<p>Pizzagirl, it seems to me that there are many “points” being made in this thread. </p>
<p>Appointing yourself Point Police and then casting insults at those who do not agree with your assessments is not helpful.</p>
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<p>This merely reflects your ignorance. This book is for Chinese students and parents living in mainland China. They don’t care a rat about success in the US. As a matter of fact, they care more about the US power of borrowing and consuming than anything else.</p>
<p>Stop displaying your insecurity and bias against Asian American.</p>
<p>equal opportunity scolding:
Coolweather, no need to call a poster ignorant or insecure. </p>
<p>Come on, all. We can disagree without being obnoxious. Leave that on other boards.</p>
<p>Sorry if I went too far. I don’t have a “problem” with Asians and I say hey, more power to anyone who is bright and ambitious. And I have nothing but admiration for those who sacrificed things I can’t even imagine, to come here and make a better life for their families, in a place where they might not know the language, customs or mores. I think striving for excellence is great; I disagree with Chua-style parenting and the concept that only certain, select EC’s and / or colleges are worthy of pursuit.</p>
<p>“Stop displaying your insecurity and bias against Asian American.”</p>
<p>Can you explain, in specific terms, how believing the proposition that success in the workplace in the US, North America, and indeed most of the Western World, has nothing to do with the name of your college, somehow displays insecurity and bias against Asian Americans?</p>
<p>I have worked with many Asian-Americans, Asian-Australians, Asian-British, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton graduates. None of them were anything like Amy Chua and anyone who thinks that Americans’ experience is so limited with Chinese people as to believe her bull about this being “Chinese” parenting obviously has very limited experience with Americans.</p>
<p>She’s a control freak. That’s not heritage-specific, nation-specific, or anything. It’s a cross-cultural problem.</p>
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<p>I think the key objection was that the methods she used to enforce her will were unacceptable. It’s a question of authoritative, vs. authoritarian parenting, or of assertive vs. aggressive behavior, if you will.</p>
<p>I am happy to tell my children that I have no idea what their pictures are.</p>
<p>But when I receive a gift, I’m grateful, no matter what the gift, no matter who the giver (provided, of course, it’s given in goodwill). That includes birthday cards. I didn’t write my aunt to tell her that the Dollar Store refrigerator wind chime was not acceptable and I’m not going to give my children back their hand-made birthday cards, either.</p>
<p>I am sure it’s been posted, but did Chua ever wonder why her kids gave her such lackluster cards?</p>
<p>“Stop displaying your insecurity and bias against Asian American.”</p>
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<p>LOL, exactly. Really, I’m not “insecure” about my ability to be successful, nor am I insecure about my children’s abilities to do so. I don’t need to see other people (American, Chinese, white, black, purple or turquoise) as “competition”, because success isn’t a zero-sum game. I think it’s great that there are kids who are playing at Carnegie Hall and winning Intel and getting 2400 on their SAT’s, and by the same token I’m pretty darn happy with my kids who have done none of those things. What an odd, the-world-is-competition mindset that it must be jealousy or prejudice / bias.</p>
<p>^ You need to re-read the entire thread to show me where I agree with Chua’s parenting style. This is the last time I say Chua is not Chinese and cannot represent Chinese and Asian parents. Chua is just a distorted American.</p>
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<p>No, but I would hope that after she threw them back in their face they never again gave her anything else.</p>
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<p>I didn’t write you agree with her parenting style.</p>
<p>I wrote that I don’t think Pizzagirl is anti-Asian or has posted anything to that effect, even remotely, in this thread.</p>
<p>It seems you feel quite attacked, since most of your posts are in the defensive. So rest assured, most of us agree with you that Chua does not represent China or the Chinese; that we have met all kinds of people from Asia and indeed China; that none of us believe it’s in anyone’s interest to have this stereotype floating around.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what your beef is here. Attacks on Chua’s personal beliefs are just that. They aren’t even attacks on her, personally. It seems she was treated quite poorly as a child and has a lot of issues and as a parent I can’t imagine how she must feel now with the entire Interwebz debating whether or not she’s a child abuser. I do feel for her in some ways.</p>
<p>Still, she put herself out there and she put herself out there as “the Chinese way”, so that’s what people are criticizing.</p>
<p>Who attacked who? Re-read please.</p>
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<p>Just imagine what it must have been like to bring your father to an awards ceremony where you get second place and for your father to tell you never to disgrace him again like that. Never to disgrace HIM. Really, he’s the disgrace of a human being.</p>
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<p>Thanks God.</p>
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<p>Defensive of what?</p>
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<p>While I do think rejecting a birthday card is a little extreme, as a parent I don’t think there is anything wrong with showing disappointment in the lack of thought that went into it. It’s just not the same as with an aunt or any other person where your duty is not to educate, and where common courtesy (which you want to model for your children) is expected.</p>
<p>I think I read somewhere that the daughter went back and redid the cards putting a lot more effort into them, but i can’t find that. But here…</p>
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<p>^^^ I just read that part of the book and yes, the girls remade the cards and put much more effort into them. </p>
<p>Here’s what the book says:</p>
<p>I gave the card back to Lulu. “I don’t want this,” I said. “I want a better one- one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. I have a special box, where I keep all the cards from you and Sophia, and this one can’t go in there.”</p>
<p>Ms. Chua goes on to say that she deserves better because for the girls’ birthdays she spends hundreds of dollars on water slides, party favors, etc. Later that night the girls made much better cards which their mom has kept all this time.</p>
<p>I call BS on Lulu’s recollection and justification of the birthday card incident. She was four years old for goodness sake. Most people don’t remember much about what happened in their lives before age 7, unless the event was traumatic. </p>
<p>Its the thought that counts.</p>
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The recollection was Sophia´s, which would make her six at the time (if indeed Lulu was 4) and perfectly capable of recalling such an incident.</p>
<p>I’ve since found and read the entire letter Sophia wrote in answer to all the negative publicity. Maybe it’s been posted on this thread before… but I found it interesting, and to me, not so surprising, as my kids have a similar take on the tougher elements of their upbringing.</p>
<p>[Daughter</a> of Amy Chua, who wrote ‘Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,’ responds to controversy - NYPOST.com](<a href=“http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/why_love_my_strict_chinese_mom_uUvfmLcA5eteY0u2KXt7hM]Daughter”>Why I love my strict Chinese mom)</p>
<p>It’s a well-written and insightful letter. I find it sad that she says that she decided, early on, to be an easy child to raise - that’s kind of twisted, imo. But how nice for her parents that, in addition to her obvious talents, she seems to understand and accept the way they chose to raise her. </p>
<p>She doesn’t seem interested in setting the world straight - says that people don’t “get” their humor and family values. Another fascinating aspect of this mess, to me, is what Chua was expecting in writing this book and participating in the publicity effort. Surely she meant to attract attention by challenging traditional American parenting values. Why did such an intelligent woman think she could win the fame game? Anyone with a pair of eyes or ears knows that this kind of 15-minute notoriety comes with a price, and that the price includes public hostility. So could it have been naivete (“Here I wrote an ironic memoir about how to raise successful kids and no one gets my sense of humor”), or was it arrogance?</p>
<p>Another interesting look at Chua’s book was in last week’s New Yorker (for those who just can’t get enough;)): [Amy</a> Chua and the “Tiger Mother” Craze : The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2011/01/31/110131crbo_books_kolbert]Amy”>The Tiger Mother, America’s Top Parent | The New Yorker) The author’s got a kind of schizophrenic take - she really lets Chua have it on pages 1 and 3, but seems to think our permissive American parenting is partially responsible for our economy going to hell in a handcart on page 2.</p>
<p>The New Yorker excerpt raises an issue of concern to me, to the extent that Chua is representative of any larger set of people. It quotes her remark about her time at Harvard Law School, “I didn’t care about the rights of criminals the way others did.” The standard American phrase is the “rights of the accused,” because the idea that a person is innocent until proven guilty is woven deeply into the fabric of our law. It would be of serious concern to me if any significant fraction of Harvard Law graduates were dismissive of the rights of “criminals.” I freely admit the shortcomings of the US, historically and currently. However, I think the emphasis on human rights in our system of values is fundamentally important.</p>
<p>Second, it has to be an embarrassment for Harvard College that one of their graduates who had gone on to Harvard Law School wrote of her time at Harvard Law School, “I just wanted to write down everything the professor said and memorize it.” </p>
<p>When the PISA results first came out, I said they didn’t really matter (on the CC thread about that). I continue to think so. American eighth graders have been “behind” the rest of the world’s eighth graders for at least 50 years. American Ph.D.s have not been behind the rest of the world’s Ph.D.s over that same period.</p>
<p>^^^ Re the PISA results: And, of course, the US is educating a much more diverse body of students, with (supposedly) more open access to education for all, than in many of the nations with higher scores.</p>
<p>Husband was just on GMA really with George Stefanopolus (sp?) just there to promote his new fiction novel. So opportunistic, don’t think I’d like to be friends with this family.</p>