Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - new book about Chinese parenting

Parents Forum
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<p>I would say everything above and then some.
Because it is never about choosing one style of parenting or another. The child comes with a temperment, there is the family dynamic, the social mileu, the neighborhood culture etc.</p>

<p>But I will add this:
At 50+ years I still carry the scars from being the first college generation child of an over absorbed/obsessed/invested mom who stood over my piano practice sessions and yelled at me when I got the notes wrong, and cried with disappointment when I showed little talent; who made fun of me when I danced at my 3 year old recital or did anything physical… indeed when I did anything I wasn’t perfect at (wonder why I am sedentary and physically shy now?) And when my talents showed expected nothing short of a Nobel Prize (seriously) and was disappointed when I went into math because of no Nobel Prize in math (seriously) and constantly inflated by very good scores even higher when bragging about them, and yelled at me for those A-. If you had asked HER how I was doing when I was 15 she would have said WONDERFULLY “she’s getting good grades, she’s happy, social, dating, will be applying to good schools.” She would have brushed off a suicidal attempt or two as a phase or even literally forgotten about it. Years of insecurity and crisis – and yes, also, and later, great achievement, and happiness, were still to come.</p>

<p>And perhaps I overcompensated with S1 and S2 and was too laid back. but I think you can be both proud of the B+/A- – or even, sometimes, the C – and STILL ask “So, why do you think you didn’t master the material well enough to get the A? Why did the teacher think you deserved a C and not an A? What could you do to get a higher grade?” and have a discussion about objectively what an A brings, the benefits, while still acknowledging the work that child might have done for a B+ (and if the B+ was done with no work, then not everything deserves praise… it might be a good topic starter for the reason teachers give tests, what grades are for, what the child wants out of life…)</p>

<p>But because of my striving and need for achievement, and the mom in my ear expecting me to win the Nobel Prize in motherhood, I still hear her saying, “you’re a failure” when my son was not competitive for the very school I went to (MIT) or the Ivies, or doesn’t seek PhD level studies in math (he is planning to teach HS). And the sane part of me says, what a wonderful mom you are to have raised a responsible mensch with a good and open heart, who got through college in 4 years, with 2 degrees in math and government, who has a plan for a masters and a job/career for the near future, who wants to stay near his family because he is close to you, who’s close to his friends and beloved by many… And yet… if I had made him practice his flute more than the bare minimum, and do every jury and recital, and study for the math magnet school test and blah blah blah…</p>

<p>You can make yourself like me on a bad day. But don’t! On most days, thank goodness I broke the cycle!</p>

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<p>Wow, 17 pages and I don’t think anyone has read the book yet ;)</p>

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<p>silversas – I’m glad you came out okay. We all beat ourselves up over whether we should have done this or that differently with our own kids. It sounds like you raised a fine young man.</p>

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<p>Does anyone know any Chinese families who have more than one or two children? I think it takes having at least two, and preferably more to have a clear understanding that children are born with particular propensities and different needs and should not all be expected to do the same things. Maybe China’s one-child theme has taken away this aspect of Chinese parenting knowledge.</p>

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<p>^ I am not sure how this is related to Amy Chua.</p>

<p>Amy Chua’s family had nothing to do with China’s one-child policy. She was born in the US in 1962, way before one-child policy was introduced in 1979.</p>

<p>[Amy</a> Chua - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Chua]Amy”>Amy Chua - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>[ONE-CHILD</a> POLICY IN CHINA - China | Facts and Details](<a href=“http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=128&catid=4&subcatid=15]ONE-CHILD”>http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=128&catid=4&subcatid=15)</p>

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<p>One might think his/her kid is the smartest and should be the number one in this or on that. But the reality is there is only one number one in a class or something. That’s why “lucky” comes handy.</p>

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<p>

Looks as if the book will be released tomorrow (1/11/11). I don’t think most of the comments here have been about the book. We’ve been responding to the well-planned advance publicity wave, which seems to have deliberately chosen the most inflammatory and controversial of Chua’s statements and experiences to put in front of the American public. So, PR guys? Mission accomplished - we’re all talking about it! Enjoy counting your money.</p>

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<p>Well, I for one am not buying the book. I’m writing my own: Parenting the Joan Crawford Way. (Any discussion of this parenting style must be limited to Hollywood stars who understand the unique Hollywood culture.)</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t buy this book…EVER.</p>

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<p>Plenty within my own extended family as I have aunts with 3 and 4 kids each. Also, there were plenty of Asian-American classmates who had 1 or more siblings at my slight Asian majority urban public magnet high school in NYC. Didn’t start meeting Asian one-child families in large numbers until I was out of college in the early aughts. </p>

<p>Didn’t make a difference as most parents of my high school classmates expected every sibling to meet the HYPSMC or bust standard. Then again, not all Asian-American parents had this standard…and most of the non-Asian parents also did. In fact, even some of the non-Asian high school teachers had that mentality for us. </p>

<p>One Caucasian high school teacher in particular always talked up the one who attended Princeton over the one who attended Rutgers. While he was a nice guy to me, the way he talked about his daughters made me feel that he’s a flaming Ivy-or-bust j%$ka$$ who fit the “Asian-immigrant parent stereotype” and that I’m glad he’s not my dad.</p>

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<p>The “advanced publicity” provided by the WSJ has made me NOT want to buy this book. I certainly won’t pay full price for it in a bookstore in hardcover. I’m sure it will hit the Used Book market quickly…It might be worth the $4 I pay at my used store…not a nickel more.</p>

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<p>"If they’re Reform Jewish, it’s just fine. "</p>

<p>Not so much a question of halacha, as of where the kid learns yiddishkeit from. I mean if she takes their learning judaism and jewishness as seriously as she does their learning piano :slight_smile: </p>

<p>To riff on this, it doesnt sound like Jewish parenting that I knew anything about in my time, and I suspect not in any generation since the Great Migration. But then I think its kind of an over the top view of typical Asian parenting as well, designed to sell books by controversy. I can certainly say that Jewish parenting today is even less like that than it was in my day, and we still manage to be well represented at elite schools, if our dominance of the violin may not be what it once was. Genes or not, I dont think its a result of tiger parenting.</p>

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<p>

I’m not sure you would see this brand of “Chinese” parenting in modern day China – it seems to be more something that immigrants from a previous generation are bringing with them. I may be wrong – our family has had limited exposure to a few Chinese families due to a brief homestay my daughter had at the end of high school in Shenzhen, and perhaps the families who offered to host foreign students just happened to be the more liberal. (And Shenzhen is probably far more westernized than other parts of China) </p>

<p>But it’s also very possible that the Dragon mom stereotype comes in part from an immigrant mentality that is accompanied by a tremendous level of inner drive, as well as motivated by fears for the family’s future in a new country. (And if so, that’s another reason why an American born daughter like Chua is mistaken to emulate her parents’ tough style – it’s one thing to raise up kids who have nothing and will need to struggle and fight to make it in a tough world, it’s another to raise up kids who are born into privilege. That newer generation of ‘already made it’ kids really will need a few social skills to function well in their world.)</p>

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<p>As a Jew, my expertise in Jewish parenting really extends no farther than my own family (my parents, my inlaws, and my own parenting style). But here’s one difference that I sense:</p>

<p>It seems to me that Chua’s parenting style is based on the idea that her children’s success depends entirely on her efforts to mold and shape them, that each is capable of being the top performer but only through intense labor to get there, and places great importance on the opinions of outsiders (such as focus on grades or winning competition honors). In my view, there’s an element of it being very important to prove oneself to the outside world.</p>

<p>The attitude I grew up with and had with my kids was more along the lines of – we’re smart and capable, and probably can achieve anything we want with the same or less effort than others – and that the opinion of others can be taken with a grain of salt in any case. Certainly in my family there is a readiness to point out when the teachers are wrong – I remember coming home in elementary school to report something my teacher had said about the law or government and having my dad (a lawyer) jump all over that telling me that the teacher was dead wrong. I also remember my parents going to bat for my brother and even changing schools when there was a conflict with a 3rd grade teacher, and my parents were very supportive of me in high school when I wanted to drop honors English because I didn’t like the teacher and the way the course was taught. I pretty much followed along the same track when it came to my kids. Of course my parents, and me in turn, wanted our kids to do well in school – but we had a different definition of well --we wanted to see evidence that our kids were learning. If our kids get A’s because the teacher is too lax or inept or uses grading standards unrelated to actual mastery-- we’re frustrated – we’d rather see the kid getting B’s with a teacher who was challenging them. On the other hand, if the teacher is assigning a lot of obvious busy work, and we’ve got a kid whose grade suffers because he/she refuses to waste time with that stuff – we shrug it off. In fact, I think there was a certain delight in the occasions when a teacher marked something wrong and we could show that that teacher was the one who was mistaken – but we rarely bothered to actually confront the teacher on that. Rather it was an inside joke at home, sometimes a source of much hilarity.</p>

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<p>Not only have I not read the book but, as a lazy Anglo, I couldn’t be bothered to read the article. Judging by the comments in this thread, my guess is that if you gave these kids some books, a bike and a chemistry set, and left them alone, they’d do just fine.</p>

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<p>Great post at #182. </p>

<p>Sorry to say that real life Chua’s do exist. Every minute of the child’s day is planned with tutors and music lessons. Even before each school day there are lessons and practice time. Then their summer is booked with the classes they will take during the next school year so they earn nothing less than an “A.” Make sure they are enrolled in Saturday classes at CTY. But never a dance or party; no time for such nonsense.</p>

<p>One mother proudly told me she made her child eat an essay that was graded a “B.”</p>

<p>Please do not buy this women’s book.</p>

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<p>Chua has two daughters. So if she is doing it right, she has not learned from her first daughter.
I wonder if she herself was parented the way she parents her daughters. I found her way extreme, even as a Chinese.
I have a Chinese mother, who is very strict by all my friends’s standards, but she is not like Chua, thank God! Yet she IS strict. In general I don’t blame her but at times I wish she’d let me be myself. She believes (and tells me so) that she knows better what’s good for me than I do. I know what she does are out of good intentions, I’ve known this since I was quite little. But I don’t think I’d parent my kid this way. Being someone who has a Chinese mother, I can understand many things Chua said (not from her book, I’m certainly not buying her book - don’t have the money, haha), I agree with some of them. As for other things she said, I’d say just let her watch her two daughters growing up. They’re probably still young, too early to say. Oh well, they are her lab rats, not me. </p>

<p>My family has many Chinese friends, needless to say. From what I observed, many “Chinese” kids have problems. Of course American kids do too, so who am I to say.</p>

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<p>You know…I think this is extreme and I won’t buy the book, but…</p>

<p>I think the US needs a LITTLE more “Chinese” parenting. By that I mean I think the concept that you can learn or achieve something if you work at it is a good one. </p>

<p>I forget who did it, but there was a study recently that compared American mothers with mothers in an Asian country. I can’t remember which. </p>

<p>Young kids had to take a test in two parts. The mothers AND the children were told that kids who achieved a certain score would get into a special program where kids would get to do some really neat things. (I can’t recall right now what they were.) Both halves of the test were similar. The mothers were told that .</p>

<p>After the first half, the kids took a break. The test answers for the first half couldn’t be changed–the answer sheets had been turned in–but the kids still had the problem sheets. The mothers were told that they could look at the problems if they wanted to do so and could discuss them with their kids if they wanted to do so. </p>

<p>The mothers sat around waiting for their kids. They were all told in one on one sessions that their kids’ results on the first half indicated that they probably wouldn’t get the reward although it was still possible if they did very well on the second half. Then they were allowed to go in and spend 10 or 15 minutes with their child before the child took the second half of the test. Most of the American mothers spent the 10-15 minutes asking their children how they felt about the test thus far. Even when kids said they thought they were doing well, parents would reassure them that the test really didn’t matter that much, that the mom knew that the test was really hard and they shouldn’t feel bad if they didn’t get the reward, etc. In other words, they used the time to make sure their kids wouldn’t feel too bad if they didn’t get the reward. </p>

<p>The Asian parents asked their kids how the test was going too–but they asked the kids which problems they had had difficulty doing. Then they went over the problems with them and explained how to do them. In other words, they used the time they had with their kids to try to boost their scores on the second half in the hope that their kids would boost their scores enough to get the reward. </p>

<p>Now, not all American or Asian mothers reacted the same way, but this was the general pattern. The interactions between mothers and children were observed without the knowledge of the participants- the mothers and children knew there was a “proctor” in the room but didn’t know that the proctor was really observing the interaction. </p>

<p>Some of the interactions were videotaped. I didn’t understand a word they were saying, but you could see the Asian mothers going over the problems their kids hadn’t been able to do, explaining them. The American mothers paid almost no attention to the tests. They just focused on telling their kids the reward didn’t really didn’t matter. </p>

<p>So, I think there really IS a difference in parenting styles.</p>

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<p>Just watched her on Today show. She tries to be likeable, saying book about her transformation.</p>

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<p>All these practice practice make me wonder if that means that the students are not smart enough or with low efficiency. Also, in such a rapid changing world today, do all the learned skills matter, or the ability to be quick on your feet is more important?</p>