From the Wall Street Journal: WHY CHINESE MOTHERS ARE SUPERIOR

[Medea]

I kept rereading it for irony, but there was none.

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

Technical point:
the two pieces in the WSJ and Sunday Times are extracts from the book and her US and UK publishers will have got paid for them, rather than Amy Chua herself (directly).

But anyway..

I've actually read the book (although I do NOT work for the publisher or have anything to do with the author), as have a few people in my office, and it is pretty strong stuff. Interestingly, the reaction amongst parents (well, mums) tended to be divided according to the age of their DCs. People with small kids were generally appalled, but those with older ones admitted they were left wondering what would have happened if they had been a bit (ie in moderation) stricter with theirs...

There's a coda to the book where she discusses her daughters' reactions to it (she asked them to read) and what they do now. She has relented slightly!

According to blogger Gynomite who has commented on this article: 'Suicide is the leading cause of death for Chinese youth aged 15-34, and China has the highest suicide rate of any country in the world. Suicide is not what happens to depressed people, it?s what happens to people who feel like they are climbing an insurmountable mountain with absolutely no other options.' Don't know the accuracy of the claims, but it would seem to make sense.

The other thing about all of this is that it fails to take into account that children are people, and are all different, have different personalities.

Some children will respond well to being pushed heavily, will learn positive lessons from never being allowed to give up when things get tough, and so on.

Other children will have their self-belief and self esteem ruined by this type of approach, and feel worthless and hopeless.

In bygone eras here it was the same, children were set to work, beaten and so on. Children were seen as the property of their father and not as people in their own right. Things have changed though.

I think that the most important thing is to get to know your children and try to understand what sort of approach will bring the best out of them. If they are clever but lazy, then they need to have pressure to complete stuff, and they will feel good when it is done. If they are not as capable and try and try and try and are still told that they are hopeless and not good enough - well the outcome isn't going to be great is it.

Xpost with halfcaff there.

The other thing I notice is that in this article, and when they show things on the telly, it's always girls who are being pushed and performing and so on.

Why is that? Is it because the media like to show girls doing stuff, and actually the boys have it the same? Or is it something to do with the one child policy and girls generally being thought of as being less worth?

Very interesting article.

I would love to know what would have happened to Lulu if she hadn't mastered "Little White Donkey"...

Hmm, whilst Chinese parents are known to be ambitious for their children, I'm not sure how typical this mother is (in terms of the Little White Donkey episode- that was seriously deranged).

I would say that my experience of HK Chinese parents is that they are very strict, very concerned with academic achievement and they don't really see that anything is worth doing unless you're good at it. However, they do love their children. It's just a very different culture. They feel that if their children don't achieve their potential then they've failed them. I think the reason they don't care about sport is that Chinese people are physiologically not that well suited to being world class at most sports and they don't see the point in putting effort into something that you will never excel at.

There's also a view that there's no point in wasting loads of time at something that won't pay the bills - Chinese people tend to be quite materialistic, but then, there's no welfare state so if you're poor, you're really really poor.

I am surprised some of you are even seeing her point of view at all

This is nothing short of emotional abuse and cruelty regardless of her nationality and culture. Horrific woman.

You know I had a father like her and I ended up with eating disorders, self harming and later had therapy. I often wonder why no one notcied in my childhood, the vile bully that he was. He would scream and rant at me to do well at sport and then call me fat and lazy when I failed.

But then so many of you are either trying to understand her or at the very least, not exactly condemning her. So that may explain how this type of abuse goes unhindered.

And it is abuse, mark my words and her children may have all the A grades in the world but they will probably be crying inside. In fact I cried reading the article.

Nothing wrong with loving and cherishing your children unconditionally. To accept their fragility at times and help them through difficult patches. To believe that indeed your children don't owe you anything. I do inherently believe in my kid's strength and potential but it does not define my love for them. It is because they are the only them in the whole world and they are mine.

My own observation is of teaching in a school with a fair number of Chinese and Far Eastern ( parental origin) pupils.

We have to be ultra careful when discussing general progress, specific concerns and reports because any 'weakness' is perceived as bringing shame on the family.The child's happiness is not often a consideration but succeeding is, preferably in the top spot.

When I asked one musical star what she particularly liked about playing the piano she gave me a bewildered look which spoke a thousand words.

But as someone on the first page said - there's a great deal of casual cruelty to children in some of these societies so there's a way to go before individual satisfaction would matter.

Depressing.

I am open-minded to some of her statements and ideas, just not the whole package.
I reckon I would have turned out very badly with a mother like that, I react terribly to pressure. And nothing, I mean nothing would have ever made me a musically competent child.
DD and DS2 are like me, they need encouragement not pressure to achieve their best; Meanwhile DS1 needs a firm boot up the backside to achieve anything.

Well, I for one am going to hide this thread. My new year's resolution is to not let myself get cross/ upset/ angry etc at something that is there simply to provoke that very reaction.

Horrified at the Little White Donkey storey....no bathroom breaks, no food - what an evil cow - that's child abuse imo

Quite scary, that excerpt. Especially, as Puss says, the physical abuse while the child has to master the piano piece. And not being allowed to go to the toilet IS physical abuse if it carries on too long.

I think that the 'Chinese mom' who wrote those comments sounds like a much nicer person than Amy Chua.

I don't think there is anything superior in the way she brought up her DDs - she is a termagant and a slavedriver and although I do not plan to allow DS to slack off, I won't be pushing him to the point of tears over anything either.

I wonder (wild speculation and probably completely out of place) if this sort of parenting had any bearing on how many children "dobbed in" their parents for not following strict Communist principles and edicts in the past?

Re SN-in the 90's I tutored 2 Hong Kong Chinese children who were certainly treated like the 2 in the article.Their mother became pregnant with twins-when tests showed a high probability of Downs the mother had an abortion[the father blamed his wife who returned to HK for a year].The two I taught had private tutors every night and all day at weekends and holidays.They were expected to take US Sats and to acieve mega high scores-they had no friends out of school.Eventually both went to medical school,I moved away and we lost touch.The girl called me her 'mother friend' and they broke my heart.I would have refused to teach them but someone else would have done it who might not have cared as much.I hope they are both happy now.

You need to read Wild Swans by Jung Chang....totally harrowing account of the Mao regime and life in communist China...it haunted me for weeks afterwards.

It also highlighted the extreme depths of cruelty that humans will sink to when given licence to do so - and I say humans as this form of cruelty is not something that is exclusive to the Chinese race by any means and it would be grossly unjust to suggest this

Mind you, that bloody woman who put her kid through that does sound as if she would have been right at home in that regime the evil cow

sieglinde Thank you!

DB also has a first... not in music or sports/PE science [underachiever emoticon]

My friend?s one of the not good enough, any joy?s been sucked out of everything, and not only is she not good enough, nothing in her life seems worth having to her either. She refers to herself as ?a non viable life form.?

She?s been systematically broken, her younger brother gave up and killed himself, and a great deal of abuse has happened to them in this country whilst people talked about it being ?the Chinese way?.

She worked hard, but was never the top, (didn't get the extra tutoring, just the screaming at) but gained a degree and a job, and gave half her wages to her mother for years, even after marriage, but it wasn?t enough, she still must improve, her husband must get promoted, she must attend church, cut her hair in a bob, send gifts to relatives, sell her house, etc.

A permanent failure in her mothers eyes, after years of first pleading, then demanding to be let be, against the 2/3 demands weekly that she improve (even throughout the final five years of refusing to see or speak to her) she took her mother to court to try and get a non molestation order.

The mother explained to the judge that her ?child?, had done xyz wrong at 13 (mainly failing to bring plates from her room and not cleaning the bathroom) and this was proof that she was dirty, incompetent, selfish, and ungrateful, as Chinese children do not behave like this, and no one had a right to interfere in her mother continuing to forcibly ?instruct her? in middle age.

When parental demands cross the line into abuse; then abuse is abuse, regardless of the ?in the interests of the child? claimed.

The follow up is in the Times today. She had to stop or lose her DDs. The younger one refused to cooperate at 13 yrs and she gave up violin and took up tennis. Both girls now have a normal life. The mother is doubtful whether it would have worked with boys.

I think that it is sad, as a woman, that she obviously felt that girls were easier to manipulate.

Can you cnp the follow up lamorna?

I'd be interested to hear the stuff about boys as well.

Um...is this a joke? Holy crap!

I definitely think that children will rise to the expectations you set for them, and I think a lot of people are too willing to let their children fail, but this is madness.

And for the record, all the Korean families I knew (and I knew quite a few) actually "babied" their children by Western standards until they were six or so. The reasoning as explained to me was that starting at 6 or 7 school would become so important, and they needed time to really be little children first.

It is a long article but this is part:

But Chua, raised in a family of four girls, has no idea whether she could apply Chinese parenting so rigidly to boys, who are something of a mystery to her.

Throughout all of this, the role of her husband Jed, 51, has been to provide balance and fun, insisting on family bike rides and trips to water parks. Although he sometimes had reservations about his wife?s strictness, he was won over by the impressive results it produced in the children at an early age. Raised by very liberal parents himself, he wished that his parents had pushed him harder to persevere with music and foreign languages.

It?s a thought that worms its way into my own head as I read the book and talk to Chua. I could never do what she has done, but have I been too soft on my own children, boys aged 13 and 14? Should I be pushing them harder?

Eventually, however, Chua realised she was pushing her girls too hard. Lulu had always fought hardest against her mother?s demands and when she turned 13 last year refused to co-operate any more, sparking a string of explosive rows.

Realising that she risked ?losing? her daughter, Chua finally backed off and agreed a year ago that she could no longer micromanage her daughters? lives. She calls it her Great Retreat. Lulu promptly gave up violin lessons and took up tennis.

?Things are much calmer, and everyone seems happier,? Chua says. Recently she even allowed Sophia to go to a rap concert and to start dating, although she says she does sometimes feel conflicted about her climb down. She is unhappy, for example, that her girls are now on Facebook. ?Both girls spend far too long on the internet for my liking,? she says.

The girls do not appear to resent their mother. In fact, Sophia has said she wasn?t ?subjected? to Chinese parenting, but rather that she ?went along with it by my own choice?.

The biggest surprise perhaps has been Lulu?s response. She seems to have mild regrets that her mother never gave her any choice when younger beyond offers such as ?do you want to practise six hours or five?? but she says that she loves playing the violin on her own terms when she feels like it.

I think that the girls can afford to be generous because they won the battle.

I also think that the father was a balance, it would have been far worse if he hadn't been 'hands on ' with the fun.

I haven't read to the bottom of the thread but the thing that strikes me most in this article is the notion that "no chinese student can get less than an A". If that is really the case (and I sincerely hope not), then surely that makes the entire grading system pointless.

The whole point of grading is to compare individual performance against that of the mass. If everyone is getting As then surely the 'A range' needs to be split? Some students must be doing better than others and that is what I think it is important to monitor, not some blind obsession with a letter on paper, otherwise, where is the motivation to progress?

Oh, that and, this woman is clearly as mad as a box of monkeys and I feel quite sad for her children.