FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!A great debate has arisen online, and since I'm a mom I had to jump in.
Many of you may have seen the
Wall Street Journal article "
Why Chinese Mothers are Superior." It's an article which cobbles together
excerpts from the book
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy
Chua. The article highlights how Chinese parents raise
stereotypically successful children, with strictness, discipline, and multiple years of hard work.
Chua details all the things her children were not allowed to do (sleepovers, plays, get anything less than A's) and she also details the battles between her and the children if the rules were even slightly bent.
The backlash to the story has been huge. The author has received threats and people have called her a multiplicity of names, most of them not nice. After all, how can a mother claim to love her children, but deprive them of basic childhood enjoyment? How can a mother say she loves her kids but drive them relentlessly using ugly tactics?
Needless to say, I HAD to buy the book.
I came away with a few different conclusions, the first one being that the
WSJ article only put together the most controversial parts to produce huge publicity. (That, in itself, could be a blog post.) Also, the book, taken as a whole, is about
Chua's journey as a parent and the way she starts out isn't necessarily the way she finishes. I found myself laughing and groaning, and experiencing a range of emotions and self-examination. The bottom line: I agree with the "why" of "Chinese" parenting, but not the "how."
A few points that
Chua made that will stick with me:
*Skills/activities/etc are not fun until you get good at them, and you can't get good at them unless you devote yourself to developing them. It takes countless hours (read, years) to truly develop a skill. Most people refuse to develop past the not-fun part in order to get to the fun-part. They give up too soon.
*Loving something doesn't mean you'll ever be great at it. "Not if you don't work. Most people stink at the things they love."
LOL, it sounds harsh, but there is a nugget of truth. How many people are willing to dedicate themselves to learning what they love backwards, forwards, inside and out? It's a lesson I could stand to learn for myself.
On the whole, I am a "Western" parent (
Chua's phrasing) because I don't drive my children. I would never, for example, make them practice while on vacation or belittle my children if they make mistakes. Name calling would never be
acceptable. But I can take a position of assuming my children (and myself) can grow from
constructive criticism in order to improve, rather than tip-toeing around because we are too fragile to handle the truth.
What kind of parent are you? In general (not just parenting-wise) are you laid back, or do you commit yourself through hours and years of
repetition and hard work to achieving your goals?
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