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Paraphrasing Groucho, who should we believe, you or our own eyes? Look, nobody is really saying that Chua is the norm. Some people are saying, though, that they have observed similar (although generally less extreme) behavior, and there does seem to be a cultural connection.</p>
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<p>So you made it to the top and now you can adapt a haughtier attitude? Why do I get the feeling in 30 yeras from now chinese will be like that addressing some other ethnic group?</p>
<p>^That I would strongly disagree with. You can’t assume a cultural behavioral pattern based on your observations of a few individuals who are members of that culture. And really, all the parents here who are saying they’ve observed similiar have in the grand scheme of things observed a very small slice of a population, and probably without noticing any distinction between first, second generation immigrants, cultural differences within areas and regions of China, etc. Saying there “seems” to be a cultural connection because some parents you know or some parents at your kids school behave a certain way some of the time or you perceive that they do, does not mean that there is one. And it doesn’t mean that your observations are more valid than the first hand accounts of other parents posting here.</p>
<p>“Are there demographic numbers available for college age? 80% white population probably includes many who are not young any more.”</p>
<p>I have definitely seen the breakdown by state, I cannot remember total US numbers. I think you are right in guessing that the ‘white’ fraction is less at younger ages, but I doubt much less than 75%. If we are only looking at white:asian:jew ratios then the White fraction is definitely going up relative to Jews, and might also relative to Asians.</p>
<p>“You can’t assume a cultural behavioral pattern based on your observations of a few individuals who are members of that culture”</p>
<p>Good! I hope we can all agree that this is true about the stereotyping of “western” parents seen in this thread: that they do not value education, their kids do drugs, they all want their kids to be #1 in sports, and that they don’t understand irony!!!</p>
<p>^^ 3 out of 4 ain’t bad 
Stereotyping and generalizing from anecdotal data is not the same.</p>
<p>Last night, after seeing and hearing Daniel Hernandez, the young University of Arizona student who saved Congresswoman Gifford’s life, I am more convinced than ever that what’s important in raising your children is not just making sure they are the top at everything and getting them into Ivy-league schools. It’s raising them to be brave, caring, decent human beings who are maybe not so self-absorbed, and who will do some good in the world, not just do good for themselves.</p>
<p>Yorkyfan, my Jewish Israeli wife is at times maddeningly illogical. I blame her mother.</p>
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That’s right. It’s “stereotyping” when you do it about me, and “generalizing from anecdotal data” when I do it about you.</p>
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Perception is not always the truth. According to my parents (and many Chinese people who don´t really have Jewish friends), Jews are very cheap and do not respect women. </p>
<p>My 2 best girlfriends are Jewish and I worked for an orthodox Jew for 15 years. My girlfriends are very frugal when it comes to themselves (even though both of them are very wealthy through their own hard work), but extremely generous with other people. My old boss treated me with more respect and decency than any other boss I ever had (he never shook my hand, but he paid and promoted me like other boys). When he left to start up a private venture, I went with him. I was given a lot of stock options, and then I left because the company rant out of cash. Right before the options were to expire recently (8 years after I left), he informed me that the value of stock was about to sky rocket. If he hadn´t, my options would have expired, him and few other owners could have kept all the upside to themselves.</p>
<p>We can always generalize about a group of people, and most of us have a certain characteristic of the culture we grew up with, but we are still individuals, and we also do “melt” into our new environment. </p>
<p>I find we like to generalize out of fear and unwillingness to look beyond what we do not understand. As a woman and a minority, I refuse to let stereo typing to put a glass ceiling on my career. It would be much easier to tell myself that I didn´t get a promotion because I was being discriminated by “white men,” because it would be a good excuse to stop me from looking at myself to see what else I could do to get that promotion next time. It´s no different for many non-Asians to assume the reason Asians are getting high GPAs and test scores because of their crazy mothers. Because no matter what the reasons are, those high GPA and stats are getting the Asians into those top tier schools. With those top tier school credentials, those students are getting lucrative jobs on Wall Street, top consulting firms, and many other “elite firms.”</p>
<p>Seriously, there is a fine line between stereotyping and observing and discussing cultural differences. Actually, I think this thread, taken as a whole, does a pretty good job of showing that there are some cultural sources of “Chinese parenting,” but that they aren’t as extreme or as prevalent as one might think.</p>
<p>Chua’s book deals with her ideas of why Chinese-style parenting is superior, and in a somehwat related article in today’s LA Times some Chinese educators are worrying that Chinese-style education is too rigid:</p>
<p>[China</a> student testing: China schools obsessed with test-taking - latimes.com](<a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-education-20110113,0,6192691.story]China”>Chinese students' high scores in international tests come at a cost)</p>
<p>Excerpts:</p>
<p>"Chinese adolescence is known as a time of scant whimsy: Students rise at dawn, disappear into school until dinnertime and toil into the late night over homework in preparation for university entrance exams that can make or break their future.</p>
<p>So it came as little surprise when international education assessors announced last month that students in Shanghai had outperformed the rest of the industrialized world in standardized exams in math, reading and science.</p>
<p>But even as some parents in the West wrung their hands, fretting over an education gap, Chinese commentators reacted to the results with a bout of soul-searching and even an undertone of embarrassment rarely seen in a country that generally delights in its victories on the international stage.</p>
<p>“I carry a strong feeling of bitterness,” Chen Weihua, an editor at the state-run China Daily, wrote in a first-person editorial. “The making of superb test-takers comes at a high cost, often killing much of, if not all, the joy of childhood.”</p>
<p>"And even in the rarefied world of the Shanghai high schools, teachers and administrators are concerned about the single-minded obsession with examinations.</p>
<p>At Zhabei No. 8, a public school on the northern edge of Shanghai’s downtown, administrators spoke cautiously of the students’ success in the international tests. Nearly 200 students took the exams last spring; afterward, they told their teachers that the questions had been simple.</p>
<p>“We are fully aware of the situation: Their creativity is lacking. They suffer very poor health, they are not strong and they get injured easily,” vice principal Chen Ting said. “We’re calling on all relevant parties to reduce the burden on our students.”</p>
<p>For centuries, stretching back to the days when far-flung scholars trudged dutifully to the capital for the emperor’s examinations, the standardized test has held a cherished place in Chinese society, both a tribute to discipline and a great leveling tool among disparate classes and regions.</p>
<p>Today, the examination faced at the end of high school is considered the great maker, and breaker, of careers, determining which university, if any, a student may attend.</p>
<p>There’s no spare time for hanging out with friends or volunteer work; forget about clubs or sports. Weekends are spent sharpening academic weak spots in paid tutoring sessions."</p>
<p>This may give a false impression that students with good grades and top test scores got them under the thumbs of their mothers. As for any ethnic groups there are some A students and many more B and C students. We should evaluate what a student got and how efficiently s/he got them. Over generalization may be unfair to individuals.</p>
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<p>Life is too short to make a kid do something he hates for 7 years. Ridiculous. Sometimes you have to know when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em. Western parenting proverb. </p>
<p>Did anyone hear Amy Chua on CNN today? I heard it on satellite radio, so I didn’t have the benefit of watching her, but she sounded much more nuanced and talked about how the book was really about her journey and how she changed and how she now believes there is some middle ground. The way the book has been portrayed, however, doesn’t really communicate this well, and her sense of humor in the book is somewhat dry.</p>
<p>But she is making a lot of money off it.</p>
<p>I wonder how her kids´friends are looking at them now.</p>
<p>Potential damage to my kids aside, why on Earth would I punish myself by raising my kids that way? My job as a parent is not to ensure our mutual misery. I’d rather have a great relationship with my slightly lazy, slightly underachieving kids than be the person cracking a whip over the heads of Nobel Prize winners.</p>
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<p>What friends? How can you have time for friends when your afterschool time is controlled as finely as Ms. Chua controlled her daughters’ time? They didn’t HAVE time to go hopscotch, jump rope, catch fireflies, lounge round the swimming pool, go to movies with girlfriends, much less do sleepovers and the like.</p>
<p>@yorkyfan – I agree. I think it’s ridiculous to 1) divide people into “Western parents” and “Chinese parents” and 2) stereotype how an entire group behaves based on the limiteed observations of one or two individuals. “Western parents” is a HUGE generalization for a non-homogenous group. Ditto for “Chinese parents”. This whole system of classification and pitting one against the other is foolish and pointless, but it is gauranteed to create controversy and spur booksales. It does nothing to improve parenting or cultural understanding however.</p>
<p>Note: the below has many stereotypes. Please don’t take offense. Im just trying to address some problems I have with Mrs. Chua’s book (which also uses many stereotypes)</p>
<p>After reading her Bio on Wikipedia, it makes me think that she is just writing this book for some extra $$$. I somewhat doubt that the parenting styles she describes are accurate. Maybe she’s strict, but what she writes in her book borders on abusive. Also, for someone that seems to advocate for traditional Chinese values, she sure has done many things that go against those values. She married a Jewish white man, lives in America (not China), is a law professor (not a common job in china), and has had a career while raising her kids (traditional Chinese mothers usually don’t have jobs). Also, her other books seem to much more mainstream and I can’t think of any reason for her to write a parenting book besides making money.</p>
<p>Note: the below has many stereotypes. Please don’t take offense. Im just trying to address some problems I have with Mrs. Chua’s book (which also uses many stereotypes)</p>
<p>After reading her Bio on Wikipedia, it makes me think that she is just writing this book for some extra $$$. I somewhat doubt that the parenting styles she describes are accurate. Maybe she’s strict, but what she writes in her book borders on abusive. Also, for someone that seems to advocate for traditional Chinese values, she sure has done many things that go against those values. She married a Jewish white man, lives in America (not China), is a law professor (not a common job in china), and has had a career while raising her kids (traditional Chinese mothers usually don’t have jobs). Also, her other books seem much more mainstream and I can’t think of any reason for her to write a parenting book besides making money.</p>