Chinese parenting better than the west's ?

martha08

Amy Chua has certainly caused quite a stir with her newly released book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,which claims that Asian approaches to parenting, which are very demanding academically with high expectations for performance, are far superior to Western parenting approaches that are much looser, have fewer expectations for performances, and are overly concerned with the self-esteem, happiness, and the emotions of youngsters.... Read more

Aoifums

I have a slight problem with structuring a child's life so they have barely time to breathe between school, sport and other extra ciricular activities. I don't know a single adult who can keep going and going without stopping to calm down. So I don't see how children (who tend not to have the best coping skills) can expected to do this. Add constant pressure to be at the top and it sounds like a terrible mix for anyone, especially kids. Their suicide rate really doesn't surprise me.

January

Martha, your link is not working.

Deliverance

martha08 wrote: »

Amy Chua has certainly caused quite a stir with her newly released book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,which claims that Asian approaches to parenting, which are very demanding academically with high expectations for performance, are far superior to Western parenting approaches that are much looser, have fewer expectations for performances, and are overly concerned with the self-esteem, happiness, and the emotions of youngsters.... Read more

Sure, lets put all our kids on the stage at the next olympics and make them perform for the world stage to boast about how they have progressed as a social based society whilst ironically trying to comply to an economic market that is dominated by the 'west'. Then put the main singer up as the pretty one up over the one that actually had the beautiful voice. It's all about the political image to the extreme.

Then we can also enforce rules on our population so that when they become adults they learn to comply and are encouraged to only have 1 child to cut down the population 'problem'.

Plus we might even go as far as creating a regime that demands excellence in a controlled dictatorship based on the chinese constitution. A constitution that professes free speach as long as this 'free' speech does not go against the regime in place (I read the constitution).

Does she address any of this at all? Or is it mere arrogance, mere lack of education in the real sense. Why is she specifically making comparisons to the west? All striking questions which smack of cultural ignorence in it's best form.

What strikes me is the cultural difference that the author is missing. She is most likely edited and controlled in her opinion in the first place, plus as a fact I am working with chinese phd students who are doing their phd over here because there phd work is not facilitated in their own country.

Go figure.

Deliverance

January wrote: »

Martha, your link is not working.

Probably under review by the chinese gov specialists to make sure it fits with their 'open view';)

Deliverance

Aoifums wrote: »

I have a slight problem with structuring a child's life so they have barely time to breathe between school, sport and other extra ciricular activities. I don't know a single adult who can keep going and going without stopping to calm down. So I don't see how children (who tend not to have the best coping skills) can expected to do this. Add constant pressure to be at the top and it sounds like a terrible mix for anyone, especially kids. Their suicide rate really doesn't surprise me.

Plus do they not have an interesting issue which is very concerning i.e. middle aged childless men going out and gunning down and physically attacking kids in schools for some reason? Surely that is a huge social concern?

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chinese_school_attacks

Meleftone

http://specialchildcare-martha.tk/amy-chua-on-parenting-self-esteem/This is the link from the OP

LegacyUser

Bear in mind that the author is Chinese-American, which many have pointed out in their critique of her is materially different from simply Chinese.

OUTOFSYNC

Amy Chua is Chinese - American. She is not from China.

Tabnabs

Whoa, peoples, this is an American book!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/books/20book.html

It's all over American parenting blogs etc.

It's "controversial" and so everybody's talking about it :rolleyes:

cbyrd

And on the flip side you have *experts* saying children are so regimented now that they have no time to use their imaginations or to become bored which is apparently an important part of growing up to.
I have 3 high performing brothers who had normal childhoods it wasn't until they got to about 15 that they had to be pushed a bit more. Music lessons were the norm in our house twice a week.
One is now principal trumpet with the national symphony one is a highly successful composer arranger in LA and one is very high up for his age in Architecture.. the rest of us are just moderately sucessful owning our own businesses and then me
I don't see anything wrong with giving children an interest outside mainstream education, but giving them 15 covering every spare hour of the day is exhausting a child's mind and body.
and sometimes education can dumb down an intelligent child

pickarooney

There's a lot to be said for spending time with your children and encouraging them to have an active interest in music, sports, theatre etc.

On the other hand, there's very little positive to be said for controlling every second of your child's life with no regard to what the child really wants to do to the detriment of his imagination and individuality.

Nevyn

The majority of chinse mothers give up work when they have thier first child.
So the child becomes the focal point of her achivements, the standard by which her sucess is measured. So you get a lot of hot housing, which can mean your child has straigth A and is a wonderkind at something but it can take a huge toll on the relationship between parent and child.

pickarooney

I was under the impression that most Chinese mothers kept on working and the kids were raised by the grandparents but that's only based on a small sample of Chinese people I met

metrovelvet

I thought this mother was Chinese-American?

The Chinese are one of, if not the most successful immigrant groups in America. The gifted public schools are filled with Chinese students. Having pushy mothers paid off for them coming off some of the poorest and demanding immigrant ships in the history of US immigration.

pickarooney

The title should contrast 'Chinese' and 'WASP' (or whatever) in that case as comparing 'Chinese' and 'The West' in a purely American context is nonsensical.

Edit:
There's a full article by Amy Chua here. She comes across as a troll or a psychopath. I don't envy Jed.

martha08

Aoifums wrote: »

I have a slight problem with structuring a child's life so they have barely time to breathe between school, sport and other extra ciricular activities. I don't know a single adult who can keep going and going without stopping to calm down. So I don't see how children (who tend not to have the best coping skills) can expected to do this. Add constant pressure to be at the top and it sounds like a terrible mix for anyone, especially kids. Their suicide rate really doesn't surprise me.

The idea borders around early responsibility, it is not an outright 'box jack in the bottle' treatment.

Deliverance wrote:

Sure, lets put all our kids on the stage at the next olympics and make them perform for the world stage to boast about how they have progressed as a social based society whilst ironically trying to comply to an economic market that is dominated by the 'west'. Then put the main singer up as the pretty one up over the one that actually had the beautiful voice. It's all about the political image to the extreme.

Then we can also enforce rules on our population so that when they become adults they learn to comply and are encouraged to only have 1 child to cut down the population 'problem'.

Plus we might even go as far as creating a regime that demands excellence in a controlled dictatorship based on the chinese constitution. A constitution that professes free speach as long as this 'free' speech does not go against the regime in place (I read the constitution).

Does she address any of this at all? Or is it mere arrogance, mere lack of education in the real sense. Why is she specifically making comparisons to the west? All striking questions which smack of cultural ignorence in it's best form.

What strikes me is the cultural difference that the author is missing. She is most likely edited and controlled in her opinion in the first place, plus as a fact I am working with chinese phd students who are doing their phd over here because there phd work is not facilitated in their own country.

Go figure.

Deliverance, this is exactly the way most Americans feel towards her book. However the stiff cultural, political climate you mentioned, in china pronounces the need for a early performance rather than late blooming, Just like in Africa.

Plus do they not have an interesting issue which is very concerning i.e. middle aged childless men going out and gunning down and physically attacking kids in schools for some reason? Surely that is a huge social concern?

That might as well happen in America. It isn't exclusive.

martha08

Meleftone wrote: »

http://specialchildcare-martha.tk/amy-chua-on-parenting-self-esteem/This is the link from the OP

Thanks Mel

cbyrd wrote:

And on the flip side you have *experts* saying children are so regimented now that they have no time to use their imaginations or to become bored which is apparently an important part of growing up to.
I have 3 high performing brothers who had normal childhoods it wasn't until they got to about 15 that they had to be pushed a bit more. Music lessons were the norm in our house twice a week.
One is now principal trumpet with the national symphony one is a highly successful composer arranger in LA and one is very high up for his age in Architecture.. the rest of us are just moderately sucessful owning our own businesses and then me
I don't see anything wrong with giving children an interest outside mainstream education, but giving them 15 covering every spare hour of the day is exhausting a child's mind and body.
and sometimes education can dumb down an intelligent child

There are lines drawn obviously.

metrovelvet wrote:

I thought this mother was Chinese-American?

The Chinese are one of, if not the most successful immigrant groups in America. The gifted public schools are filled with Chinese students. Having pushy mothers paid off for them coming off some of the poorest and demanding immigrant ships in the history of US immigration.

I couldn't have pointed out more.

pickarooney wrote:

The title should contrast 'Chinese' and 'WASP' (or whatever) in that case as comparing 'Chinese' and 'The West' in a purely American context is nonsensical.

Edit:
There's a full article by Amy Chua here. She comes across as a troll or a psychopath. I don't envy Jed.

Would you prefer the 'Orient' and the 'west'.
..... calling her a psychopath was not in the least necessary

pickarooney

martha08 wrote: »

Would you prefer the 'Orient' and the 'west'.
..... calling her a psychopath was not in the least necessary

No, because that confuses the issue even more. The parenting methods contrasted in the article you didn't link to and the book which is not in the public domain are both practised in the continental United States, not in China or any other part of the 'West' and as such it's very misleading to compare 'East' and 'West', several billion people, based on the antics of one Asian-American control freak.

Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld, professors of law, hardly fit the stereotype of poor, illiterate, Chinese immigrants trying to raise their kids so that they can earn a crust.

..... calling her a psychopath was not in the least necessary

That's the distinct impression her article gave me; necessary doesn't come into it.

metrovelvet

It's hard to understand what she is arguing against until you have a taste of current American parenting. I grew up with immigrants as parents and around immigrants and though a long time ago, no one hesitated to beat the crap out of you for not doing your homework or give you a slap across the gob for cheek. But even then you did not see this kind of strictness among your ordinary Americans. Ever. They were allowed out on the street longer and later. They didnt have to practise as much at music, if they even took music, no one cared if they did their homework or not, etc. It was as my father complained 'the permissive society.'

A few years ago, before I had my son, I was walking in the West Village and I passed by a mother strapping her two year old into the buggy. As she did this she said 'I really appreciate you co-operating with me on this." No one but an American parent would say this.

This is the kind of thing she is arguing against.

And as my dad also said 'The yellow man will rule the world.' Looks like he was right.

martha08

@pickarooney
it is not today news that certain standards of Parenting in America isn't examplary, that certain laws and accepted norms in this country promote the very things they are meant to forestall.

Amy Chua Picks on one major thing; which is that we seize from promoting mediocrity.

planetX

Is it not also something to do with only having one child - all your hopes are pinned on that one child? Do parents here with one child tend to organise their life a bit more, I probably do...

metrovelvet

planetX wrote: »

Is it not also something to do with only having one child - all your hopes are pinned on that one child? Do parents here with one child tend to organise their life a bit more, I probably do...

You might be on to something or it could be you only have one child to invest in. I came across a paper a few years ago which posited that the reason the Italians did so much better in the US than the Irish did was because they tended to be less egalitarian, in that they picked ONE person in the family and invested everything in that one person, time and resources, so that one person could flourish and then later resupplement the family. Unlike the Irish, who conventionally had a clan and liked to share things out equally.

Saying that, if you look at the thread on the LL at the moment about female trailblazers, it is noticeable that there has not been any notable figure to come out of Ireland in recent generations. I dont know if this is the lassitude that comes with wealth or a result of corporal punishment and stricter education codes not being replaced with similar driving ethics.

ztoical

martha08 wrote: »

Amy Chua Picks on one major thing; which is that we seize from promoting mediocrity.

Whats this we thing? Trust me the Irish education system and standards of parenting are nothing like america, or the uk or france or spain or china. And it's a giant pet peeve when people talk about 'Asia' like it's a country.

The book is based on american standards vs China which in itself is stupid as the american education system and parenting is very different from state to state and within different social groups and in China it is very different depending on the region and urban areas vs rural. In urban areas the one child policy is strictly enforced and urban parents tend to be wealthier so with only one child to focus on it's very easy to push that child. In the country side you don't see the same parenting as it's a very different standard of living and most children will only be schooled to a certain age and then be expected to work. China also has a high number of large ethnic groups which all have different parenting methods. China is massive and the differences among its population imense. You can have towns on either side of a gorge that don't speak the same language, so saying mothers from china are raising their children right is using pretty large bursh strokes.

Companies are doing business with China because they can do the work cheap due to the size of their population. The individual is not important infact they are pretty damn disposable so no I don't want to use China as an example of good parenting. Based on numbers by sheer population size they have more mediocare people then not.

Frankly the book sounds like just another take on the Continum Concept by Jean Liedloff which is also utter tosh.

martha08

ztoical wrote:

Whats this we thing?

I am more American than Irish. So i was speaking as an American. I don't know much about the Irish Educational System , i couldn't comment.

Das Kitty

martha08 wrote: »

I am more American than Irish. So i was speaking as an American. I don't know much about the Irish Educational System , i couldn't comment.

Martha, this is an Irish site, whilst it is not only for Irish people, be mindful that the vast majority of users are Irish.

martha08

Was coming to that realization. Thanks.