When she returns home that night, she then starts talking about her day at work to Sun and how her coworkers kept talking about parenting.

"Let's say that the controller kept talking about parenting and what makes someone a good parent, as well as when we plan on having kids. I told him that there's so much going on in my life that I want the dust to settle beforehand. Might be a little late for kids at this point, but better late than never" Imélie then tells Sun about parenting.

"My coworkers are scarcely better, and they, too, talk about how they already have a roadmap that take them through such-and-such elementary school, then middle school, and some private school for high school, probably Jesuit or Mt. Carmel depending on the gender" Sun talks about his own coworkers' experience with parenting.

"Wanting what's best for one's children is natural, but what's not so natural is when you have parents that plan their entire childhood around a specific goal and don't let kids be kids"

"Kind of like the warning Trillian issued on national TV a couple weeks ago, when, at 14, she qualified for the IMO, about the dangers of hothousing. In her case the dangers were compounded by..."

"Yes" I know, Imélie begins, when her tone of voice suddenly changes for the rest of the sentence. "My childhood's parish. If the parish newspaper acts as they did when I was in high school, then they hyped her beyond belief, and with the past Louisianan USAMO participants being restricted in their initial comparisons to past Venomous Agendas only"

Trillian made quite a bit of a splash when she issued the warning on national TV, and she made the confession that she was hothoused since she started dreaming of simply wearing the purple and the green of the Venomous Agendas in mathletic competition since the age of 4. She said she didn't have a particular competition in mind back then, Sun reflects on Trillian's appearance on a nationwide talk-show, and also about those few occasions where Imélie slipped, over the years, the names of other Venomous Agendas mathletic greats in front of him.

"So beyond the need to allow future kids some freedom to choose their interest and to encourage interests they pick of their own volition, I wonder what you would want out of parenting"

"I never expected people such as a full-stack developer to talk about parenting unless they themselves either have a kid or are waiting one. Just look at Trillian and you'll see the dangers of using a child as a vehicle for parental wish fulfillment. While Trillian is, to the eyes of the general public, the epitome of American girls' mathletics, privately she resents her parents"

And then what Krista's mom said as a guest speaker at a math team practice held while Gen was away at the EGMO finally makes sense when she said that it could be tempting for high-achieving students to use drugs to get a release from parental pressure. While at the time, Krista was a little traumatized by the USAMO, she also claimed to fit one of the archetypal descriptions of mentally ill students. I also believed back then that I was too smart for drugs, which is why, while I might have stored that info in my memory somehow, my brain blocks access to it much more easily than other memories I have from my past, Imélie recalls in her mind while Sun plays that appearance on the talk show on YouTube. Yes, Trillian talked about her road to the IMO, and how she feels like the EGMO is a true isolympic contest and how it differs from other isolympic contests; whereas the APMO and the RMM are held remotely, the EGMO as well as the IMO are both in-person so the social aspect is the main difference. But the warning was issued as a follow-up on the journey and about how easy it is, in the euphoria of participating in the most prestigious mathletic contest in the world, to forget about the journey to get there.

"Trillian makes Gen's high school self look like a much more likable mathlete"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Bottom line is: if the child dreams of high performance, please do not place any self-worth in your child's achievements. Trillian's parents were perhaps a little too hard on her"

"I'll make sure I will discuss drugs with any future kids. But I don't want to have kids until I earn the degree. With the job, the studies and quiz bowl, I am in no position to even devote decent time to a baby. I have a good idea of what a baby requires, and I may as well work from home at this point"

"I don't blame you; it's important to not rush these kinds of things, and it's tempting for so many would-be parents to try and live vicariously through children once they are born, especially if they themselves had no access to certain opportunities"

Now that I think about it... in that specific respect, coaching a quiz bowl team is much like parenting in that specific respect, but so different in others. From what I can make out, yes, you see people become better players, as well as better students in general, but your bond with your players is actually limited, Imélie ponders while also contemplating how to approach other aspects of coaching the Green Wave's quiz bowl team a few months from now.

"While Trillian is the poster child of girls' mathletics, she also became the poster child of child abuse in certain circles. With her the dangers facing parents using a child to realize what they couldn't become clear as day"

"We kept talking about the nurturing aspect of parenting, but there is also the discipline aspect of parenting. In quiz bowl as in child-rearing, you realize there are rules and breaking them carry consequences"

"Speaking of which, it can be all too tempting for parents to intervene when things go wrong, and watch over them at all times to the extent possible. I'd intervene only in escalated cases"

"I hope Trillian hasn't wasted her time under the spotlight to talk about more than simply the IMO and how she fits in combating stereotyping of girls in high school math. Personally, it's refreshing to see these children tell publicly how helicopter parenting is hurting them, rather than the professionals who deal with them"

"I think the parishioners also added pressure that may not necessarily exist anywhere else. The parish elevated mathletes, especially females, to the same levels of stardom as football players in schools anywhere else in the state. Especially since nowhere else does "athlete vs. mathlete" takes on a seemingly gendered dimension"

"And I guess Gen is the primary girl responsible for this state of affairs in your childhood parish? Is transforming brains vs brawn into a battle of sexes, but with both being worshipped in equal measure, an improvement over worshipping athletics only? The way Trillian described life in her hometown, that's how it feels"

"That said I am surprised that this TV network even allowed her to cover themes at that depth level and still make it on air. I don't watch TV much because it feels so anti-intellectual to me, and certainly not talk shows"

"While it could be tempting to dismiss the claims Trillian made on air regarding hothousing as mere talk show sensationalism, what cannot be debated is the scope of the achievement"

"It's just massive, and there hasn't been a female IMO team member in years for the United States, she admitted as much. Same goes of Louisiana as well"

This conversation about the dangers of hyper-parenting, of using children as a vehicle to accomplish what the parents couldn't, certainly gives the two of them a lot to think about. What unconditional love really means in this context, because they both heard it a lot in a child-rearing context. Supporting children without attempting to control them or to push them beyond their limits being the portion they most readily understood on the topic. Yet they kept talking about things such as the dangers of doing too much, or too little, for their kids, as well as the dangers of pushing a kid too hard even in the absence of issues with children. By the end of the night, before they go to bed...

"It seems that all this talk of parenting is making memories of my past resurface in bursts in my mind. Of this intense companionship I lived with these girls for the second half of junior year, and then senior year with a different set of girls, that I was somehow unable to replicate in college. This is exhausting me mentally..."

"What is exhausting you mentally? I didn't feel like you were unable to talk cogently about these aspects of parenting, you know this subject matter is making you think, and you seemed to understand the implications for the children and for the parents"

"True, my brain works pretty hard, and yours too. And it also makes me think about how I would even want to coach the Green Wave quiz bowl team for this season"