration really good?

not necessarily. for example, my son is a lively and cheerful child who likes socializing very much, but he faces huge cultural barriers when he comes to the united states, and it is difficult for him to integrate into the community in a short period of time.

children of the same age in china are very innocent and friendly, but the situation abroad is much more complicated, because the united states advocates freedom, and children are exposed to a lot of messy culture, drugs, guns, sex...

american public schools have no walls and are open at all times. but for a child growing up in a traditional chinese family, how can he or she accept and guard against this absolute freedom?

my child is in the rebellious and growth period of adolescence. many times when facing the impact of new culture, i can feel his confusion and helplessness. the psychological acceptance and academic pressure are very great.

putting aside children, is it easy for adults to interact? when we socialize in china, in most cases we know each other well and the levels are relatively balanced.but the immigrant community in the united states is not like this. everyone comes from different places, and their family conditions and living environments are very different.some are very wealthy, some are working class like us, and some are less well off.

every family comes to the united states in the same way and for the same reasons. there should be a natural distance between interactions. everyone has their own secrets, and there are even times when they are wary of each other. no one should ask too much about other people's families.

most of the time chinese play with chinese, indians play with indians, and japanese play with japanese. new immigrants cannot integrate into the circle of old immigrants, and old immigrants will not play with new immigrants.

this is understandable.those who immigrated to the united states through formal channels from china are generally not too young. as a mature middle-aged person, their values ​​and ways of dealing with people have already been formed, so it is bound to be difficult for them to integrate into a circle of a different culture.。

for many american immigrant families, behind the difficult life is a lonely heart.having said that, living anywhere in the world is not easy.

final thoughts

i used to be very confused. what was so good about the united states?

it was a long time before i realized that the reason why the united states is powerful and charming is because of its immigration policy, which attracts the richest and most talented people in the world.

with the help of external forces, the united states has become what it is today. however, in terms of culture, accumulation, and foundation, the united states will never be able to compare with our great china.

therefore, after my child enters college, i will definitely choose to return to my home country and may even give up my american citizenship.

as a mother who accompanies her children to study abroad, is it really worth it? i can only say,if you haven't started yet, i advise you to be cautious; if you have already started, i advise you to persevere.

this road is destined to be full of challenges, but also full of opportunities and hope.

whether it is worth it or not is not an investment, it all depends on an experience and a feeling.

when you are given some experience, there are always some gains, and these gains are sometimes really hard to express in words.