http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html
American audiences were mostly critical, bringing up the usual arguments against over-restrictive parenting: It stifles creativity and ambition, creates children who are capable but miserable, creates a lousy family environment, etc.
For a through going-over of arguments and counter-arguments, see these eight short editorials:
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/01/13/is-extreme-parenting-effective?ref=opinion
They are all worth reading. There are two points not mentioned in detail above that I find interesting:
- In Chua's WSJ article, she makes the important point that the standards to which children are held by their parents implies the parents' assessment of their child's ability. So if parents have high (but attainable) standards for their children, this tells the child that her parents think that she is good enough to meet those standards, and vice-versa for lower standards. In this sense, high standards can function as a form of praise.
- In my assessment, Chua's training regime for her children leaves out skills essential to success, and things that are far less amorphous than "creativity" or "ambition". One such skill is an ability to prioritize. Chua selects the activities in which her children participate and then tells them exactly how good they must be. The children learn how to practice and gain skill, but completely lack the skill to select the thing that they need most to practice.
This is an extremely subtle skill to develop, and it involves knowing how good you are at any given thing, how good you need to be (which is itself a question of considerable subtlety), and the time it takes to become x% better for each thing. Only knowing all of these things can one make a proper tradeoff: Every time you practice one thing, you don't practice all others. I would argue that this skill is at least as crucial to success as the ability to practice, especially in a society where multi-skill individuals are valued as highly as in ours.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/opinion/18brooks.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general
In short, raising a well-socialized child is an important skill, one that must be learned from diligent practice, and one that Chua is not teaching her children.
I'm curious about everyone else's take on this. How does this discussion fit into how you will raise / would have raised / have raised your children?
8 comments:
I'm glad you brought this up, Charlie. I heard Amy Chua on the Diane Rehm show about a week ago and found it a very thought-provoking conversation, so I plan on reading the book (part of my winter studies - been doing a lot of reading lately). That interview can be heard here:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-01-12/amy-chua-battle-hymn-tiger-mother
The author makes it clear that the Wall Street Journal excerpt is one of the tougher sections of the book. While she doesn't back off, she attempts throughout the conversation to clarify that she doesn't have all the answers, and that she and her approach change throughout the book as well.
From what I heard in that interview, and what I've read online, the points you make show just what's missing from such a parenting strategy.
I plan on reading the book soon to get a more thorough understanding of her approach, and see if those points are addressed by her at all. There's certainly something to be learned from her experience, and she also has a reputation for being a very good writer.
Anyone else plan on reading this?
I would also like to read the book.
I agree with most of what she is saying. Parenting is tough and not for the faint of heart. I feel a lot of parents take the easy way out - video games and tv. It's funny the way life is, young "inexperienced" people are the ones who have kids, and yet they are supposed to help these new people through life and they're not too far into life themselves.
She said nothing about religion, which I think plays a large part in ones life, maybe she does in the book.
GREAT TOPIC
This is MOM, I'm using Dad's info
Dad here...this is the first I've heard of Amy Chua. She seems too tough on her kids, but it's hard to argue that we (in the US) are raising our children any better. The fact that we continue to slip into third world status would seem to be evidence that she might be right.
As to how Mom and I raised our kids...I like to think we took the middle ground most of the time. Not too strict, not too permissive...and with the umbrella of love covering our efforts. Did it work? I'm satisfied.
You know this parenting style is akin to the outlier perspective. Focus on a few choice objectives and spend more time than the average person on them and you become an over achiever.
Sometimes things are presented in different ways, but are saying the same thing.
Thanks for your thoughts, everyone.
I theme that I am hearing from all of you is that there's no easy answer about how best to parent your child (especially when you yourself are still quite young), and there's a lot of merit to taking middle ground, just to hedge your bets, so to speak. All very true.
The one thing she is teaching her children for sure is how to practice, and the associated virtues, patience and fortitude. Though she may be over-emphasizing it, it is really important, in that once you learn how to practice properly, you can learn to do anything else. Music as a discipline (note: not a hobby) is so effective at teaching this that its hard for me to imagine parenting without it.
On a related note, the simple ability to defer gratification turns out to be a significant predictor of future success. I would say that the ability to practice is very closely related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment
And mom, just for your information, religious faith in China is discouraged in general, and even persecuted, so many immigrants (including all of the ones I know) have no religious faith, and so wouldn't be part of any parenting strategy.
I made a long comment here now that I've read the book, but of course when I went to publish it, it said "the request could not be handled." There goes that manifesto. Rather than retype it all I'll just give a synopsis which is probably the better idea anyway...
I highly recommend reading the book as it's an interesting and fast read (I did it in a couple of chunks per day for three days), and it in no way claims to be a manual for how to raise a successful child "the Chinese way."
Instead it is a very specific and personal memoir about a mother and her two very different daughters, and the journey they make together.
The author's leads her to conclude that the Chinese way isn't perfect (and in fact can fail miserably, as in the case of her father), and that any good parenting approach must be adaptable and flexible - including her own.
It's made clear throughout the book that although she and her husband form a united front when it comes to parenting, he adds "a whole other book" worth of input to balance out her style. Other figures, such as the paternal grandmother and Amy's own parents, also have a big influence on the daughters and round them out as strong people all-around. Strong social skills are a big part of it (which both of the daughters clearly have), and the girls are also fortunate to have experienced the kind of travel and exposure to other cultures that most kids never even begin to taste.
She doesn't spend as much time as you might think comparing the Western and Chinese styles as she calls them, even though her husband's approach certainly played a large part. Instead she provides insight into the style she brought to the table (the style more foreign to most people and thus more interesting) through several entertaining anecdotes. Therefore you don't get reminders of how important it is to teach other skills. Forbidding sleepovers (which she does make one exception to, the results of which reinforce her rule) and play-dates doesn't mean overlooking social skills entirely.
One of the things that Wall Street Journal lacks is the sense of humor of the author - her writing style is very much that of an intellectual conversation between herself and you as a friend. She takes you into her confidence as someone who will understand an entertaining exaggeration, and as a result she makes it a fun read.
Sorry if this comment is more of a book report, I'm just attempting to fill in some of the picture the critics have left out.
I've definitely learned some things from her experience, and enjoyed the ride along the way.
Excellent comment, Brian! Thanks for the food for thought. Interesting that she chose to publish an article in the WSJ that you find non-representative of the book as a whole. I guess she's just trying to stir up controversy for the purpose of sales? It seems to have worked.
Funny too that so many people (myself included) viewed the book as a manual rather than just a collection of stories. Clearly, the social uproar that resulted after the book's publication was a pretty violent reaction to some amusing antecdotes.
I don't have a satisfying explanation for why myself and many others took it so seriously. I suppose that it is easy to believe that some one who would subject her children to some of the rules to which they are subjected must be more than just a "casual" adherent to the methods she outlines. But this isn't the case, from what you're saying. Perhaps this further highlights the difference between Chua and the mainstream - that she takes herself somewhat less seriously than they do, which can definitely be a positive when parenting.
Here's the article, Brian.
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/01/27/the-tiger-mother-and-you-are-we-preparing-our-kids-for-a-better-financial-future/
I don't at all mean to say the book is overall a lighthearted look back at parenthood, or that she didn't take her strategy and rules seriously.
What it is is a loving and honest memoir of a woman who raised (and continues to raise) two daughters, with an emphasis on the different techniques and parenting style she used, as well as the challenges to that style and changes she adopted.
And while not a manual in any way, shape, or form, it does feel like an attempt to answer those who have no doubt asked her over the years, "What's your secret?" or those who have remarked on the disproportionate amount of Asian children in Juilliard.
She basically says "this is what I noticed in Chinese mothers from my own upbringing and this is what I've done with my children; I present it as answer because I notice it is dramatically different from the norm in the West. Take from it what you will - here's what happened in my family."
And though she does point out its shortcomings and admit that there is no single right answer that works for everyone, she does profess her opinion that her style (with some tweaking) has worked the best for her - that there is certainly something to be learned from it, something the Chinese style can contribute to parents who want to get a different perspective on parenting their kids.
Why that excerpt in all the newspapers (it looks like it's always the same one)? I'm not sure. Was it chosen by her or by the publisher? Was it meant to inflame the debate, drive up sales, or maybe both?
There's a lot to be gleaned from the small print underneath the title on the book's cover:
"This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. This was *supposed* to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen year-old."
The last two are especially apparent having read the book, and really provide the payoff.
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