Management consultants needed for asian kids?

Read this article from Time this week, about asian kids having working hours as long as or even longer than grown-ups. Extra tuitions and activities after class, all intended by parents to add value to their children. I was surprised that this article was on Time's front cover as I thought people had been aware of this crazy phenomenon for quite some time already. I guess it's because the issue is getting worse instead of being resolved? Well anyway, two typical goals of the parents are: 1. to nurture leaders of the future ; 2. to increase the chances that their children will have a "better future". My personal view based on people I know, is that a goal lays there clearly visible but unspoken: they genuinely want to feel proud of their kids.

Typically these kids spend their time after school on: tennis, piano(or some kind of musical instrument), golf, painting, maths, english, mandarin, another foreign language, scouts. Now, the richer kids get to go to E.M.B.A. courses where E means "executive", and they're below 6 years old.

See what I had when i was in primary school, I had swimming training 3 times a week, painting once a week, piano once a week, er.....tution forgot how many times a week, tennis...forgot the time. Some of these things extended to early highschool. I had other responsibilities at school too. My schedule was nothing compared to many other richer kids or kids with more ambitious parents, but I did feel that life was hell. Don't think my parents were driven by goal no.1, not sure about the unspoken goal, but definitely they would have wanted me to have a better future. The problem was just that they didn't know that a lot of things i'd done was in no way related to a better future ha.

I think it's true (with exceptions) that if you do better at school you have a higher chance of having a "better future" financially speaking at least. So i can totally understand why parents would pour that much resource to train their kids. What's absurd is only that they don't select the right things to stuff into the little guys! You don't need grade 8 distinction in piano to enter law school. Painting doesn't get you anywhere near banking corporations. Nowadays you use computers and calculators so kummon maths would not be of much help. Golf tho, may be useful? Public speaking too should be useful, but isn't the most importnat thing about public speaking is having some content to express before you consider issues about presentation and confidence? With a life packed as these kids there's no time no source no awareness allowed for thoughts.

Sometimes I want to have a kid of my own and try raising them in my own way so that my kid would be a happy and bright person.....but i realised this is nuts. It basically founds on the same principle with which the abovementioned crazy parents are raising their kids - u just want to project your ideas onto another entity who's under your control. Such a scary idea!