I too don’t get why you think Hunt is calling Chua a liar. There’s no reason to believe she’s not truthful about how she raised her family.
You don’t have to care about the family. But given that Amy Chua chose to write a book about the way she raised her kids, other people are certainly free to have and express an opinion about it.
Only barely in some cases, not in others.
% white of domestic students:
40.7 MIT
41.0 Stanford
48.9 Harvard
51.7 Princeton
52.5 Yale
In college, this may be better renamed as the “pre-med F”.
I’m Asian and played violin and piano, and would have played tennis if I was any good at it. In my case, it wasn’t that my parents forced these upon me, but that they didn’t really know of any other options, or had the experience to guide me in other sports or instruments. I remember I tried playing soccer a lot as a kid, but no one in my family really knew anything about soccer. Piano and violin are some of the most well known instruments, and I doubt even after I was playing in symphony orchestras, my parents could tell you the difference between a french horn and a tuba, for example.
I agree with Pizzagirl’s post #90 (with the exception of the remarks about Chua’s husband; although it seems to me that he should have intervened at a few spots, I would not want to reach conclusions about him based on Chua’s writing).
doubtful, I agree that Chua finds the book lucrative, though not from my purchase. I am not even buying it when it’s 70% off. I will not spend 5 cents for it. If it gets down to a penny, I might spring for that. But I wonder what source you have for the idea that Chua finds the reaction to her book humorous?
Hunt said my “defense” of her was to call her a liar. I obviously did not call her a liar. I understand that communication requires all sorts of strategies. Truth and lie make a very simple dichotomy. I wouldn’t pretend to know all of Chua’s purposes, but one on them may have been to out racism, one of them may have been to get her kids into Ivies, one of them may have been self-promotion, one of them may have been to acknowledge the complexity of any single approach to child raising, one of them may have been to say that Western civilization means squat to her.
Exactly. I don’t care how Amy Chua raised her family. I can appreciate her children’s success without extolling her methods.
Yes, people can express their opinions. I understand that people are empathetic for posters on CC that are living ‘it’. But I suspect that some of the interest comes from misplaced anger at how it affects the competitive field for admissions and jobs.
MiamiDAP post #99, it’s not the practicing while on “vacation” that bothers people–not at all. It’s the enforced, lengthy practice to the exclusion of seeing one of the most important sites in the world, no matter what one’s culture. This would have been inexplicable even if either of the girls had played at Paderewski’s level, and all evidence suggests that they do not.
To me another core part of the Parthenon story was that Chua’s parents (maybe her in laws too - I don’t remember) were there. They wanted to go enjoy the Parthenon with the family / their granddaughters, but instead they were forced to choose between a) sitting at the hotel twiddling their thumbs or b) going by themselves, which defeats the purpose of why they were brought along on a family vacation. There is such a self-absorbed selfishness in this act by Chua to hold the entire family hostage, such an unwillingness to be flexible and recognize that there were other people on this trip who had desires, too.
Yes, exactly, thanks for the point you have made in your post #109, Pizzagirl! Even if one argues that no harm came to the girls from missing the Parthenon when they had the opportunity to see it–implausible as that would be–there is still the issue of the disrespect for the grandparents. Something has gone wrong in a family if the grandparents have to beg for time with their grand-daughters–and worse, if they don’t get the time.
mamalion, I don’t think it can be argued that Western civilization “means squat” to Chua, when one looks at the piano and violin pieces that the daughters were playing. These are Western instruments, and as far as I could tell, the majority of the pieces played by the daughters were Western; even the egregious Little White Donkey is a Western peice, I am pretty sure. The Parthenon incident was a case of prioritizing moderately well executed Western musical culture (with zero interruptions) over seeing one of the highest accomplishments of classical civilization, and over having consideration for the feelings of the grandparents (the Rubenfelds).
MiamiDAP, I think you are missing something here. Clearly you care about this family since you have posted more than once in this thread. Ms Chua made the effort to put the story of the way she treated her daughters out to the public and was very successful in her effort to cash in on her self reported (IMO) abusive behavior. Since the girls have gone on to Ivy league schools and apparently successful lives, many seem to have bought in to her recipe for creating the only kind of kids they think are worth having.
I could turn your question around and ask why we should care about the way you have raised your daughter? You have posted the story of your recipe for a successful child many (many!) times, seemingly at every opportunity. It’s great that you are happy with every single choice you and your daughter have ever made but I have to wonder why it’s important enough to keep repeating.
I see Amy Chua as made from the same mold as Oprah or any of the other celebrities who have cashed in on their weight loss (or the lack thereof).
Raising kids is hard. If someone is willing to pay you to tell you how- why not?
Do you folks really believe that Slimfast or Weight Watchers or any of the other miracles out there are “news”? Weight loss is a medically simple process- take in fewer calories than you are burning off and you will lose weight.
Similarly, Amy has taken a process which in the old days was considered pretty simple- raising your kids- and figured out how to make money at it. It doesn’t mean that you should do what she did. It doesn’t even mean that SHE did what she says she did. It does mean that there is a desperate or anxious or unhappy parent out there who thinks that by spending 10 bucks on a book all their parenting problems will be solved.
Of course it’s relevant that her kids ended up at Harvard. Nobody is buying a book which purports to tell you how to get your kids into Hofstra. Of course it’s relevant that they vacationed in Greece. Nobody is buying a parenting book from someone whose vacations consist of renting a lean-to at the local state park and paying $3 to shower. Of course it’s relevant that her kids play piano. Nobody is spending money to learn how to get their kids to spend their free time at the mall and taking selfies.
Miami- you don’t get it, nobody cares about Amy Chua. They buy the book under the delusion that it will help them make better choices for their own families. Amy is laughing all the way to the bank- she doesn’t need your empathy on top!
Well, it’s certainly possible that Amy Chua exaggerated her own awfulness for some reason. Based on some of the interviews that I recall after the book came out, I think she was surprised at the negative reactions she got to some of the anecdotes.
Oddly, her self-described awfulness has enabled other Asian families to defend their own strictures by pointing out that they’re not anything near what she says she did.
Yes. She did something weird in Greece. So? She’s mocking herself. You should try it some time ; it’s good fun. You’ve never made any questionable or over the top parenting moves that your children rib you for annually at the holiday dinner table? We certainly have. I think we all have – repeatedly. I’m not trying to be an apologist for Chua, but all she did was write a book about her M.O. as a parent which isn’t hugely different than what we’re doing here, except that she didn’t do it anonymously, she used hyperbole to add interest and she got paid a whole lot more for it than we do. I’m fairly certain she wouldn’t have poked fun at herself in this way if her kids were basket cases and her family was coming unglued. Her book was entertainment with large nugget of truth about a cultural stereotype. That’s why it sold well. That’s why we’re still talking about it. Interesting.
There seems to be a difference of opinion here on whether Amy Chua promoted her style of parenting as a method to be emulated by others. That’s certainly how the book was promoted. What her actual intentions were, I don’t know.
Note: interestingly, if you look at (for example) the Amazon page for the book now, it is being promoted differently than it was when it first came out.
Chua’s timing was brilliant. Her self-promotion was brilliant. Who cares if her techniques work or not- the book appeals to both the people who think she’s horrifying and the people who think she’s better than Benjamin Spock.
Take a walk into your nearest Barnes and Noble some day and look at the parenting section… there’s gold in them thar hills.
iIRC, there was no epiphany at the end. There was not a “I looked back and realized the world would not have fallen apart if I had let my kid have a bathroom break during piano / smiled and thanked my 4 yo for her hand-drawn Mothers Day card / skipped piano practice that one afternoon and seen the Parthenon.” There was no “I regret the times we fought over a stupid piano piece” or “now I see the value in letting them choose their own ways” or “a sleepover might not have been so bad.” And there certainly is no “I’ve come to realize that there’s more to life than getting into Harvard and always being number one.”
As an Asian parent myself, I am pretty upset with Chua. What she has been doing to her children is tantamount to child abuse, and she gave a big black mark to the Asian community.
If you vary two degrees or more from standard then you get criticized. General stereotype is that Asians do more so they are pushing their kids and African do less so they are ruining their kids. On other side, its totally okay for parents and coaches to make kids practice their sport all day, that’s determination.