this is a humble request for you to please share your thoughts about yuna? i have so much love for her and i rarely see people talk about her in a way that feels accurate and non-stereotypical.
ymmv of course but i’m asian and the favorite son joke doesn’t bother me personally because imo it’s clear in the book and show that she adores shane. she can be a bit short sighted but i truly believe that everything she does is for her son and her “tiger mom behavior” (yuck) is only bc she knows the weight of being racialized in north america and she desperately wants him to have every opportunity in the world despite that and it sometimes makes her lose track of his needs as a person. but i dont think any of it is ever intentionally hurtful and what a lot of white people don’t get is that for a lot of asian parents this is how they show their love, by opening doors for their kids that they never got to walk through. but i do hate when people take the favorite son thing seriously and write her as genuinely preferring ilya over shane. my yuna would never.
also i remember what hudson said about his mom worrying that he wouldn’t get roles because she was asian. and i wonder if yuna maybe feels the same way about her own race and maybe feels an unfair sense of guilt that shane not being white would make his life as a hockey player harder. especially because she is shane’s only asian parent. she’s so interesting to think about and i would love to hear any thoughts you might have!
i'll start with the favorite son joke bc i feel like my thoughts have changed a ton in like... a day lol. i've never been a huge fan but always felt like it was pretty harmless for the reason you said, it's clear yuna adores shane and it's not meant to be cruel. but yesterday i saw one person post on a yuna twitter acc a pic of christina, hudson, and connor where they cropped hudson out and had it be yuna tweeting about mother's day with herself and ilya, and then another person post a text edit where ilya takes yuna out for a meal for mother's day and shane isn't invited and is pretty upset about it and that was kind of my last straw i think. it just feels mean at this point. a way to dig at shane in a way that just feels unnecessary
as for yuna... i totally agree with you. not to get like too personal but for context, i'm a south asian eldest daughter who got my degree in english and i work in publishing. my parents were not thrilled, particularly my dad, but i dug my heels in and i'm so lucky and grateful that he's totally come around. i know that's not every asian kid's experience. it took me a few years to realize that it was worry about an uncertain career path - he came to the US in the mid 80s and the only options available to him were doctor, lawyer, or engineer.
i think it's made me a little protective of asian parents. i want to say explicitly that some of them are incredibly abusive about stuff like this and no one should have to put up with that, even if you understand where it comes from. some people will never change and that absolutely sucks. i just think a lot of the stereotypes around asian parents feel like the western world taking something about the immigrant experience they don't understand and making it into a caricature, sometimes. (don't even get me started on how callously and flippantly non-asian people throw around 'disappointing your asian parents', it literally makes me see red lol) a lot of it is genuine fear and worry for their kids, and wanting all the sacrifices they made to ensure their kids are taken care of.
yuna feels like that to me. like someone who knows what shane is up against and wants to ensure he's taken care of. your point about asian parents showing love by opening doors they never got to walk through is so, so true. the brand deals, the micromanaging... i don't think she was ever trying to impose. i like the idea of her worrying about her identity making his life harder and overcompensating a lot.
but i think this also exists alongside the reality that she may have hurt him in the process. i think that should be okay to acknowledge, not because she's a "tiger mom" or "asian parents are too strict" but because she's a flawed human being. my dad hurt me, early on, but i don't love talking about it anymore because i don't want him to be used as another example of asian parents being awful. i want him to be treated like a regular human being who got scared and made a mistake. i can see them having a conversation about this one day, when shane is older and has had time to sort through it. yuna did the best she knew how to do and it still ended up being a lot for shane sometimes, and that doesn't mean she's a villain, and that doesn't mean her work didn't help him, and that doesn't mean anyone is The Problem. yuna is still human like everyone else.
