<p>Silly me, I tend to parent my 2 very-different children…differently</p>
<p>Is this book advertised as how the Chinese parent ? or how Amy Chua parents?</p>
<p>Don’t forget her husband is Jewish and I assume he collaborates in the parenting.</p>
<p>The title of this thread is misleading.</p>
<p>Gloryosky. She’s an award-winning Yale Law School professor, author of a couple of books on foreign policy whose titles make my eyes glaze over, worked on Wall Street, taught at Duke and Stanford, and has degrees from Harvard and Harvard Law. And this is the way she decides to raise her kids? Nothing else seemed as good? I wonder if she wanted to enjoy them at all. What I’ve read so far sounds like a surefire ticket to maternal insanity. I don’t care how much “better” my kids might have turned out, I’m glad I didn’t beat my head against the wall for the past 26 years.</p>
<p>In one of the squibs I read, she mentions being outdone by a 13 y/o girl - I’m guessing the formidable Lulu described in post 36 above. If Lulu comes out on top, I’d happily spend the 25 bucks to read about it.</p>
<p>Some kids are more rebellious than others. It seems that Lulu is one of these firecrackers…
Perhaps “like mother like daughter” at work here? In a family, siblings can be different. S1 is a lot more mellow than his younger brother. Therefore, the method and approach should be different. There are many ways to skin a cat, so to speak. A good parent is someone who how how to deal with teenagers, who can be raging monsters at times. And worst of all, they may not know better when they are young. Parental guidance is critical. Parents needs to be patient and persistent as well.</p>
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According to the advance reviews, this book is about the mom deciding to raise her kids the Chinese way, and her husband went along with it. Whether it represents a typical or an extreme version of Chinese parenting is a different question.</p>
<p>OK. Asian (me) & Jewish (H) household here. My home culture has a very similar emphasis on education and women going out of control as a helicopter parents and what not.</p>
<p>If what little quoted here I have seen on this thread is true, this woman is crazy, and even in my culture, this is an extreme outlier. Saying to a 13 year old all these harsh things just because of stupid caviar is totally abusive, and cannot be excused under any circumstance in the name of education. It’s simply bad parenting, period! God heavens - why would you ever want to ruin a family vacation that could otherwise be a wonderful family memory and great learning opportunity by turning a child totally against the whole experience and thus making it very unlikely that she will actually enjoy and learn about the new country and culture?</p>
<p>I do value education very highly, and yes, I am “less understanding” than my H if my kids have done way below their potential due to neglect. I have inculcated in them that coming short of personal best is a regrettable outcome, and one should always aim high.</p>
<p>However, I have never watched my kids over for homework, test preparation, etc. My kids have a complete freedom of deciding how to spend their time, including not spending enough time for good grades. Sleep over is no problem. I treated them as responsible people, and they acted very responsibly so far (age 19 and 17). They are self regulated, mostly. I think if they don’t learn how to regulate themselves, they won’t know how to do that once they turn 18 and leave home to college. I would rather that they learn how to pace and manage themselves while at home under supervision than be tightly controlled and then let loose to total freedom at a clip when they go off to college.</p>
<p>In this respect, our kids were raised completely with the “western” style. However, I do believe that as a whole, American culture, and even school system, emphasizes sports way too much beyond the education and character building aspects, and, at times, it almost comes at the expense of more intellectual pursuit and education. There is subtle and not so subtle anti intellectual bias in the popular American culture, especially in teen culture. I thought being a geek, nerd, and propeller head is a wonderful thing. I also told my kids very early on being a “popular kid” for the sake of being a popular kid has no meaning, especially if it comes with eschewing intellectual pursuits and thoughtful engagement in less popular endeavors. I generally believe there is not enough emphasis on intellectual excellence in American popular culture.</p>
<p>What I have tried to do is to instill “the value” I cherish from the day 1 they were born by examples and family traditions, not by monitoring each behavior and enforcing myriads of rules. When they were little kids, almost every weekend were spent in some sort of a museum. All or our vacations, domestic or international, were some sort of field trips - museum after museum, and taking walking tours about architecture, culture, history, and civilization. No shopping trips. No amusement parks, and no sunbathing in gated luxury resorts. Recently, my kids joked that only recently, they realized how bizarre our family vacations have been compared to their friends’ and how much fun other families have had that they didn’t 
At the same time, they both said, they wouldn’t change any of it, and they plan to carry on the tradition with their own kids. S1 joked that when his kids misbehave, he will send them over to me so that I can torture them by taking them to the Mets or MOMA and bore them for hours about all the classical masterpieces. </p>
<p>So, I guess I am a hybrid parent (east-west).</p>
<p>Hyeonjlee, everthing you said is wonderful, wise and full of common sense.</p>
<p>By the way, regarding the “successful daughter” (the “better” 50%)… The author says this daughter is successful, well spoken and polite. Now, I wonder, though, is she the kind of young woman who can stand up to abusive boss, mean boyfriend, and nasty in laws? Will she have the courage to defy the convention and norms and follow her heart?</p>
<p>Something tells me not very likely. If that’s the case, what price is she paying for turning out to be a perfect daughter of a control freak of a mother?</p>
<p>If anything, I bet the “rebellious” daughter will be a far more interesting person (in a good way) to watch going forward.</p>
<p>Great comments, hyeonjlee!</p>
<p>I am sure there are examples of different method of parenting in every culture. It is a part of life as a human-being.</p>
<p>I wonder about the social development of kids who have these controlled and restricted childhoods. I can’t imagine how a child who hasn’t participated in sleepovers, or otherwise spent a good amount of time just hanging out with peers, can learn to relate to others as friends and colleagues–how do the virtues of empathy, cooperation, tolerance, etc. ever get a chance to flourish in such a narrow, self-centered, world?</p>
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<p>Those achievements, as impressive as they may be, don’t constitute “being successful” if you’re simultaneously a jerk of a human being. And honestly, this woman sounds like a jerk from the blurbs.</p>
<p>I am relatively new to CC but on this topic I think I can add a different perspective. I am a caucasian-American and my wife is a Chinese immigrant who believed in parenting methods quite similar to those of Ms. Chua when we first married. After we had a son, I found those methods to be quite harsh in practice and began working with her to find a middle path between the common, lax US method of child rearing and the Chinese method that she was familiar with. Over time, our middle path evolved (e.g., strict limits on television and computer game time, though no absolute prohibitions, and nagging about homework, studying, and papers, though certainly no berating or insults), and we are satisfied with it as we have a very bright, happy, and well-adjusted 14 year-old who has plenty of friends, enjoys athletics (tennis), and is doing extremely well in school. He seems much more well-adjusted, mature, and content than either his pure caucasian-American cousins or his Chinese cousins (I know I am evil for making such a statement). It is just one data point, one anecdote, and since it is mine I am inclined to find it more suggestive or convincing than others might, but I hope this different perspective does provide at least a little value for others.</p>
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I’d say that she sounds like a masochistic whack job from the blurbs, PG! But it seems unlikely that a person so well-educated and obviously intellectually gifted would really have to threaten to burn her kid’s stuffed animals in order to get her to practice the violin. I mean, I look pretty shabby next to Amy Chua, but I didn’t have to practice psychological terrorism to get my kids to comply about important things. But then, Penelope Leach was my touchstone when my kids were little, and unquestioning obedience just wasn’t that important to me.</p>
<p>I also wonder - if you have to mold them and push them and berate them and force them to turn out the way you think they should - how many of the kids’ accomplishments are really theirs? What is there to be proud of - yourself? Because if the kids didn’t do it themselves, what does it really mean?</p>
<p>So I think - I’d like to think - that it’s some kind of well-orchestrated attempt to make money on what would otherwise be just another not-very-important memoir. And perhaps Ms. Chua likes the national attention, as well.</p>
<p>Yes, these stories may be exaggerated as a way to market the book. But I’m rarely surprised by evidence suggesting that a law professor is a whack job. Every school’s faculty will include some eccentrics. In particular, a story about a law professor carrying a principle to crazy extremes is not hard to believe. Most of my friends and classmates who teach law would agree with me on this.</p>
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<p>How do you get masochistic from reading the book blurb? She sounds much closer to being a sadist than a masochist.</p>
<p>Well, if I’d adopted her childrearing methods, I’d have been a masochist. Because if I’d tried to force my kids to be great students, outstanding musicians, or obedient little puppets, they wouldn’t have done it. And they’d have made me nuts in the process (particularly the second one - think Lulu on steroids). They’re made of more stubborn stuff than I am. It would be fun to see my d2 go a few rounds with the author.</p>
<p>I agree, Nrdsb4, that a parent who really does threaten to burn stuffed animals, or who publicly humiliates a 13 y/o in an effort to get her to eat something she doesn’t want to eat, is probably more of a sadist. I was just assigning my own values and viewpoint to someone else’s behavior again, as is my way. :)</p>
<p>^^^^Oh, okay. I get it now-makes sense.</p>
<p>I look forward to reading this and thank you for suggesting it. I’ve preordered to my kindle.</p>
<p>I cut and pasted below an interesting list of “musts” from the book (that goes with the advertising blurbs for the book). </p>
<p>The one that gets me shaking my head is how her kids are “not allowed to not be the #1 student in every subject”. This is a losing proposition for Asian kids! Maybe doable perhaps if you are surrounded by “caucasion slackers” …but try going to school where 60-100% of the kids in class are raised in this style of Asian household… it means all or almost all the kids will be shameful failures in the eyes of their parents and themselves. </p>
<p>Here are some things Amy Chua would never allow her daughters to do: </p>
<p> have a playdate </p>
<p> be in a school play </p>
<p> complain about not being in a school play </p>
<p> not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama </p>
<p> play any instrument other than the piano or violin </p>
<p> not play the piano or violin</p>
<p>I reiterate here. I am from the same/similar cultural background as this woman. This woman is crazy even by that standard (let alone in more humanistic North American milieus). </p>
<p>I think she is an abusive, control freak parent with a major problem who is smart enough and intellectually armed enough, and high class enough, to rationalize her behavior in the name of education.</p>
<p>caveat: I did not read the book, but read the reviews and the posts on this thread. So, I may be pre-judging, but just the examples provided above, the threat of burning stuffed animals to force a child to do anything, and the episode in a Russian trip are sufficient to convince me of this.</p>
<p>It’s interesting to me that success is defined by her as “my daughter plays the violin” (presumably at a highly technical level), not “my daughter gets great pleasure out of playing an instrument that she enjoys.”</p>
<p>It’s also interesting that music was pushed but acting in a school play was verboten. They are both creative arts … seems like a distinction without a difference to me.</p>