Family Theme or Family Scheme?

"It seems to me that upbringings have themes. The parents set the theme, either explicitly or implicitly, and the children pick it up, sometimes accurately and sometimes not so accurately.... The theme may be 'Our family has a distinguished heritage that you must live up to' or 'No matter what happens, we are fortunate to be together in this lovely corner of the earth' or 'We have worked hard so that you can have the opportunities we didn’t have.'" (Calvin Trillin, "Messages from My Father", The New Yorker, June 20, 1994) While most second generation Korean Americans are all too familiar with the third refrain, I'm beginning to suspect that my particular family theme is something closer to "We made the sacrifice of immigrating to this country to improve the educational opportunities for you and your sister and the golfing opportunities for me and your mother." And I would hasten to add, "not necessarily in that order."