How do Chinese parents turn out music and math prodigies? Easy, says one mother in the Wall Street Journal. They’re stricter, stress academic achievement more and don’t let their kids get away with the stuff that Western parents do.
Amy Chua, a Yale professor, describes an incident of hair-tearing, screaming, full-out war in her house when she demanded her daughter play a piece of piano music correctly. The article has inspired more than 5,000 comments on the WSJ site, with good reason: it drives to the core of what parents believe about raising kids. (Chua has also responded to readers in a further article that – as I read it anyhow – seems to soften her message. It also points out that the title of the article was chosen by WSJ editors, not her. A piece in today’s Sunday Times also describes how her method didn’t work on one of her daughters.)
The story has generated loads of interest. Lisa Belkin in the New York Times’s Motherlode blog agues that this “Chinese tough love” is simply the latest trend in parenting.
Do children simply need the hard-nosed motivation parents provide to be excellent? Do parents owe something to their kids or do kids owe their parents? Are Western parents too preoccupied with nurturing self-esteem instead of just assuming strength in their kids as parents from other cultures do? Is tough love the best way to raise accomplished, confident children? These and a whole lot more questions are raised by the piece.
I personally found the article a bit depressing, mainly because I struggle with settling on one philosophy for raising my daughter. I have high hopes that she’ll succeed in one particular area (art) and we promote those activities at home and at school but we don’t force her to do art projects when she doesn’t want to.
I’ve seen how sometimes she takes criticism to heart and it seems to discourage rather than encourage her. I’m also aware that while I may think she’d have a great career in the arts, she may eventually want to be a vet or a scientist or whatever.
Sometimes we’re very tough. Sometimes we are free and easy.
Finally, how much should I be centreing my life, my expectations and indeed a part of my self-worth around the life that my daughter leads?
Chua is starting from a very different cultural background and childhood experience than most Westerners. Should we just chalk it up to different strokes for different folks and feel fine about celebrating our emphasis on personal excellence and innovation with a more hands-off parenting approach?
Tell us what you think.
— Jennifer Howze (www.jenography.net)
Photo credit: Aubrey C
About Jennifer Howze
Jennifer Howze is the Creative Director and co-founder of BritMums. She blogs about family travel at Jenography.net, tweets at @JHowze and Instagrams at @JHowze. Previously, she wrote the Alpha Mummy blog at The Times and as a journalist has contributed to The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Wall Street Journal, Travel & Leisure, Budget Travel, CNN.com, Allure, SELF and Premiere, among others. She won The Maggie Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for a health article in Seventeen magazine.
Metropolitan Mum
Tuesday 25th of January 2011
I think it's sickening. And it shows that a lot of these so-called gifted whizz kids are not so gifted after all. Just army-style drilled.
AHLondon
Sunday 23rd of January 2011
I first thought of backfiring too. I found s bunch of information but the most chilling came fro Ask a Model Minority: Rejoinder number one: It's a high-stakes gamble. Sometimes this gamble pays off in the long run. And when it does, as another blogger's response has pointed out, it makes you rich. Neurosurgeons, corporate attorneys, and investment bankers have plenty-rich parents, you betcha. And let's be honest here, Asian America does have a disproportionately high number of MDs, JDs, and MBAs. Like I said, school's not that hard if. But sometimes you lose this gamble, and when you lose, you lose big. Because you've gone all-in. Left the kid no room to make friends, no identity outside of your ambitions, no tools or skills with which to make his or her own decisions in life without you -- and no margin of error. She tried to jump off a bridge a few years back after her Tiger style childhood. I can't link well on iPad with baby in lap--I keep deleting text. Google the Ask a Model gal or get the links at my blog American Housewife in London, the Tiger Mom post from a few days ago.
Anna
Friday 21st of January 2011
I find it really interesting because although it all seems very weird to us UK mums, perhaps there is something to be said for the discipline of it all? As a high school teacher I am unsure... You can read about my take on it for my LO at my blog though http://mummysquared.blogspot.com/2011/01/meow-make-way-for-this-tiger-mummy.html
Expat Mum
Tuesday 18th of January 2011
I'd like to know how this doesn't backfire? I know if I tried this with my kids, they'd just storm out, not come down for dinner etc. They (the teens anyway) work hard, do well at school etc. but all I ever said to them was that I wasn't paying for music lessons if they didn't practise. Simple as that. I don't want to get into what I do or what I would never do, as I believe most of us really are trying our best (without much experience). There's a great blog post on the Huffington Post by a woman who was raised by a French mother. Now there's one tough mother!
Returned Scot
Tuesday 18th of January 2011
This makes me feel hugely depressed. While I admire the Chinese enormously, I do feel this kind of pushing does not suit everyone. How can it? Having known a child (a friend from my own childhood) who was pushed so hard he developed a stammer, I have been very wary of making sure my own kids do their best at the things they enjoy.Of course they watch too much TV but on the other hand, David Attenburgh is on there! I'm off to see 'The King's Speech'.