Photo by Erin Patrice O'Brien for The Wall Street Journal
Saturday's Wall Street Journal published an essay, or manifesto, about Chinese parenting, which has since raised the eyebrows of more than just parents. Amy Chua’s "Why Chinese mothers are superior" details her Chinese style parenting of her children, including the stereotypical piano lessons, banning of sleepovers and the push for academic over-achievement.
Chua’s article has been the catalyst for a web firestorm of responses to her suggestion that Chinese parents are superior and that tactics of insulting and demeaning children are normal and produce successful prodigies, such as her own children.
The Wall Street Journal counterbalanced Ms. Chua's article by also publishing “In China, Not all practice tough love” by Victoria Ruan detailing that not all Chinese parents follow a stereotypical parenting model and may even try to avoid the tough love image.
A Beijing-based expat wasted no-time in publishing his opposition to Ms Chua's article pointing out that the childrens’ success may just possibly stem from having upper-middle class Yale professors as parents. He finds fault not so much in the ideas of harsh parenting but in Chua herself, and questions her for being a “Model Chinese Parent or Insufferable Elitist”.
Just last month Beijing-Kids featured an interview with Beijing parenting author Xiao Wu "Wee-witch" Wheeler and her staunch opposition to Chinese, or any stereotypical, parenting method since “there's no distinctly American baby behaviour versus Chinese baby behaviour.”
Join in on the already spirited debates on theBeijinger and beijing-kids forums and offer your opinions on the matter
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Books by current and former Beijinger staffers
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oskarbull wrote:The problem is that everyone thinks their upbringing is the best one, since they turned out so well. So this is difficult to discuss without being partial to your family's way of raising children.But my favorite example here is Michael Jackson. I'm sure he didn't have playdates and free time as a kid, and he turned out extremely successful. But would you want your kids to turn out like him?
i think considering what he did (although the american legal system tends to disagree) means that he probably was somebody who needed to have a playdate as a kid, instead of being an adult having 'playdates' with kids.
dwizzard86 wrote:This woman is extremely arrogant and a borderline sociopath. It is one thing to make sure a child puts forth their best effort and that they learn the value of hard work. It is another thing to verbally abuse them when they fail at a task which is forced upon them so that their mother can show what a 'superior' parent she is.
Carl Jung and other prominent psychologists say that the most damaging thing an adult can do to a young child is force to them to practice adult behaviors and exhibit adult emotions at an age where they are developmentally unable to process this sort of behavior. For an example look at all the spastic former child actors.
I have a white friend with a genius IQ who was raised the same way by his mother. As a young child he was forced to study ballet, take piano, play cello, and a multitude of other activities. He became quite intellectually arrogant about his abilities. He skipped into my grade, and joined our advanced Math class and was telling everyone about how he was going to be the smartest person in our grade, too. I distinctly remember everyone in the class turning to him and saying all at once, "shut the fuck up." He had no friends in our grade, and shortly after he became quite depressed. It even got to the point where he had to be put on antidepressants as a 12 year-old because he was threatening to kill himself. While all the overbearing behavior from his mother might have fostered a majority of his young success, it didn't win him friends, teach him social skills, or help him develop proper emotionally.
If you would like a country full of intelligent, but socially worthless and emotionally retarded people, raise your children in the same manner as this Chua witch.
perhaps if he didnt do ballet as a child he might have had a chance.
This woman is extremely arrogant and a borderline sociopath. It is one thing to make sure a child puts forth their best effort and that they learn the value of hard work. It is another thing to verbally abuse them when they fail at a task which is forced upon them so that their mother can show what a 'superior' parent she is.
Carl Jung and other prominent psychologists say that the most damaging thing an adult can do to a young child is force to them to practice adult behaviors and exhibit adult emotions at an age where they are developmentally unable to process this sort of behavior. For an example look at all the spastic former child actors.
I have a white friend with a genius IQ who was raised the same way by his mother. As a young child he was forced to study ballet, take piano, play cello, and a multitude of other activities. He became quite intellectually arrogant about his abilities. He skipped into my grade, and joined our advanced Math class and was telling everyone about how he was going to be the smartest person in our grade, too. I distinctly remember everyone in the class turning to him and saying all at once, "shut the fuck up." He had no friends in our grade, and shortly after he became quite depressed. It even got to the point where he had to be put on antidepressants as a 12 year-old because he was threatening to kill himself. While all the overbearing behavior from his mother might have fostered a majority of his young success, it didn't win him friends, teach him social skills, or help him develop proper emotionally.
If you would like a country full of intelligent, but socially worthless and emotionally retarded people, raise your children in the same manner as this Chua witch.
The problem is that everyone thinks their upbringing is the best one, since they turned out so well. So this is difficult to discuss without being partial to your family's way of raising children.
But my favorite example here is Michael Jackson. I'm sure he didn't have playdates and free time as a kid, and he turned out extremely successful. But would you want your kids to turn out like him?
More on Chinese moms ...
WSJ Book review of Chua's tome on parenting
NBC News' Adrienne Mong on the Chinese/Western culture wars
CBS Moneywatch: Are Chinese moms the drivers of China's economic boom?
The New Yorker's Evan Osnos chimes in
Today Moms' exclusive interview with Chua, defending her parenting techniques
Books by current and former Beijinger staffers
http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20
As a people manager in China that has hired dozens of local employees in their 20s, I have seen the end result of Chinese mothering first hand.
While many of the employees brought a strong academic history, most lack creativity and social skills.
These twentysomethings enter the business world woefully prepared for life as an adult. They lack knowledge on how to dress, care for their personal hygiene, and work together with their colleagues. Why? Because the parents never taught them about real life.
Although the students of Chinese mothers may have straight As on their report card or know how to play the piano, they have no sense of responsibility around the home. I've seen teenagers throw garbage on their home's floor instead of placing it in a trash can. I've watched them leave their food, wet towels, and dirty clothes on the floor. I feel sorry for their future spouses.
And I won't get into how miserable the husbands of these Chinese mothers feel about their marriage...
If they are superior then why aren't there more brilliant minds coming out of China? I am not saying there aren't ANY but if they are so great at teaching and molding their kids then a good 50% should be incredible individuals.
I think there are good points in every style but to say one is superior is ridiculous.
However after saying that I do think the west has become too p.c. Get rid of the p.c. mentally and US kids will become better. Not everything that makes a child cry is abuse!
I love my planet Vulcan. I'm proud of being a Vulcan in the universe.
The comic Bobby Lee was recently on Marc Maron's podcast "WTF", and he talks about growing up with "Asian parenting" and how it really messed him up in ways. Certainly, this style of parenting brings about high achievements with some kids, but for some it works not at all, and for all of them I would guess that they will have some psychological issues that manifest themselves in later life. On the podcast, Bobby Lee went on to talk about the Virginia Tech massacre, where the shooter was a South Korean. He apparently performed well in school and had great grades, but he had obvious psychological problems. The parents, placing so much emphasis on quantifiable success and so little on how the kid was feeling, let him build up to the point of explosion. Of course, this is an extreme example, but you get the point.
I think Ms Chua's perception of 'success' needs to come under scrutiny. In many ways, she is a successful mother. She has managed to systematically socially engineer her children into mindless drone's since their birth. Her children are exactly what she wants them to be. From this perspective, her 'parenting' methods are a spectacular success. But at no stage did she ever mention her childrens ability to make friends, socially interact, breathe without parental assistance, knows what to do when a guy asks them out, when they eventually (if they ever) end up in bed etc etc.
Her children are failures, and thus so is she.
She is clearly very very aware that she is an minority Asian in a predominantly white nation and she is pushing the stereotype too far. Why else would she insist on her kids playing the violin, piano etc. She clearly thinks "my children are Asian looking, I must raise them as Asian". How about just raising them to cope with society? Perhaps she has some deep seated issues about her own identity and fears she may one day forget who she is/was.
Either way, poor kids.
Christ, I can't stand this terrible woman and all the publicity she's getting for her terrible book.
Being a control-freak mother who all but abuses your children in order that they "succeed" at school is bad enough, writing a book about how it's your "culture" to do so, and saying it's superior.... well, the words I'd like to write on here would unfortunately be deleted, so I'll just say that she's got some serious cheek.
On the other hand, I can rest assured that the children who have rote-learned piano pieces and poems, yet are unequipped to write any music or poems of their own, will grow up to be deeply resentful of their witch of a mother, so hopefully this nonsense won't survive another generation.
One of the more personal responses to Chua's article, about the real dangers of her type of parenting.
http://shanghaiist.com/2011/01/10/tales_of_a_chinese_daughter_on_the.php
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