The vast majority of parents expect their children to grow up to be healthy, happy, and productive members of society. 【小题1】 If we don’t give parenting everything we’ve got, our kids will wind up unemployed, living in our basements, and there will be no one to blame but ourselves. That’s what I like to call the “perfect parent myth”.

The standards of perfection for parents these days are extremely high. Perfect parenting expectations begin with a drug free natural birth. Once our young are born we must breastfeed each baby for years. If we can’t breasted, we must at least feed on demand. 【小题2】 Let’s also not forget to organize our children’s days so they are engaged in educational pursuits in case they fall behind the curve (弯道). We must be involved in every aspect of our children’s schools. There is no free time for the perfect parent. 【小题3】

These standards are unreasonable. They’re also crazy. Parents can’t be perfect. Why? Because we’re human and so are our children. 【小题4】They are predictable and when they are unruly we can shut them down. Parenting is nothing like that.

【小题5】But, by the parent being less than perfect, the child will need to adapt and develop skills to overcome little disappointments. There is flexibility and room for real-life mistakes and limitations to our parenting abilities.

Normally, a phone conversation with my older sister Jenna would end with sisterly jokes. But this time, we both said, “I love you.” Days later, aged 28, Jenna died of a serious disease.

Losing Jenna was the most terrible thing I'd ever experienced, but five years on I can see that it also shaped who I am today. Jenna encouraged me to find humor at the darkest of times, and her death gave me a sense of fearlessness - which led to me becoming a stand-up comedian.

At 31, I now see that life's too short to worry about my own insecurities. Growing up together, the two of us were incredibly close. We stuck together and even shared a room. Lying in our beds at night, Jenna would sing Sleeping Satellite by Tasmin Archer to me when I got scared of the dark.

I was studying at university when I was told that Jenna had a serious disease. I had no idea what to do, how to react or what to say. But when I got to the hospital, Jenna took my hand and said, “Jayde, can you make everyone laugh? They're all looking at me like I'm about to die and it's getting on my nerves.”

From that point on, during Jenna's regular hospital stays, I'd joke around and try to lighten the mood. I wanted to make everyone around her stop acting like she was about to die - because we didn't know that she was.

When she did die two years later, it was a complete shock. Seeing her in hospital in the end, connected to machines, was awful - as was seeing my parents' sadness. But I still joked around, making fun of her for not taking care of her eyebrows. She died that same day.

Nothing can prepare you for losing your sister. I felt like I didn't know what to do without her. It took two years for the sadness to start to lift, but when it did, I began seeing life differently.

I'd watched my sister die, so I knew nothing else could hurt as much. I found myself letting go of all the insecurities that had held me back previously. It was around then that I entered the Funny Women competition - something I would never have had the confidence to do before Jenna's death.

My win marked a huge turning point in my career and led to my recent show at the Soho Theatre in London. I sometimes wonder if I'd be doing all this if Jenna hadn't died. But the thing is, she did - and this is what I've been left with.

When it came to role models, Diana Ortiz said her mother, Marcia Dominguez, was the “hero”. Ms. Dominguez came to the United States from Cuba in 1979. She went to college and got a job as a social worker —   all the while raising three children in America mostly on her own.

“It was always school first，” Diana said, “My mom had us in a straight line. If we got out of line, she corrected us. She was a perfect woman. She was beautiful, she had the education and she had everything — but the illness took over. When I was 11, it frightened me to see how quickly my mother's health was ruined by cancer. A week before I turned 14, my mother died at age 50. I had tried to prepare myself, but on the first morning I woke up without my mother, the sense of loss was painful.”

Diana had not seen her father for five years, who refused to provide for her. Diana then entered the city's foster care system. She has spent about four years in foster homes.

Despite Diana's hard teenage years, the values her mother had planted in her mind inspired her to go after higher education. Since August 2010, she has been a fulltime student majoring in law. A public organization offers her tuition but she has part­time jobs to help people like her and earn more life experience. Her goal is a job in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

For now, Diana works 20 hours a week as a cashier at Marshalls, earning D|S7.25 an hour. In November, she moved into her own public housing studio apartment on the Lower East Side. She pays D|S236 a month in rent. Although she is out of foster care, Diana has been speaking at workshops for foster youths. She emphasizes that nothing should get in the way of their success, not the trials of their lives or what they may have lost.

“I tell the young who have the similar experience like me, ‘Why are you going to let what happened to you affect you in the long run？’” Diana said, “ ‘Why are you going to sit there and feel sorry for yourself? You're wasting precious time.’ It is a message my mother would approve of. My mom taught me that everything is not given to you. You have to go out and get it.”