posted
It's not an issue. It's one self-righteous jerk being jerky and thinking that's a lifestyle choice.
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I don't think it's a good idea to raise children that way. To be that harsh. They could shatter under pressure. There has to be a middle ground between being the sort of parent that doesn't do much at all and being a drill Sargent who burns their stuffed animals, calls them garbage and rips up their homemade cards.
Not to mention the whole freaking out over Bs or something. What's wrong with balance and such?
Dang... she is way too harsh. I wonder if I should read this book to find out if she's really like that. Also, rabbits don't really claim to be anything but rabbits, which means they are quite cute. It's really not so much Western vs. Eastern parenting but how to parent without tearing your poor kids apart...
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I don't know nearly enough about the issue to argue one side or the other.
I read two counter articles on CNN from Chinese-Americans, one of which was authored by a guy with a PhD in Psychology and was raised by a so-called Tiger Mom.
The more interesting one to me was the one that questioned the basis of the stereotype. Is this even a widespread thing in China? When most of China is still rural?
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A friend of mine who read the book suggests that critiquing the article (without having read the book) is missing the point.
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I think she* has a masterful marketing strategy when it comes to trolling white people into buying the book (which from what I've heard, is fairly trivial) and she's going to (or rather, already has) made a good sum of money from it.
* Or maybe her PR company or publisher
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Yes, her response to the criticism made it clear the whole thing was largely promotional for the book.
What's more, she's not nearly as good an academic as her position would indicate. She was a spouse hire, which isn't necessarily an indictment, but her publication record is lackluster (note: this isn't my evaluation, but the evaluation of a highly ranked law professor).
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It all sounds quite weird to me. Supposedly in the book, she actually says that while her method gets results, her younger daughter broke down under the pressure and they had to completely change parental policy with her.
So even the mother doesn't think she was right about everything.
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She's really looking like she's just crudely aping the obsessive, helicoptering style commonly associated with asian parents, to the extent of parading around a cruel stereotype (Why you not doctor yet? You no get b's. You not B-sian, you A-sian.) that she's exacerbated to the point of promoting bad parenting, a type which is driven to create 'prodigy obsessives' with major self-image problems, high potential for breakdowns, depression, emotional detachment, stuttering, and a wonderful host of neuroses.
We have american versions of her. Parents who Zappa remarked want children as a personal narcissistic endeavor. They are children forged for the purpose of the parent's bragging rights and adulation, with little real concern for the child's own holistic well-being. You could probably even catch a few of them on shows like Toddlers & Tiaras.
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I'm also going to put here a quote by the author Lu Sac, who wrote a book which is important for dips like her to read: "I Love Yous are for White People" — a memoir of being raised unrelentingly and punishingly by this unloving style.
quote:If I could say one thing to Amy Chua, it's that I would trade every bit of my success in life — in a heartbeat I'd switch places with the guy who shovels elephant dung at the zoo — to remove the scars left by a Tiger Mother.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: It's not an issue. It's one self-righteous jerk being jerky and thinking that's a lifestyle choice.
Pretty much. I have friends raised by her, (not actually her but by mothers just like her) and none of them seemed to like it, or appreciate it. Though, oddly enough, as they are all reaching their upper twenties they are starting to turn into their mothers to some extent.
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I think the more someone actively resents their parents, the more they resemble them in later life.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think the more someone actively resents their parents, the more they resemble them in later life.
Weird isn't it? I don't quite understand the dynamic. But it's so strange to be chatting with them on the phone and to hear them say something that sounds like their mom might have said it and then cut themselves off with, "Oh my god, I'm turning into my mother."
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I don't resent my parents. They were young when they had me and my grandmother mostly raised me and I don't think my mother knew any other way to discipline a child than with a belt. I just want to be different. Though I must say, I do find myself ranting like my mother does. Stupid genetics. But it doesn't mean I have to raise kids that way.
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Not having read the book nor planning to from this blurb, all I can say is that she sounds like a poser talking about 'Chinese' parenting when, after all, she wasn't raised in China herself, doesn't speak a Chinese language, doesn't have a Chinese spouse, etc.
So I guess my question, from what I've read so far, would be: what does Ms. Chua know about the difference between Chinese and Western parenting, really? She's a western parent herself.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Not having read the book nor planning to from this blurb, all I can say is that she sounds like a poser talking about 'Chinese' parenting when, after all, she wasn't raised in China herself, doesn't speak a Chinese language, doesn't have a Chinese spouse, etc.
*bing* (Well, except for the language part. She does speak Chinese, just not Mandarin)
But that is more than countered by the fact that three years ago she claimed that her children were "raised Jewish" and she herself was raised Catholic.
quote:MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How did you work that out with your husband, in the practical order? The religion question.
MS. CHUA: It was complicated. My children speak Chinese but they’re raised Jewish.
It only takes a glance at the religious demographics of China (and overseas Chinese for that matter) to realize what an atypical case hers is.
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Problem #1 is that she's promoting a blatantly racist stereotype.
Problem #2 is that she's mixing good parenting ideas with bad parenting ideas as if they cannot be separated. For instance, good idea: understanding that things are more fun once you are good at them. Bad idea: assuming that working obsessively hard at getting good grades is worth the cost, no matter how high that cost is. Good idea: Pushing your kid to do schoolwork. Bad idea: Not allowing participation in school plays because they should be doing homework instead. You don't have to take the bad ideas with the good ideas like she seems to think.
And there are children who are successful academically who also have well-balanced social lives.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think the more someone actively resents their parents, the more they resemble them in later life.
Weird isn't it? I don't quite understand the dynamic. But it's so strange to be chatting with them on the phone and to hear them say something that sounds like their mom might have said it and then cut themselves off with, "Oh my god, I'm turning into my mother."
So do you think that memories of my father´s palpable disgust, or at best putoutedness at being forced to converse with me at my own level would contribute to my unwillingness to consider the possibility of having children myself? I have often wondered whether I was selfish, or afraid. But perhaps I am only concerned that I will at once be like him, and at the same time experience parenthood in the same way.
Eta: this is not to say he was such a bad father, just that, on the whole, he might have preferred never to actually be one. Makes a bit of sense too, his not having a father in his life as a kid. Crazy how the sins of the parents are metted out unto the 3rd and 4th generations.
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Being aware of the problems you might have, related to your upbringing, at least gives you a fighting chance of not making them. I have a friend who was raised in a way that resembles a training course on how to screw up a kid and destroy every chance of creating a functioning adult. It was really bad. A few of her siblings are quite damaged people.
And yet she is a superb mother, her kids are educationally successful and really confident and happy. She pretty much does the exact opposite of everything that was done to her and so far it seems to be working.
So, there are options, but I think it must take a lot of work and self-awareness.
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Pushing her kids to academic success is actually coddling them more than letting them go to a sleepover, because the sleepover is much more intellectually challenging.
"Participating in a well-functioning group is really hard. It requires the ability to trust people outside your kinship circle, read intonations and moods, understand how the psychological pieces each person brings to the room can and cannot fit together.
This skill set is not taught formally, but it is imparted through arduous experiences. These are exactly the kinds of difficult experiences Chua shelters her children from by making them rush home to hit the homework table."
I must say, while I don't agree entirely with Brooks on every point he made, I did go home and think about how much I push my kids to get their homework done before having friends over.
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It's not a how-to book or a parenting advice book, it's a memoir. Many of the people reviewing seem to have forgotten that.
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You know Bella, some of my most frustrating moments as a parent are when I find myself doing things I've consciously decided I NOT to do.
Like, for instance, these stupid timed math tests that my son is taking in school. I think they're dumb. He knows addition just fine, he's getting his addition facts down anyway, the time tests just really stress him out and serve virtually no useful purpose. So, I decided I didn't care about them, and we wouldn't worry about them since nothing I can do is actually going to make him any better at them. Yet, when he brings home bad marks on them I sometimes find myself scolding him even though I have already decided it's not important... It's SO frustrating!
quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee: Being aware of the problems you might have, related to your upbringing, at least gives you a fighting chance of not making them. I have a friend who was raised in a way that resembles a training course on how to screw up a kid and destroy every chance of creating a functioning adult. It was really bad. A few of her siblings are quite damaged people.
And yet she is a superb mother, her kids are educationally successful and really confident and happy. She pretty much does the exact opposite of everything that was done to her and so far it seems to be working.
So, there are options, but I think it must take a lot of work and self-awareness.
Pushing her kids to academic success is actually coddling them more than letting them go to a sleepover, because the sleepover is much more intellectually challenging.
"Participating in a well-functioning group is really hard. It requires the ability to trust people outside your kinship circle, read intonations and moods, understand how the psychological pieces each person brings to the room can and cannot fit together.
This skill set is not taught formally, but it is imparted through arduous experiences. These are exactly the kinds of difficult experiences Chua shelters her children from by making them rush home to hit the homework table."
Yanno, if true, it would certainly explain the way people act when they've had one of these unforgiving, all-consuming 'tiger parents,' in my experience.
I've known a few who, when you speak directly to them authoritatively, like "Hey, you need to move your car" or something, they reflexively freeze up. They've got this flinching deer-in-the-headlights terrified that they've not been perfect thing going for them! Fantastic! The way my girlfriend puts it (she's surrounded by even more) is that they tend to have terrible 'emotional management' and a host of other problems.
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quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee: It all sounds quite weird to me. Supposedly in the book, she actually says that while her method gets results, her younger daughter broke down under the pressure and they had to completely change parental policy with her.
So even the mother doesn't think she was right about everything.
Recent interviews have suggested that her story has been quoted out of context. My impression is that this article is excerpted from the early chapters of her book - before her daughter's rebellion, and before her change of heart. Parts of it seemed to be written tongue-in-cheek. I suspect that she was portraying her original "Chinese" style in the worst possible light. Without the additional chapters, it seems really cruel because the whole point of the book was to show how she changed.
That said, my parents were amused to see Ghanaians on her list.
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Consider that Amy Chua's father is a hotshot engineer at UC Berkley, and that she and her husband hold academic posts at the most elite law school. These three people are intellectually gifted and at least some of that giftedness has been passed down to Chua's children. I'm not saying that these kids are as smart as their parents or grandfather, but they're likely to be smarter than normal kids. Therefore, Chua can simply push her kids academically in a way normal kids can't be pushed.
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quote:Originally posted by Sa'eed: Consider that Amy Chua's father is a hotshot engineer at UC Berkley, and that she and her husband hold academic posts at the most elite law school. These three people are intellectually gifted and at least some of that giftedness has been passed down to Chua's children. I'm not saying that these kids are as smart as their parents or grandfather, but they're likely to be smarter than normal kids. Therefore, Chua can simply push her kids academically in a way normal kids can't be pushed.
That's so not true and contributes to the reason that so many gifted children end up crashing and burning out. While you may be able to have different expectations for gifted children at different ages, they're just as susceptible to damage from being pushed too hard. There is nothing about giftedness that makes them inherently tougher emotionally, and because many of them have less peer support than "normal" kids, they may even break down more easily.
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As Synesthesia said above, I don't think the "Tiger Mom" scenario is a good way to raise children, but I think trying to protect them from all forms of discomfort is just as destructive.
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quote: I think the more someone actively resents their parents, the more they resemble them in later life.
It think you might have the causality backwards; the more personality traits [that you perceive as negative] that you have in common with a parent, the more you tend to resent them.
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quote:Originally posted by James Tiberius Kirk: Recent interviews have suggested that her story has been quoted out of context. My impression is that this article is excerpted from the early chapters of her book - before her daughter's rebellion, and before her change of heart. Parts of it seemed to be written tongue-in-cheek. I suspect that she was portraying her original "Chinese" style in the worst possible light. Without the additional chapters, it seems really cruel because the whole point of the book was to show how she changed.
That said, my parents were amused to see Ghanaians on her list.
Quoted because people seem to be missing this, even though several people have mentioned it in the thread. Chua has stated numerous times now that the WSJ excerpt was taken from the opening chapters of her book (and edited together without her supervision), and the provocative title of the piece was not her idea. The excerpt is written from the perspective of "Chua as new mother," and doesn't incorporate the insights she describes later in the book about how "Tiger Mother" parenting might not work so well.
SFGate columnist Jeff Yang has a nicely measured take on the whole thing here. Key quote:
quote:I saw a tweet by Jen Wang, who blogs at Disgrasian about her own "hardass Asian mom," in which she also noted a disconnect between the Journal story and the book from which it was supposedly excerpted. When I reached out to her for details, she explained, "The book isn't a how-to manual, as the Journal excerpt would have you believe -- it's a memoir. As such, you'll see some truth in it, and you'll also see glaring blind spots and a sometimes-woeful lack of self-examination. That truth, instead of making you hate Chua, will cause you to reflect on your own upbringing -- and your own parenting style, good and bad. And I think this is especially important for Asian Americans who feel that they were parented Chua-style, and are bitter about it -- that is to say, most of us."
I consumed "Battle Hymn" in a single sitting, and Wang is absolutely right. It's a riveting read, and nothing like what the Journal "excerpt" suggests. There's still plenty to be horrified by at in the actual book, but even more, as Wang noted, to think about -- and laugh at, as odd as that may seem to those who haven't yet read it: Far from being strident, the book's tone is slightly rueful, frequently self-deprecating and entirely aware of its author's enormities. It's a little, but not quite, like a Chelsea Handler book -- if Chelsea Handler were a Chinese American law professor and Momzilla of two.
posted
My opinion is that this type of parenting stifles the child and creates a cookie cutter impressive looking result.
You get forced abilities in stereotyped areas that may or may not reflect the child's aptitudes and passions. I think the ideal is somewhere in between what is done in the US and this approach - tough, results focused, but also allowing individual creativity and passion to shine through.
The sterotype of either - completely hands off, touchy-feely, self-esteem obsessed vs strict, grade focused, endless practice - are extremes.
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I read an article on this on the BBC which seemed to be suggesting there were only two ways to parent-- as a tiger or as a marshmallow. What about the happy medium?
My parents aren't what you would call Tiger parents in the rigid way described superficially by the article, but they got results out of us all the same. Their expectations were clear: you do well in school because people who do not work in school are lazy and you don't want to be like them. Learning is an important gift and separates you from unfortunate, ignorant people.
But even when I failed my maths class in Grade Eleven, they didn't yell at me. My own disappointment, instilled in me by them, was enough.
What I (and my siblings) were and are pressured to do is not perform well at school but to perform well as human beings-- school is only part of that. My mother would be most angry if we sat around inside playing video games all day. That, to her, was more of a failing than failing a course that I could have passed had I worked at all or done any of my homework.
And this is what I think is a problem: video game children. Not kids who work really hard or don't do their homework at all (as I have both), but kids who don't do anything outside of school except watch tv or play video games-- and that's what they say they love doing. "I would play video games all day if I could."
I teach one kid who couldn't be less interested in school work. He scratches out his homework, twiddles his thumbs in class and will, unless he pulls up his socks, will fall further and further behind in class.
And yet, he's creative in a way that the other kids aren't. I've talked to him about what he does at home and if anyone has lacksidaisical parents who don't care about school, it's this kids, but this kid does DO stuff. He draws, and feeds chickens, and cooks and plants vegetables and that makes him an interesting and intelligent child.
One of the other teachers told me he would be an ideal candidate for Boarding School, and this would be true in the sense he would probably do much better in school. However, his fairytale childhood-- with cabbages and caterpillars-- would be over.
I think parents who let their kids play video games constantly, or for hours at a time, or even very much at all (or watch tv) are doing them a huge disservice. Not because parents should play with their kids all the time in an overbearing way, but that kids should have a more active role in the activities they do. And especially in creating and maintaining the activities they do.
When kids have to play with Lego, or blocks, or bits of string, or paper, or Monopoly or toy soldiers, or trees or anything like that, they are increasing their ability to not only create but also maintain interest in something. They have to work to remain in their fantasy world.
And I use the fantasy world in a way that does not mean that all children should be in a fantasy world of dragons and lightsabers, but that even when little boys are building towers they are engaging in play where something bigger is happening than what they are doing.
For example, even if the child is merely building a pile of blocks, and they are thinking about building a pile of blocks, their goal is presumably to build the tallest pile of blocks and suddenly the child has a goal: to sit and build the tallest pile of blocks. It's not a skyscraper (although it may become one), it doesn't have a purpose in the fantasy book sense. The fantasy is that the block tower being tall is important, when it's not.
And that is play: when something that is meaningless takes on a greater significance in the mind or minds of the player(s).
The skills children and adults get from playing are crucial and this is where lacksidaisical and "tiger" parenting fail. Too rigid, and the child never learns to create his or her own world. Too floppy, and the world is too scattered, too unfocused and the child never learns to develop the ability to maintain a created world.
To me, video games require only a little more mental imput than working in a sweatshop. TV even less. We worry about third world children doing a repetative action every day, but not about those children who, when asked what was the best thing they did on the weekend (such a revealing question), say "Played on the D.S."
If I could run a child psychology thing, that would be my first question. My second being, "if you could do one thing for as much time as you wanted, what would it be?"
Tells you quite a bit about the life of the child.
But I am rambling supremely and 5:30am is rapidly approaching.
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"I read an article on this on the BBC which seemed to be suggesting there were only two ways to parent-- as a tiger or as a marshmallow. What about the happy medium?"
Perhaps that doesn't sell books?
In my limited American experience, marshmallowish parents outweigh tigerish parents ten to one. In my mind, that partially explains the fury over this book. Few people like being told they are wrong.
"What I (and my siblings) were and are pressured to do is not perform well at school but to perform well as human beings-- school is only part of that."
Precisely. Be tigerish about LIFE - try your best and be the best person that you can. The details aren't as important, because individual aptitude varies.
Video games are a big problem. I see that in myself. I play way too much, even when there are things that I could go do. I have to fix that before kids arrive, because I don't want them to be that way.
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Here's what I don't get in the tiger mom thing- how do you decide what to push them really heavily in? For example, so far my daughter seems to have no musical ability, but she seems very talented in gymnastics. In school, she is probably smarter than she behaves. Artistically, her coloring is above age level. So, which one do we decide she will be a prodigy at?
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None. Then you become those parents who spend all their time and money shuttling their child to special classes and schools until the child decides they hate what they're good at and demand their childhood back. I've always thought the parents of Olympic athletes look like pale, drained vegetables, and the athletes look like they've never had a laid-back moment in their lives.
Our daughter is a budding engineer, artist, musician, and writer. She was also a budding ballerina, but we pulled her out of ballet school when the "next level" required two classes a week instead of one, and twice the money. We still have her in piano, but the cost is reasonable, the teacher lives just down the street, and she's not on Julliard track. We want all of our kids to succeed, but we'd rather not buy their success.
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I thought Time had a good article on this. Some excerpts:
quote: The second thing Chua wants you to know is that the hard-core parenting she set out to do didn't work — not completely, anyway. "When my children were young, I was very cocky," Chua acknowledges. "I thought I could maintain total control. And in fact my first child, Sophia, was very compliant." Then came Lulu.
That was a year and a half ago. Today, Chua has worked out some surprising compromises with her children.
And Chua says she doesn't want to script her children's futures. "I really don't have any particular career path in mind for Sophia and Lulu, as long as they feel passionate about it and give it their best."
About "The Little White Donkey": she was perhaps too severe in enforcing long hours of practice, Chua says now. Still, she says, it was important for Sophia and Lulu to learn what they were capable of. "It might sound harsh, but kids really shouldn't be able to take the easy way out," she explains. "If a child has the experience, even once, of successfully doing something she didn't think she could do, that lesson will stick with her for the rest of her life."
And there is some more interesting stuff in that article about parenting styles, cultural differences, and possible consequences to our differing nations.
Regarding Chua's actual ideas about parenting, well, I think many of her objectives were in the right place, but her methods of implementation were a bit off, which she somewhat recognizes now herself.
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I went to a book reading and question-answer session with Chua a week ago. She explained that she is unapologetic about her prioritizing of excellence as a goal for her children, but that she now sees that they need more freedom in choosing their own activities when they get older. She seemed overly defensive when the issue of stereotyping (throwing around terms like "Chinese parent") came up and was especially upset over the WSJ article title, which she said was in direct contradiction with the message of the book. She did make a good point about grades-- said that they and other similar things are just evaluative tools, not a terminal value; the main thing is to be the best that you can be at whatever you choose to be. Of course she's just coming to realize the importance of the choice aspect and imo probably still doesn't put as much emphasis on it as a stereotypical "Western" parent does.
She is warm and very funny in person. She had the room cracking up quite a few times with anecdotes about her extended family and quips at herself.
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Oh, and I noticed one strange thing in the way the people there approached her. Apologies for the generalizations, but the white women tended to be very critical of her parenting style, and the white men were more supportive/admiring. There were many exceptions, of course, but it was still interesting.
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This has come up a few times IRL. My favorite comments: Those people need to realie they aren't there anyore. They are in America. Some of those Asians don't feed there kids if they don't do their homework. In America, that is a call to CPS and someday those kids are going to realize and call CPS on their own parents.
What makes the comment so funny is last week the same people were discussing methods for making sure a spanking hurt. Like what implements you can use- belt vs flyswatter vs coathanger.
Another comment that seems to have missed the point- "you are so lucky you don't have to worry about pushing your kids cause they are part asian and succeeding is just born in to Asians."
Loving the racism this conversation brings out.
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quote:@melissakchan Melissa Chan Identity crisis: RT @Slate: Wow. Chinese edition of Amy Chua's book is called "Being an American Mom." http://on.wsj.com/grlWPt
quote:As Xinhua notes, the cover of the Chinese edition of the book is substantially different from the original, featuring a photo of a smiling Ms. Chua standing against a red, white and blue map of the United States.
The Chinese edition’s title translates to “Being a Mom in America,” or, as Xinhua rendered it, “Being an American Mum.”
I wonder, though, if people think this really means much? I mean, I don't know enough about Chua to really know what kind of parent she was. I don't pretend that I do. But if you want to know whether or not someone messed up their kids, asking the kid whether or not they think their parents messed them up isn't exactly a foolproof plan.
Generally speaking, it's pretty hard for most kids to objectively appraise their parents and critically analyze what long-term problems their parents actually instilled in them.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: asking the kid whether or not they think their parents messed them up isn't exactly a foolproof plan.
Actually, at age 18 it's probably better than many options.
Like, way better than going off an article that summarized the first few chapters of the book and ignored the bulk of it.
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posted
Well, it certainly could be better than the article. No argument there!
But, barring really extreme and egregious abuse, most decent adults I know have a tendency to protect their parents and insist that they did a good job. Even when it's pretty clear that their parents helped instill in them a variety of mental problems.
Look, on the whole, I think most parents do okay, and most kids turn out fine. But that doesn't mean it does anyone any good to pretend their parents didn't make lots of huge mistakes, too, and cause all sorts of unnecessary harm.
Edit: Recognizing mistakes, yours or your parents', is an important part of improving. Without taking a critical approach, you're much more likely to perpetuate needless mistakes yourself.
General "you" of course, not specifically targeting you, rivka.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: But, barring really extreme and egregious abuse, most decent adults I know have a tendency to protect their parents and insist that they did a good job. Even when it's pretty clear that their parents helped instill in them a variety of mental problems.
Probably because those two positions are in no way contradictory. There are no perfect parents, and no such thing as perfect parenting. So even if you have certain unhealthy learned responses from your childhood (and I suspect almost everyone does), that doesn't mean your parents didn't do a good job, overall.
Then the tricky part is taking the aspects of your parents' parenting that you think were useful and healthy, while limiting the parts that were not. Which, it seems to me (without having actually read it) is exactly what this book is about!
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"She" the mother, or "she" the daughter? If the former, I'd hate to be judged solely by what I was like 20 years ago.
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The mother. And I thought she was a bit off from the article. Before hearing what my friend had to say.
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Then you become those parents who spend all their time and money shuttling their child to special classes and schools until the child decides they hate what they're good at and demand their childhood back. I've always thought the parents of Olympic athletes look like pale, drained vegetables, and the athletes look like they've never had a laid-back moment in their lives.
