Plan B Forum

The following essay on Chinese-style parenting has gone "relatively" viral over the past couple weeks, with links to it popping up all over Toyland.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... stpop_read

I find it eminently fascinating, though I have had a difficult time putting my finger on exactly why. As I read through it, I was often uncomfortably reminded of all the times when my son was working on some sort of an academic challenge, and I usually settled with him for a moderately half-assed resolution with him doing the assignment in a way that would pass muster, but little more than that.

Reaching back into the prehistoric past, I can't even imagine how I would have reacted as a child had my parents made similar demands on me. Not well, I can assure you. My lifetime motto, forged in the trenches of Sacred Heart Grade School, was and remains, "Good enough is good enough."

But I think I know why this essay seems so poignant to me as I approach my dotage. It challenges today's "high energy" parents to Put up or Shut up.

We (they) say they want the best for their kids, and are willing to do "anything" to help them succeed, but are they? How many parents would spend the hours and hours and hours with children to demand that they do their best, and not back off when the whining reaches a fever pitch? And remember, this writer is a high achiever herself, not some stay-at-home "Mom" with nothing better to do than experience vicarious satisfaction over her kids' successes. Self esteem? Try accomplishing something meaningful - the self esteem will take care of itself.

And what does this essay say about American priorities? How many parents allow (in fact, demand) that their kids waste untold hours on non-academic bullshit (ballet, football, soccer, swimming, etc), when - it must be conceded - the kids' main "job" is to be a good student?

And don't talk to me about wanting to bring up "happy, well-adjusted children." Baloney. Happy and well-adjusted is more likely to come from real accomplishment than it is from getting a fucking trophy for doing something that any moron could do, given enough time to prepare.

Like I say, we are seeing a lot of Gen X and Gen Y parents who are doing all sorts of outrageous things to ensure that their kids can go to hot-shot schools and work with special tutors and go to special achievement "camps," but are they REALLY willing to do what is necessary to ensure that their kids achieve what they are capable of? It doesn't take a ton of money, does it? The kids at the top of the class will likely get into good schools and whatnot, regardless of how much loot their parents can come up with. It takes intense parental involvement to make the most of your kids.

Are you (would you be) willing to do what it takes? Like the woman who wrote this essay?

For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly.

We weren't called the "ME" generation for nothing.

Better to "farm out" our sacrifices, aka daycare, tutors, housekeepers, baby sitters, etc than to do those things ourselves for our children.

Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

• be Kids.

• not suffer to get my status needs met.

• feel like anything other than robots.

Has no one informed this silly screwed up bitch that being a good, happy well rounded person takes more than being force fed parental expectation?

Has no one informed this silly screwed up bitch that being a good, happy well rounded person takes more than being force fed parental expectation?

I don't know about you Gob but my parents brought us up more along those lines (Chinese moms) than kids are brought up now-a-days, my kids included. While we (myself and my siblings) were not "over achievers" as these kids seem to be, I think we (I) learned more through adversity than through "feel good", self esteem building excersises. A pat on the back is useful once in a while, but we need to do it for the right goals reached, not for just any minor accomplishment.

Well I meant no slur on your parents O-n-W, I hope you appreciate that.

In my book the first job of a parent is to make a child feel loved and secure, then to place the best opportunities for the child to develop as a well rounded person as possible in front of the child, and to nurture and encourage them in whatever venture, academic, creative, sporting, or just plain being a good person, suits their personality and capability.

I've seen far too often the outcome of parenting in the extremist "achievement is all " (read; "achieving what I want you do achieve for my own reflected glory"), where kids have been academically force fed to the point of breakdown.

One of the most talented cello players I have ever kn0own was rammed through school and college and "hothoused" to be a cello playing mathematical genius. He's now a smack addict who hate his parents.

Well I meant no slur on your parents O-n-W,

None taken.
Mom and dad did what they knew. I am sure I had more "slack" than my parents did when they were kids, just as my kids had more slack than I had. Both turned out to be smart and good students (although the son dropped out of university as he just didn't like school, still had good to great grades). The daughter is finishing up university this may with 4.0 (can't get any higher) in the honors curriculum.

There is no "one size fits all" approach to rasing kids. While these kids in the artical are "high achievers" I am sure there are many a horror story about other children raised in this same atmosphere.

I don't think we are disagreeing in that case, and thanks!

Gob wrote:I don't think we are disagreeing in that case, and thanks!

Nope, no disagreement here. Thanks back.

You know I wonder, as each generation is given more nad more "slack" will some future generation become totally untamed and feral?
Food for thought.

I had slacker parents. They had a completely Laissez-faire approach to parenting with respect to school. Never an interest in whether I had homework and whether I was passing or failing. I did rather well actually considering but it was by my own initiative. "College, you want to go to college", they said. "What for?" I went anyway.


I would take tiger mom's approach over what I had.

Gob wrote:Well I meant no slur on your parents O-n-W, I hope you appreciate that.

In my book the first job of a parent is to make a child feel loved and secure, then to place the best opportunities for the child to develop as a well rounded person as possible in front of the child, and to nurture and encourage them in whatever venture, academic, creative, sporting, or just plain being a good person, suits their personality and capability.

I've seen far too often the outcome of parenting in the extremist "achievement is all " (read; "achieving what I want you do achieve for my own reflected glory"), where kids have been academically force fed to the point of breakdown.

One of the most talented cello players I have ever kn0own was rammed through school and college and "hothoused" to be a cello playing mathematical genius. He's now a smack addict who hate his parents.

@meric@nwom@n wrote:I had slacker parents. * * *

I would take tiger mom's approach over what I had.

Are you sure about that?* But why is it an all or nothing deal? There is a continuum from total oversight and high demands, to complete laissez faire. Gob's first job of parenting is right ("the first job of a parent is to make a child feel loved and secure"), and it is a bit difficult to fulfill that rule while parenting at either end of the continuum. In my experience, the overbearing parents aren't doing it out of love for the kid, but instead are trying to meet some need of their own. Totally hands off parents, I'm not sure about, but my limited experience is that they are more self-absorbed than the typical person.


*http://www.startrek.com/database_article/tapestry

He produces the artificial heart that failed Picard and caused his death, which triggers Picard's sense of regret. With Q's urging, he admits that, given the opportunity to live life over, he would do things differently.

Authoritative parenting produces the best results, studies show.

These parents are loving and supportive, but set expectations and boundaries and expect their children to meet them. Children who do not meet them are provided with appropriate discipline.

Parenting that is authoritarian or permissive/indulgent leads to drug use, poor school performance, promiscuity, etc. in teens - not in all cases, but there is a high correlation.

But then I think parenting 'science' is inexact at best. It's all a crap shoot to some degree.

I can only hope that this chronic abuser's children manage to survive her bullshit and still have the strength to develop into actual adults.

Meanwhile, they should fight back. (Yes, fight. She has waged open warfare on them, and they should respond accordingly.)

There is absolutely no reason why the kids should put up with such systematic abuse. (Yes, not letting your child go to the bathroom is abuse. Read up on the serious and sometimes permanent damage to children's bladders that results from making them hold their water.)

They should do whatever it takes to impress upon this bitch that however bad she is to them, she will get only worse in return. She richly deserves it.

dgs49 wrote:And what does this essay say about American priorities? How many parents allow (in fact, demand) that their kids waste untold hours on non-academic bullshit (ballet, football, soccer, swimming, etc), when - it must be conceded - the kids' main "job" is to be a good student?

And don't talk to me about wanting to bring up "happy, well-adjusted children." Baloney. Happy and well-adjusted is more likely to come from real accomplishment than it is from getting a fucking trophy for doing something that any moron could do, given enough time to prepare.

Really? For five of my childhood years, I was a chorister at Grace Cathedral (San Francisco). Do you really believe that "any moron" could have done that?

Unlike Amy Chua's children, I had loving parents. Had I been one of Chua's children, I would never have had the opportunity to participate in the performance of the greatest choral music ever composed. She prohibits (or prohibited) her children from developing any musical instrument other than piano and violin. She would not have let me develop my best instrument -- voice. And because the talent I was given the opportunity to develop was voice, under Chua's what-my-children-do-matters-only-insofar-as-it-reflects-favorably-on-me approach to child training (as conspicuously distinct from child raising) I never would have had the chance. By the time I was old enough to free myself from her abusive chains, that opportunity would have been permanently lost.

But she doesn't care. She wants nothing more for her children than that they become good little producing automatons.

Sure, she makes them play the piano and the violin. But she doesn't give a shit whether those are the instruments to which they are naturally inclined. She says so herself: She forbids them to play any other instruments.

For her, what instruments her children might actually be gifted at -- let alone what instruments they might actually want to play -- is irrelevant. She doesn't give a rat's ass whether her children have any musical talent or what that talent might be. What if one or the other of them could have been a brilliant flautist? Or harpist? She doesn't care.

She doesn't give a rat's ass about her children. It's all about her. It's all about what she wants her children to become, and what her children want for their own lives be damned.

For all her squawking about being a good parent by making her children do things that they don't want to do -- which can be a good thing when kept within reasonable limits, limits with which she is totally unfamiliar -- it is clear that what she really cares about is how her children make her appear to others. It's all about her.

Good parents nurture their children's talents. Sure, good parents push their children to be the best they can. But good parents do not deny their children the opportunity to make the most of the talents they actually have.

But Chua couldn't care less what talents her children actually have. She cares only about the talents she wants her children to have.

It's all about her.

I didn't call mine a 'tiger' mom, demented harpy was my word for her. The psychological term is narcissist sociopath. I was fortunate enough to be aware that something was wrong with her; I didn't know what growing up, but thinking may way around it, kept my spirit alive.
This is why I'm absolutely certain: I'm in fact very intelligent and not stupid at all. I think differently, but that is not a flaw, instead it's a valuable asset. My spatial thinking, is an ability to see the Big Picture and see what she was really doing, that ability saved my soul.

Andrew, you are 100% wrong.

It is emphatically NOT child abuse to demand that your children achieve at the level they are capable of, and anyone who has spent time around children knows that, by and large, they won't perform to the utmost unless someone is kicking their ass. Witness 90% of successful "coaches" in every field of endeavor. They have to threaten and cajole their students and players because only a tiny fraction of them are self-motivated.

Violin and especially Piano are the appropriate instruments to learn, because once you have more-or-less mastered either one, especially the piano, every other instrument is easy. Try that with "voice." My son suffered through five years of piano lessons, hated it, then started playing several other instruments (on his own), which were relatively easy because he had internalized music theory. This would not have happened with the flute.

She doesn't care about here children? You can't be serious. She spends more time nurturing her children than 99% of American parents. And she doesn't have to rely on her children (as many parents do) for a vicarious sense of accomplishment - she has her own accomplishments to be proud of.

Certainly, there are many enjoyable and even fulfilling activities that her children will miss out on because of their strict upbringing, but life is a series of tradeoffs. How many kids in the choir, or on the football team, or in ballet classes really get to know the satisfaction of INDIVIDUAL accomplishment - praise well earned for what YOU did?

This woman has made HUGE sacrifices for her kids, and they will grow up confident and knowing that they are loved, unlike the fucked-up suburban pansies that most middle-class parents produce, who quit every job after a couple years because they didn't get promoted to Vice President fast enough. You know, the ones whose parents kept telling them how much they loved them.

I have little time right now, more later on.

I know Chinese parents like this (and then some). One thing they do that we should learn from is that they teach that success comes from hard work, not talent. Americans too often teach that success, especially success in mathematics, comes from talent and if you don't have talent its ok to fail.

On the other hand they are also teaching their children never to think critically for themselves and crippling their ability to do creative work (which their parents don't do very well either). The pHd Chinese I work with are not at all creative and many will shamelessly steal credit for others who are.

yrs,
rubato

As a sidelight they disagree with dgs about the value of voice training. One has both of his school-age daughters in singing lessons.

just a quick note:

The 'chinese method' produces highly trained conformists who are happy to kowtow to authority.

highly skilled sheep.

yrs,
rubatp

I generally agree with Andrew -- this mother cares more about herself, and the "status" she gains as a result of her children's excellence, than she cares about her children and their development and human beings. The method the "chinese" mother promotes may produce excellent scholars, but it takes more than good scholarship to succeed -- and frankly, it takes more than good grades to get into the elite colleges. I have been an interviewer for my Ivy alma mater for the last 10 years. I speak with half a dozen or more applicants every year. The kids with the highest GPA, the kid ranked #1 in the class, the kid who hadn't missed a day of school since 2nd grade -- they don't always get admitted (and yep, I've seen them get denied admittance) unless they have something to balance out that drive, to make them well-rounded, to show that they can cope with life beyond academics.

It does take practice and perserverence to be excellent -- read Outliers for some good examples -- but practice and perserverence does not have to be at the exclusion of fun. Nor should it be.