A new study by the Center for Research on Yearning, or C.R.Y., shows that many teens want to avoid becoming a disappointment to their parents. Unfortunately, an overwhelming 105% of teens are too late as they’ve probably already disappointed their parents.
Researchers have concluded that teens should focus on overcoming being a disappointment instead. After 3 years of case studies, surveys, and data from simulations, the researchers have recommended 3 strategies also known as the O.O.F. method, to best recover.
The first strategy is called “Obtain money legally”. Through case studies, researchers noted that those who earned large sums of money from respectable professions were more likely to overcome being a disappointment. They emphasized the necessity of the job being “respectable” as money made from unconventional jobs, such as being a social media influencer or god forbid an artist, often made children become more of a disappointment to their parents. The ideal jobs that resulted in the quickest recovery from being a disappointment include being a doctor, lawyer, or engineer.
The second strategy is called “Offer your parents a mansion”. Researchers discovered the effectiveness of this strategy through simulations where they found that parental disappointment in children went down by 2 trillion percent when they had been gifted a mansion. The most impactful mansions had at least 7 bedrooms, an orchid in the front, and a golf course in the back. One key caveat, however, was that if the simulated children did not also hire maids or housekeepers in addition to the mansion, parental disappointment increased. The researchers believe that this happened because the simulated parents felt overwhelmed by the amount of chores they would have to do in a mansion.
The third strategy is aptly called “Finally exceed expectations”. Through surveys conducted on 70 billion parents around the globe, researchers noted that most parents felt it was never enough for children to meet expectations. Based on this, children are recommended to exceed expectations at every opportunity, no matter the feasibility. When the same researcher ran simulations of whole lifetimes, they found that while parents might be satisfied with their children buying them a mansion or earning money through a respectable job, they are truly most joyful when their children become both the President of the United States and Secretary General of the United Nations.
If the O.O.F. method is followed, the researchers from C.R.Y. estimate that a child will have a 25% chance of permanently overcoming being a disappointment. The researchers did, however, put out a disclaimer explaining that approval was not equivalent to love and that through their research, they had concluded that it was impossible for a mortal human to make their parents love them.
