<p>While the views in this book may seem a little extreme I think a lot of patents could learn from this. Now I’m obviously not a parent and do not have parenting experience but let’s face it, America sucks lately. Kids are falling behind in every academic category and its really sad. Now to get better results parents do not need to become crazy strict chinese moms but as a whole they need to do a hell of a lot better job than they are doing now.</p>
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<p>So did I and still do. As long as innovative ideas are generated/implemented here, we will be the leader into the future. Disciplined followers are welcome. Don’t mess up with our education system. However, I do see the downside of a not-well-educated mass when they enjoy what sciences and technologies bring but don’t believe them (that may show in election time).</p>
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<p>Even greater embarassment for Yale Law School to hire her as their faculty. Here’s the biggest issue in my opinion. We spend all our energy to raise a critical thinking/creative kid, at times at the expense of practical skills/efficiency. Yet the cream job goes to a “parrot” Is this a pattern or an exception?</p>
<p>@Iglooo, #1143. I gave Chua the benefit of the doubt that she had changed between law school and her appointments at Duke and Yale. But then I haven’t read her articles or books related to the law yet.</p>
<p>As a parent, I have never accepted the premises of the self-esteem movement. I believe that a mature person should be able to make an accurate assessment of himself and be honest about his strengths and weaknesses. I don’t tell my kids they’ve done a great job if they haven’t. That doesn’t mean I tell them the brutal truth either. Most importantly, I hate sore losing and excuse-making. There will always be someone better, and children need to understand that and be able to be gracious in defeat. Part of a proper response to defeat is to accept that you lost, but put it into a proper perspective. It’s not the end of world, there will be other opportunities, and the child can keep practicing and working hard to improve. </p>
<p>At a recent sporting event, my child was being a sore loser. Since that had happened the previous event also, we had spent the entire week talking about the proper reaction to losing. But there she was, throwing her things and blaming anything and everything, including the clock! I firmly told her to stop the fit immediately, and said something to the effect of “You lost, there were other girls faster than you today, and that’s all there was to it. You just have to keep practicing and working hard.” </p>
<p>Well, that evening an e-mail was sent out to the parents about only speaking positive things to our kids, blah blah. I’m quite certain it was directed at me because of that exchange where I told her she had lost and to deal with it. (Since it’s an individual-type sport, her loss was her own so it’s not as though my telling her that she lost would have been the same as telling other kids they had lost when their parents wanted them to think they’d won.) Apparently, that was a mean and horribly negative thing to say. Frankly, I don’t care if every other parent in the world wants to allow losing fits and excuse-making, and if they all want to tell their kids they’re the best and are going to be the next sports superstar. They can do as they see fit, but they should also let me do as I see fit.</p>
<p>So I agree with the posters who’ve said that when the kids were young, other people felt they were too strict or harsh as parents, but when the kids were teenagers, people tended to appreciate the results of that parenting. That was my experience with my other two. However, while Chua is extreme, we accept stricter parenting from Asians because we attribute cultural reasons to it. But as an American, I can’t even be a little bit of a tiger without getting criticized.</p>
<p>I appreciate your anecdote GFG and the way you handled your daughter’s disappointment. I think the coddling has gone way too far in general in our generation as parents. </p>
<p>As far as the self-esteem movement, I have pointed out before that, unfortunately, people have come to equate high self-esteem with narcissism. Psychologists who specialize in this area will tell you that authentic self-esteem requires a realistic self-evaluation and an awareness of others. A person with true high self-esteem is NOT ego-centric as is a narcissist, who masks their low-esteem and requires constant external approbation. It is the latter condition which has been fomented by the “you are special” movement. True self-esteem comes from a feeling of competence as a person and is closely related to effort and self-discipline.</p>
<p>Anyway, I just listened to this interview with Amy Chua and it has reinforced my perception that the criticism of her is way overblown. Her parenting philosophy seems, much more reasonable, imo, if you listen for the nuance.</p>
<p>[NPR</a> Media Player](<a href=“http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=132908322&m=132903886]NPR”>http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=132908322&m=132903886)</p>
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<p>This quote actually illustrates that some of her values are actually polar opposites of Confucianism/Neo-Confucianism as basing one’s self-worth or expectations on the amount of money one has/spends is considered a sign one is “uncivilized”, has “base values”, and “greedy”. </p>
<p>If anything, many Confucian-oriented Chinese I’ve known actually associate this mentality with the “low-class/uncultivated” Chinese and “one of the worst aspects of American/Western culture”. Her family background would certainly fit the profile of the “low-class/uncultivated” Chinese and demonstrate reasons why many scholar-gentry elite wrote anti-merchant/business class rants well into the 19th century even after the prohibition on merchant/business class sons/grandsons taking the Imperial Service exams had been lifted since 1461. </p>
<p>She’s fulfilling the very Confucian stereotype of the merchant/business class which caused them to be regarded with disdain and even suspicion. This stereotypical mentality was on reason why those in the merchant/business class were regarded as the lowest of the 4 commoner classes(1. Scholar 2. Farmer 3. Artisan 4. merchant/business) and why there was a ban on sons and grandsons of merchants taking the Imperial Civil Service exams until 1461.</p>
<p>I agree with your approach, TheGFG. Your story reminds me of something that happened years ago with S1. At the time, he was very interested in Tae Kwon Do. The school had periodic tournaments, and he and his best friend participated in one. They were about 10 at the time. Before it started, I noticed an interaction between the other boy and his father that struck me as strange. The father said, Good luck, son; not a strange thing to say, but there was an intensity about it that I though odd, because the tournament was really a low-key thing, just the students in this particular school. There were a number of events, all divided into age/belt groups, so many trophies were handed out. In one event that both boys participated in, they did not win any of the three trophies awarded. It was clear to me, even not being an expert in martial arts, that the three who won were significantly better than my son and his friend. The other boys’ parents came up after the event, loudly and bitterly complaining that they boys were cheated, they should have won trophies. My son asked me what I though, and I said that as far as I could tell, S1 and friend were in about 5th/6th place, that the judges’ rankings seemed fair to me. S1 was perfectly happy with this; all he wanted to know was that things were fair. He continued with Tae Kwon Do until he earned a black belt. The other boy quit shortly after this tournament.</p>
<p>S1 participated in another tournament, and won two first-place, huge trophies. One of them he got by default, because there were no other competitors in that event/age/belt category. He asked me to mark the one he’d really won, because that one meant a lot to him, while the other one didn’t.</p>
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<p>I think you may be putting an unfair spin on Chua’s intention in this incident. As I understand it, and even more-so after listening to her talk about this in that interview, she was telling her daughters that she expected more effort and consideration from them when they were giving her (or anybody) a gift; it wasn’t a question of material value. Maybe she was indicating that she had worked hard to earn the money that went into paying for the elaborate elements of their birthday parties, or she was just illustrating how she went all out to make sure they had a happy special bday experience. It seems reasonable to me for her to teach them that lack of effort is indeed noticed and has consequences.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s schizophrenic to say that our society is excessively permissive, but at the same time, Chua goes to far in the other direction.</p>
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<p>Embarrassing to Harvard, but lethal for Yale, where she’s a prof. What kind of professor thinks that way?!?</p>
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<p>I agree that this was a very poor rationalization for why her Ds were obligated to give her a birthday card that meets her standards. If the scenario involved <em>thank you</em> cards written by the Ds for a party she gave them, and which fulfilled their desires for a party in terms of opulence, then I might agree that they <em>owed</em> her more than a dashed-off minimal effort to say “thank you.” </p>
<p>But if the elaborateness of the birthday parties she threw them were Chua’s ideas or done in collaboration with her Ds, I don’t see how she is <em>owed</em> something done the way she wants it on her own birthday. That seems very self-centered and ungracious, and not a good example to set for her Ds.</p>
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<p>Thats all fine and good after the fact, but it is not how she describes the account in her book. She wrote that she “threw” the card back at Lulu, after chastising her efforts, which even made her husband break out in a nervous sweat.</p>
<p>Bay, are you sure she said that in the book? Or is it the interpretation of one of the many articles there have been spinning the book. </p>
<p>This is what RedDinosaur quoted above as coming from the book:</p>
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<p>I haven’t read the book so I don[t know if there is something more to this, but it doesn[t surprise me that the husband was feeling a little guilty if he condoned the lack of thought that went into the card.</p>
<p>Amy Chua’s birthday sounds like it was an ordeal for everybody. I’m getting a stomach ache just thinking about it. I’m imagining being a four year old and having my mother give me back a card I made for her and telling me to make her a better one. I’m imagining looking at my father and seeing his obvious discomfort but watching him once again do nothing to stop my mother’s behavior. It must have been a horrible day for everybody.</p>
<p>Here is the entire passage, Wildwood, it is plastered all over the internet:</p>
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<p>Her “sour face” drawing and her description of the “stupid” party favors made me sad for the little girls, too.</p>
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<p>It is not “my spin”, but a common reaction I’ve grown to expect from traditional Confucian/Neo-Confucian oriented Chinese based on my own observations and from my academic study of Chinese history. </p>
<p>A reaction borne of the fact her rationale for her reaction on the basis of “how much she spent” exhibits the very mentality disdained and detested by the elite educated stratum of traditional Chinese society throughout the Imperial era and to some extent…into the present. Many who subscribe to such values tend to regard people who exhibit mentalities like “Chua” as “uncouth” people with “base values”.</p>
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<p>…and of traditional American society!</p>
<p>a book calls out american parents and they all work together to hate on it. Kinda like right after 9/11</p>
<p>@Bay – thanks for posting the complete excerpt since the portion posted by Wildwood didn’t really capture what happened.</p>
<p>The fact that Sophia later describes the event as not being that big of a deal tells me that this kind of tirade from her mother was nothing out of the ordinary.</p>
<p>I’ve heard Amy Chua in interviews crediting herself with starting a national dialog about Eastern verses Western parenting. I would say what she has really started is a national dialog about child abuse.</p>
<p>How many parents here have never lost it in front of our kids? Have never said anything we were sorry later? It almost seem like people are taking the opportunity to get on here to show how their approach is so much better, but only on one very specific situation, what about other situations when YOU have mishandled? I don´t think anyone is a model parent 100% of time, or even 80% of time. No one has posted (or would ever) when he/she has screamed at their kids, brought random partners home, verbally abused their spouse in front of their kids, accidentally made their kids feel bad, not be responsible enough to save money for their kids´college, left their kids home by themselves, allowed their kids to go spring break before they were even 18…</p>