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Ever since a Yale professor named Amy Chua wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal or something (a promo for her book) about the strict, demanding way she raised her two daughters ("Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior To Western Mothers"), everybody has had an opinion on the issue. Is the so-called Chinese way better?
The piece is one of many in the media in recent years about the Chinese giant looming over the West, specifically the U.S. of A., and with it comes the usual feeling of doom. I remember seeing the same thing about the so-called Japanese miracle in the 1980s, only for that meme crash and burn with Japan's Lost Decade in the '90s, from which it hasn't fully recovered.
It bears noting that what Chua talked about in her article is more or less typical of what I've observed among a lot of the Asian (not just Chinese), Indian, and many of the Jewish kids I knew in school. High academic achievement is an expectation and you stay in school for as long as there are degrees offered in your area. If that's a PhD, you get a PhD. If it's a post-doctorate degree, you get that. When I graduated from law school, the only people in my class who bothered to pursue an LLM were Indian. I was told once that for Indian girls, the higher the degree, the better for arranged marriages. Not to say that it's the only reason why these women would pursue an education, of course.
But I think what Chua's talking about is more of a product of immigration and exposure to Western ideas about success and achievement than just some good old-fashioned Chinese wisdom. Her own parents were Chinese immigrants in The Philippines. In China, even today, Chua would have been stuck with just one daughter instead of two and that daughter would be lucky not to be aborted or abandoned. Certainly, Chua's insistence on choosing her children's pursuits and being so personally invested in their success has something to do with the Eastern idea that families are a communal enterprise, and it's the child's duty to contribute to the family's success. But Chua's ideas of success are very much the same as any other upper-middle class or wealthy American elite: Ivy League educations, concerts at Carnegie Hall, big paying jobs, etc.. And let's face it...people willing to chuck their lives, leave behind everybody they know, and try to stake a claim in a foreign land are by nature ambitious risk-takers.
So take this whole "ancient Chinese secret" with a grain of salt.
Chinese or not though, I'm conflicted by Chua's article. On the one hand, kids could do with less time in front of the idiot box and chatting with child molesters on the internet. Kids could also do with higher expectations instead of just letting them coast by. There are too many American parents who worry about being pals with their children or they're just too wrapped up in their own lives to pay them much attention. There are too many parents who worry a lot more about their daughters being popular than achieving anything else. And discipline? What discipline?
On the other hand, Chua is at heart a stage mom no different than those weirdos on "Toddlers & Tiaras." She measures her own success as a mother in what her daughters were able to achieve in whatever limited parameters she set. I didn't exactly choose the Hammond organ either as my instrument of choice, but when I was ready to bail out at 13, nobody stopped me. What if your child really wanted to be in the school play? What if your kid really wanted to be on the track team? What if their talents were in writing, graphic arts, or in baseball? I can understand allowing kids to participate in something so long as they don't let their other obligations slide. But I wonder what these girls would have chose for themselves had they been given the chance. Chua's methods might have turned out well-behaved and accomplished young women but are they going to be the kind of people who are good at thinking outside of the box or taking the initiative? It's what makes the difference between following the leader and being the leader.
Moreover, what about their moral character? To me, material success is meaningless if someone has no real moral core. I've met some very driven people who had no trouble with cheating or stabbing people in the back to get what they want. Chua doesn't talk about that at all in her article.
The piece is one of many in the media in recent years about the Chinese giant looming over the West, specifically the U.S. of A., and with it comes the usual feeling of doom. I remember seeing the same thing about the so-called Japanese miracle in the 1980s, only for that meme crash and burn with Japan's Lost Decade in the '90s, from which it hasn't fully recovered.
It bears noting that what Chua talked about in her article is more or less typical of what I've observed among a lot of the Asian (not just Chinese), Indian, and many of the Jewish kids I knew in school. High academic achievement is an expectation and you stay in school for as long as there are degrees offered in your area. If that's a PhD, you get a PhD. If it's a post-doctorate degree, you get that. When I graduated from law school, the only people in my class who bothered to pursue an LLM were Indian. I was told once that for Indian girls, the higher the degree, the better for arranged marriages. Not to say that it's the only reason why these women would pursue an education, of course.
But I think what Chua's talking about is more of a product of immigration and exposure to Western ideas about success and achievement than just some good old-fashioned Chinese wisdom. Her own parents were Chinese immigrants in The Philippines. In China, even today, Chua would have been stuck with just one daughter instead of two and that daughter would be lucky not to be aborted or abandoned. Certainly, Chua's insistence on choosing her children's pursuits and being so personally invested in their success has something to do with the Eastern idea that families are a communal enterprise, and it's the child's duty to contribute to the family's success. But Chua's ideas of success are very much the same as any other upper-middle class or wealthy American elite: Ivy League educations, concerts at Carnegie Hall, big paying jobs, etc.. And let's face it...people willing to chuck their lives, leave behind everybody they know, and try to stake a claim in a foreign land are by nature ambitious risk-takers.
So take this whole "ancient Chinese secret" with a grain of salt.
Chinese or not though, I'm conflicted by Chua's article. On the one hand, kids could do with less time in front of the idiot box and chatting with child molesters on the internet. Kids could also do with higher expectations instead of just letting them coast by. There are too many American parents who worry about being pals with their children or they're just too wrapped up in their own lives to pay them much attention. There are too many parents who worry a lot more about their daughters being popular than achieving anything else. And discipline? What discipline?
On the other hand, Chua is at heart a stage mom no different than those weirdos on "Toddlers & Tiaras." She measures her own success as a mother in what her daughters were able to achieve in whatever limited parameters she set. I didn't exactly choose the Hammond organ either as my instrument of choice, but when I was ready to bail out at 13, nobody stopped me. What if your child really wanted to be in the school play? What if your kid really wanted to be on the track team? What if their talents were in writing, graphic arts, or in baseball? I can understand allowing kids to participate in something so long as they don't let their other obligations slide. But I wonder what these girls would have chose for themselves had they been given the chance. Chua's methods might have turned out well-behaved and accomplished young women but are they going to be the kind of people who are good at thinking outside of the box or taking the initiative? It's what makes the difference between following the leader and being the leader.
Moreover, what about their moral character? To me, material success is meaningless if someone has no real moral core. I've met some very driven people who had no trouble with cheating or stabbing people in the back to get what they want. Chua doesn't talk about that at all in her article.
