Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

[labmouse]

ooo.. as a chinese and raise by chinese parents, i feel the need to reply this thread. I do not agree with the way Amy forces her children in a demoralizing way like calling them garbage or telling them they are useless. But then again, i also disagree with western upbringing of allowing kids to shout on top of their lungs in the mall or throw tantrums to get a new toy. My parents raised me strictly, but makes me understand why i had to do certain things, why i have to be disiplined and things like that. My parents use the cane on me, but at the same time they do not force me to comply to a small range of activities (like girls must play piano or boys must learn karate). I was allowed to have playtime, cycling and enjoying my childhood with my peers. In fact, i was the one pushing myself to excel academically, as my parents wouldn't have mind me having a B grade. They know that i can do better and they just encouraged me but didn't pushed or punished. ok.. to sidetrack a little.. my neighbour's mom was an extremist (in my opinion). She would make her kids stand outside of the door without dinner if they misbehave, whacked them with a clothes hanger or belt if they got grades below their expectations and all other sorts of yelling. She also love to compare the elder child with the younger one, leading to lots of sibling rivalry, hate and jealously. And, the younger one was a little lack of self-esteem due to all the 'my sister is always the role-model, A-star student and i am always lousy and stupid mindset' brought by her mother. To this date, both of them did okay.. but the sisters did not bond well over the years (i don't blame them). As for me, i have 2 younger sisters and we love each other to bits. Our parents never compare which was brighter. Instead, they told us that siblings should look after each other, help each other in terms of studying or in other aspects of life and every individual is different in their capabilites. I disagree with chinese parenting to some extent. LIke the way asian parents forces their child to excel in academics and nothing else, not encouraging creativity and imagination. At the end, we would all be factory produced items... all of the same quality and non-exceptional.

[ladymoreta]

It's not the parenting style I hope to have, but as DS isn't anywhere near an age where I would make that kind of decision, I guess I'll try not to say "I'll never..."

However, it seems to me that she is depriving her children of free playtime, which helps them build creativity. And she isn't teaching them anything about self-motivation (it all comes from her), so I wonder how they will do later in life when there's no one telling them exactly what to do. Creativity and leadership will get them farther in most careers than a spotless resume.

I've had a couple of coworkers who I believe had her version of a Chinese upbringing, and honestly, they weren't always pleasant to work with. They followed their job description to the letter, and they did a good job with those tasks, but they weren't the do-whatever-it-takes kind of team members. They were terrible with end users (I worked in IT, where our end users often didn't understand computers very well). Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I can see how that kind of attitude could develop from the kind of parenting described in this article.

I think in the long run, kids are better off learning self motivation. Most of us are never going to go beyond middle management at best, and our lives are going to be fulfilled by our interpersonal relationships as much as or more than our careers. This isn't true for everyone, but I guess I just don't think it's necessary for everyone to be better than average. Then what does "average" even mean?

[alison]

Labmouse: Screaming at the top of her lungs and throwing herself on the floor when she doesn't get her way are things I never thought would happen in MY family. Surely she gets this from dh's side.

But low and behold--here we are! Asian babies do it too!

Just you wait until you're one of those moms who has to chase her kid around a store, or check the price on something your toddler has pulled from the shelf. And if it's under $10, just
let her have it. My poor Japanese ancestors would turn in their grave more than once/day!

[SoonerTexan]

However, it seems to me that she is depriving her children of free playtime, which helps them build creativity.

This was the case with the kids I was a nanny for (they weren't completely deprived of playtime, but EVERYTHING was structured). They didn't know what to do with themselves with no outside stimulation. (Another reason that job SUCKED)

[PrincessFiona]

Labmouse: Screaming at the top of her lungs and throwing herself on the floor when she doesn't get her way are things I never thought would happen in MY family. Surely she gets this from dh's side.

But low and behold--here we are! Asian babies do it too!

Just you wait until you're one of those moms who has to chase her kid around a store, or check the price on something your toddler has pulled from the shelf. And if it's under $10, just
let her have it. My poor Japanese ancestors would turn in their grave more than once/day!

Alison, I dare say we have all been there.

[scrub-jay]

Interesting follow up to this thread, I came across this today:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan...ation-20110113

[GrayMatterWife]

I think all the professional commentators should be careful to distinguish between Chinese children who are raised in a culturally Chinese way, and Chinese children who are not. I know a lot of Chinese kids who were NOT raised like this, and I know quite a few caucasian kids who nearly were. I had a Chinese friend in college who was a dance major and she had people who would say things like, "I thought all of the Chinese kids were pre-med." ????

[Thirteen]

Interesting follow up to this thread, I came across this today:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan...ation-20110113

This is very interesting...

[Chrisada]

After reading the article a few days ago I just kept thinking of a patient DH had in the ER last year whom shot himself attempting suicide for fear of going back home to China with bad grades from the university.

On the other hand, the four-year-old was practicing his writing and after a few minutes threw the paper across the table and proclaimed that it was too hard. I actually thought of the article and told him he would not get up until he finished. He screamed for about eight minutes and then cheerfully proclaimed that he was ready to finish his work. She is definitely to the extreme, but it did remind me that a push is ok.

[HouseofWool]

I found the article to be intriguing. While I don't believe that screaming at your child until you are hoarse is appropriate, pushing them to excel when they want to slack off can be. I see that with DS(8). He tries things once, doesn't excel and feels that it is okay to quit. I am not quite sure how to make the switch from passivity to pushing him without punishing. Parenting is way to hard for me to be hypercritical of anyone's choices. Unless you are one of Jenn's heroine users putting grape soda in the baby's bottle.

[houseelf]

And I think that we really need to take another look at how child-led parenting has become. I am saying "Because I said so" so much more often these days... They dont' need an explanation!

I think that the article was provocative in order to increase book sales. If people can keep the conversation respectful, hopefully the article can provide a springboard for a national discourse on our goals for our kids. It is craaazzy out there.

IMO, people have become a little too sports obsessed perhaps at the cost of focusing on their education. I would like for each of my kids to play a sport when they get to high school. Honestly, I have fears of this not happening because if a kid doesn't have camps and select team experience from an early age, chances are they won't have the requisite skills to make the team. Even though select teams aren't necessarily how I want to experience parenting, it feels almost compulsory just to keep participating. I loved my free range childhood and love that my kids just go out and play. I want them to have that. I'm not sure that achievement for the sake of achievement is a worthwhile pursuit. (This comes from someone who was ubertype A about achievement in her own life). If possible, I want my kids to passionately pursue their goals because it comes from within not because they want to please me or my husband. I'm getting philosophical here, but when the kid doesn't develop his own strengths and interests, how will she know who she is? How will she know what she really wants out of life? If all the benchmarks of worthwhile endeavors come from an external source, namely parental approbation, it becomes a bit more difficult for a child figure out who he is and learn how to self-regulate. Shouldn't we tell our kids to focus on their strengths as opposed to their weaknesses? I can guarantee you that my husband is a horrible speller and yet things have turned out A-O.K. for him and he is passionate about his life's work.

Take all of the above with a grain of salt because kids often become lazy in this house too. There is a LOT of nagging and reminding that the bare minimum requirement isn't good enough that they can do better. While I espouse one thing, I do another. For example, my kids have taken a foreign language class since they were three and I have given supplemental homework for the past three summers. Nightly reading and/or mathfact review (when appropriate) happens several times a week, whether assigned or not. I made my oldest complete a typing program on line because it bugs me that teens can't type properly. I tend to keep all of this on the down low because I have been chided often for doing these things. Everything that I just mentioned is antithetical to the free range parenting I just advocated. Somehow, I'm o.k. with these discrepancies. My kids will (hopefully) thank me later. Alternatively, this post will be fodder for their expose on "True Hollywood Story".

[peggyfromwastate]

Ooooh. On line typing? I've been making mine do the sponge bob learn to type, but I'm always up for some new suggestions.

And your take on sports is pretty much mine. I never thought 6 yo kids need to be in sports until I had 8 yo kids try to start sports at that age when they were painfully behind.

[houseelf]

And your take on sports is pretty much mine. I never thought 6 yo kids need to be in sports until I had 8 yo kids try to start sports at that age when they were painfully behind.

It makes me so sad. I don't need my kids to be the star, but I do want them to be able to participate. I need to save my nagging efforts for more important things like personal hygiene and hitting the books. One of the elite private schools here has a "no cut" policy for sports. I would LOVE to see more schools adopt this. I'm thinking about writing the school board about this.

ETA: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/ plus sponge bob typing.

[SoonerTexan]

It makes me so sad. I don't need my kids to be the star, but I do want them to be able to participate. I need to save my nagging efforts for more important things like personal hygiene and hitting the books. One of the elite private schools here has a "no cut" policy for sports. I would LOVE to see more schools adopt this. I'm thinking about writing the school board about this.

As I senior in HS I was pretty much given the choice between quitting or getting kicked off the swim team at my high school. The JV team. We had Olympians in our district. In Mississippi, my times were almost good enough to get me to state. Texas+Sports=Stupidity.

[Vishenka69]

My upbringing was somewhere in the middle. I wasn't screamed at until my mom was hoarse but I wasn't allowed to participate at sleepovers (although I was sent to a sleepaway camp twice, so go figure). Academics were definitely pushed much harder on me than any extracurricular activities. I was finally allowed to do them because I convinced my parents that I need them for college applications. I do wish I was pushed to stick with a skill for a while. I've done tons of things (ballet, gymnastics, ice skating, swimming, tennis, music, etc.) but none of them long enough to get good at it. My parents would get tired of being on my case and so I'd quit and move on to the next thing.

I do wish I was allowed to pursue my passions though. Being strict immigrant parents, I was raised to have a well-paying career. They didn't even know that I double majored in Russian Lit until they saw my diploma and it was too late to freak out. I went into finance because it was one of the approved fields but hated it the entire time. My mom doesn't consider me a success because I chose to stay at home with DD. She finally gave me up on me going back to work in that field and is starting to harp on me about opening my own business of some sort. Luckily she also raised me with enough self-esteem to just ignore her at this point.

I do want my child to be happy but I also feel that lately there's been too much focus on "enjoying" everything the child does. Not everything in life is about enjoying oneself. I would want my daughter to know that schoolwork and chores need to be done whether she's having fun doing it or not. I don't want her going through life expecting to have fun every minute of every day. There's time for work and there's time for fun. While this is a balance that's very hard to find and keep, I would rather err on the side of being too strict than too lenient.