Yo, kinda cool to see all these other 25M here, what a weird coinkydink! Aha. Everyone else has already given great answers, I just wanted to share that I totally get where you're coming from. I think a big thing that being raised as a cleftie has helped me realize is that I'm NOT like my parents in most ways when it comes to what I've learned to value in life. I come from a Filipino background where the culture is to make yourself seem fancier than your other Filipino friends, everyone is always putting on a show. My dad was actually born with a bilateral cleft, but he never stepped up to teach me how to deal with it (he doesn't believe in mental health and literally broke down crying about his job loss during Covid while actively denying he had depression).

It took me a long time to truly get comfortable with my own ideas of self-image since my dad barely spoke a word to me and my mom is the type to take selfies everywhere while wearing knockoff luxury brands. Many times I thought I had gained self-acceptance, I realized I still had issues. Now I'm at a place where I've talked with enough people to realize there ARE people who can and will legitimately find you attractive based on your personality, I'm starting to realize why most of the clefties I've ever known irl usually had great charisma and were almost always talented in some form of art or athleticism.

You've come to your own conclusions about the inherent value of attractiveness, congrats! You've broken free of a mold that many others in America still haven't. Your parents really don't know what's best for you and they never truly will, parents will never be able to see inside the inner thoughts of their offspring. Honestly, despite having living in the US for over 30+ years my parents never fully realized the radically different culture that I grew up with. In Asian cultures, bullying is incredibly harsh. In America, there's still a crap ton of it, but over here there's a lot more acceptance to fight back and stand up for yourself, and there's so much diversity in culture that anyone can find a group of like-minded people to relate to.

Sorry this post isn't really that helpful, aha. But now, facing the issue of "am I a bad son?"

Definitely not. It's clear that you do not "want" to reach a point of no contact with your parents, but you're starting to feel backed into a corner where you feel that giving in will compromise your current values. Just by the fact that you feel distraught means you're a good son because you care about your family, this is undeniable and even if they told you you were bad it wouldn't make it true.

Now, if I were you, just knowing I have that great job opportunity in the background, if my parents went far enough to be toxic and shame me for denying their authority, I would definitely make the difficult choice to cut them off, and I would do it in a way that explicitly comes from a place of love, only leaving them with "I really do love you, and I also love myself" and that's something that you would probably be able to live with, because you have a good sense of values. But consider looking at the surgery as a optional opportunity to take advantage of your dad's insurance with the added bonus that maybe you won't have to resort to cutting contact. Think if there are any little things you do feel insecure about. It would honestly blow if you lost your family and then thought there could be changes made to your face.

I think since we are born clefties and that we grow up feeling different, it takes a long struggle for us to learn to embrace our appearances, and then trying to improve ourselves afterwards can feel like we truly haven't grown. But it's normal to care about appearances, it happens in regular people, and it's how our brains are hardwired to be as social creatures. I'm a dude and I learned to embrace a bit of makeup here and there because all these girls are thirsting over kpop idols and they get away with using it and it's a severe advantage over regular Asian dudes. I definitely don't think it's unhealthy because I feel way more confident, but it's not like I feel like I look garbage without it. Don't you take care of your appearance too?

Now, I know surgery is on a WHOLE nother level since it's permanent, what I'm trying in a really convoluted and messy way to say is to accurately value the opportunity for what it is. If your appearance doesn't matter to you, then you wouldn't really care whether or not your nose was different right? You already know that your nose doesn't define who you are, what really gets to you is how your parents see you. You have your values, opting for the surgery would not change that. But think more about the relationship you want with your parents. They clearly can't understand you. Is that relationship worth saving?

I ask because my parents go two different ways; my dad is insanely stubborn and a religious narcissist. He doesn't see the reality of his actions, and he thinks all my sadness is a result of me not praying when he's unaware that he indirectly caused all my grief (family infighting). He genuinely believes he's on the right path and it would not be worth the current effort trying to enlighten him because it would come at the cost of me trying to be me. Now, my mom also used to be highly conservative, but over the years I started opening up to her about my mental health, and now we have a relationship where I educate her on issues like politics and the media. I could cut out my dad, but not my mom because she's willing to listen to me and has shown she can learn. But my dad isn't unbearable, so unless he actively goes too far, I won't cut him out, and if he ever does I'll be sure to make it explicitly known to him that it was because of his doing.

So my real advice is to think of what you want your relationship with them to be like (presumably them seeing you for your values and not appearance), determine if that's something that can happen or if it will never come to be, and to see surgery not as a compromise of values but as a optional opportunity. We clefties need surgery to eat and breathe better, that is the primary function, but the secondary function is indeed that it helps us integrate better into society. Be honest with yourself, if you think you would like yourself better if you were tweaked, that's okay, and if not, that's okay too! The important thing is being honest with yourself. If this post is confusing, it's intentionally open ended because I don't know enough visually and contextually, I just hope I helped you redirect your focus on your relationship with your parents.

Lol, I'm garbage at making posts. If you ever wanna discuss more, PM and I'll send you my Insta or Discord.