to despise women who are this ambitious for their kids?

[BlackSwan]

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html?mod=WSJ_hp_us_mostpop_read

This Wall Street Journal article "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" attracted more than 6000 comments!! I'm sure MNers will have their views...

i think this was disucssed at length a week ago

I have heard her interviewed on the radio and read newspaper articles - she had some interesting points and also acknowledged she had gone over the top on many occasions. Her children sounded smart, confident and loved.

There are many more parents who do a much worse job. I certainly dont think she is despicable.

i think it is fine. at the risk of sounding racist the chinese seem quite a bit more advanced than us in many ways and seem to score higher in iq tests.

it's probably why china is destined to be (if not already being) the future world power. as well as not falling into the debt trap, not being unhealthy slobs and also limiting their family size in order to increase wealth with each generation (do the maths) they also seems to be able to push themselves harder and achieve more.

in many ways what is not to admire?

i'd also add that my mum is part asian (although not chinese) and the rules pretty much applied to my upbringing also. apart from being in a school play. that was okay apparently.

I still maintain that I want my children to work because of the joy that comes from doing a job well and in order to give something back to society, not from the obsessive thought that you have to be better than everybody else. I can see plenty that is unadmirable in only working hard because you are afraid that the people you love will think your worthless.

Thanks Queen - where the hell have I been?

kepler: "than us"? Which "us" exactly?

I'm not British. My Mum is European and had an odd approach... piano practice was sacrosanct, but too much studying for school was viewed as obsessive. She always just expected me to do brilliantly because I was the 'smart one'. A few 'Chinese' mother memories are starting to float to the surface... My husband has just summed her approach up as this: "No ambition, just anger". I've never taken it badly, I know she has always been proud of me.

Yes you are,i had a very ambitious mother and i am very grateful for the way she pushed me.

YABU

Despise is such a strong word. All the highly succesful friends I have, who were pushed by their parents when young, are very grateful now. Of course a child also needs love. But I think ambition is a good thing and also inspires confidence in children.

I am a fan of balance, and certainly not as focused as the chinese mother in article, but I consider her parenting preferable to parents who have no ambition for their children whatsoever and let them coast along through life. It does them no favours.

Despise is a strong word - but women who try to motivate kids by calling them 'garbage' are despicable, in my mind.

This has been discussed at length -do a search and you will find at least threads, the Sunday before last and last Sunday.

I will Lamora! Sorry for wasting everyone's homework checking time!

That was a joke.

There were plenty of posters who thought there was nothing wrong with her methods, despite her putting her 3 yr old outside in freezing temperatures because she wanted to make a noise with the piano keys instead of learning the notes!
Last Sundays was started by me and was wonderful because it was the follow up where the younger daughter had a massive tantrum in public, saying that she hated her mother, hated her family and hated her life and smashed a glass to show her frustration and threatened to smash more if her mother didn't leave her alone! The mother was the one who ran off in tears and gave in. She gave up the violin and took up tennis.
It didn't work, a lesson to all who want to live through their DC.

One tantrum from a teenager does not a failure make.

One American Chinese mother's opinion does not speak for all Chinese mothers.

I agree that it doesn't speak for all Chinese mothers, hoards of them were quick to distance themselves from that sort of mother. but it wasn't ONE tantrum and the woman failed big time!
See heresecond post down for the entire update to the story and tell me that the woman was a success! She was merely lucky that her daughter was forgiving, once she got her own way. You can try and make any excuses you want for the mother, but she was abusive IMO.

Lamorna, I have not made any excuses for this mother. Why are you so emotionally invested in this BTW?

Plenty of american mothers are OTT; with
tiny kids in competitions not knowing how to handle it.

Its a matter of degree I suppose. "Gabby"

Emotionally invested?
You just seemed to be saying that one teenage tantrum didn't mean that the mother had failed, but it was far more than that, she opposed her mother at 3yrs and put her foot down at 13yrs and her mother would have lost her DD if she had continued.I call it a failure of her method.

it is about balance people can err to much on the laid back approach to the point of being horizontal
some discipline and structure is desirable, not to the point of stifling creativity but certainly important to create self reliance and self discipline

a child can be very intelligent but with no self discipline it can be a waste of gifts

having expectations, thinking children are capable, and creating the right environment for self reliance seems to be a fair approach

the piece itself seems like exaggerating a point and creating publicity, is there a book?

Larmona, and teenagers never rebel ... whether once or even for years, only to come out the other side.

I would say you are drawing premature conclusions. Parents modify their methods to suit the personality and developmental stage of their dcs. The author's methods sound harsher than I would approve of myself.

However, I would not call her methods a categorical failure. It has not worked for now with that particular dd so she has pulled back. The jury is still out.

I have argued with all my DCs when they were 13yrs but they have never stood in the middle of a cafe shouting that they hated me and if I didn't get off their back they would continue breaking glasses! I think that this is way beyond normal behaviour.
I don't think that forcing a 3 yr old out in sub zero temperatures and then having to coax in when 3 yr old calls your bluff is normal behaviour.
I could list all her other behaviour and I would call it abusive. It was designed to get her DD to do as the mother wanted and it didn't work. She would have stopped the tennis if her mother had 'spoiled it for her'.
Her methods were harsh enough to be off my scale!

my husband wasn't pushed at all. he really resents that fact now. he could have been so much more if his parents pushed him but his mother was illiterate and let them get away with taking days off for illness etc.

I think the woman is disturbed, vicious and a downright freak

She drove her younger daughter to the edge of reason with her bullying and destructive, controlling behaviour

I don't think it would be too strong to say that she was an unfit mother and should not have been allowed to raise her children without intervention

imo

I see the book is available to pre-order, I won't be lining that woman's pockets.