Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior...

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by ElectricFetus, Jan 14, 2011.

  1. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Was browsing through news sites and came up this article called "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior"
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html

    What a pile of BS. The main idea is to work the child hard, force them into extensive study and practices, mind you not practice at sports or drama, because for some reason those things a less valuable than violin or piano.

    I am both against an for this: the problem I have with this is not the means to make the the child but the fundamentally flawed philosophies this bitch presents to using those means. There no perfect parenting technique, if all parents would follow this egotistical bigoted selfish bitch's philosophy the world would have no sports and the only music would be violins and piano based! Mind you no sports does sound nice (no jocks) but I would assume the obesity epidemic would only get worse and that pianos and violins don't make an orchestra.

    The best parenting technique is the one fit for the child, not fitting the child to the technique. Sure for many children who can't stick to it (and most can't), forcing them into extensive practice and study is what they need, but some children might not want to play the piano, ok then 3 hours a day practicing guitar instead, and some children might love to act, ok making them practice their line ad nausuem. Now the above is just a correction to her philosophy: find what your child likes and make them stick to it hard, rather than you choose what they like and make them stick to it hard. Next that bitch will be saying shes going to make her children doctors come hell or high water. She takes pride in making sure ever one of her children master piano, serious piano? If your going to work your child to the bone do it for a skill that more likely to matter, like a second language for example, not piano, its most likely a useless skill and they did not even like it to begin with! Shit even a sport is usually worth more than piano at least the child will be exercising and develop good health habits! Lets say your child loves to paint and does so on his/her own prerogative, you should only encourage it, not force them to play piano instead! If it leads to a life as a graphical designer or cartoonist or even (god forbid) an artist, that what your child might be happiest with, accept it and encourage them even force them to find their potential. Now I not saying you should let everything else slide, if they do poorly academically that what you should work them day and night on with a whip if you have to: make sure they keep their grades up, have them master a sport or two to stay health and fit through life and make sure they master several side skills that are useful like cooking, cleaning, mechanical and electronic repair, after all that and they still love to paint or sculpt, let them, force them, if they end up artists they will at least have the skills and education to not be poor artists.

    Next she suggest verbally abusing your child, again in actually I have nothing against this... depending on the child. Some child will take the shame and slander of their parents constructively and study, work harder, and correct their mistakes, some children won't care what their "dipshit" parents think or say and some children will shot themselves. Should I take this opportunity to point out that Asian children have stereotypically high suicide rates? I take the same stance with physically assaulting the child with spankings or belting, for some children this is what your force to resort to, for others its too far and for some they will rarely if ever drive you too it. Start your way with the benign and work your way down to hell, see how far your child takes you.

    Next she says things like how your child owes you, I prefer to think of it as you owe your child for bringing another mouth to feed into this shithole of a world and that its your duty and responsibility to raise that child into a functional and successful adult to add something of benefit to this world, but I guess that because I'm not a selfish bitch like she is!

    Finally I'm not one to defend "Western" parenting, it has it problems and I pointed them out before but "Eastern" parenting (or as this bigot likes to call it "Chinese" parenting) isn't necessarily better, it has it problems and I'm advocating merely adapting your parenting to each child and being diligent, tireless and willing to do anything to not fail your child.
     
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  3. birch Valued Senior Member

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    i don't agree with that bitch either BUT there are some things asian parents do right in general. they do expect higher standards but usually they also provide the means and help to do it.

    if you push someone too hard and especially in ways that they are unable to perform, it will just end in failure anyways. there has to be a realization at some point that it's not always a lack of discipline but that people have different abilities.

    you have to understand though that not all parents are like that. there are plenty of average people in every population or parents that understand the particular needs of their child.
     
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The right-wing has a strange love affair with this kind of authoritarian behavior, it's on par with slavery on the moral compass. It does make children that are accomplished, but whether you can call that successful depends on what you value in life.
     
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  7. dbnp48 Q.E.D. Registered Senior Member

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    She was very "in your face" but the key point she made was that Chinese mothers assume their kids are tough and can be driven to excel where American parent assume their kids are fragile and will dissolve into a puddle of low self-esteem if exposed to even mild criticism. She also said she is lavish with praise when her kids do succeed.
     
  8. JuNie Registered Senior Member

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    Chinese girl I went to school with killed her mother. She said she was under too much pressure so she stabbed her mother to death with a knife. And another Chinese kid I went to school with is clinically insane; driven there by his family. Yeah...great mothers indeed.
     
  9. birch Valued Senior Member

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    5,077
    a lot of things are generational. the kids these days in most countries do not prescribe exactly to what their parents did or do. they will raise their children somewhat differently from what they experience and learn what to do and what not to do. that goes for most people

    for instance, kids these days are less sexist and authoritarian in general than previous generations across the board in almost all countries. in short, they are a lot nicer (in general) than their parents were and in some very good ways, more sane. lol

    one must understand that people in previous generations were much more authoritarian and bigoted in general no matter what society. there was a lot more abuse that was considered okay too.
     
  10. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    It should be noted that not all asain mothers are like this, in fact many consider her exceptionally strict even by their standards, and even they are keen to call her bigoted an racist!
    http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2011/01/16/the_chinese_mom_controversy/?page=1
    http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/01/15/tiger-mother-chua-gets-mixed-reviews-in-china/
    http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2042535,00.html?xid=rss-mostpopular

    I ultimately think she made such a bigoted, egocentric and down right offensive article purely to get people interested in her book, smart bitch. These days its a well known fact that controversy sells.

    I disagree, SOME kids are tough and SOME kids are fragile, and no I don't think race or gender are viable indicators for which is which! Raising children in general with either parenting philosophy will fail some kids. Producing problems like lazy slackers on one side or suicidal depressives on the other. The best parenting philosophy is one that is adapted to each child, a "Jeet Kune Do" of parenting if you will.

    You can't let some dingbat bitch that wrote a parenting book tell you what to do (and this goes for all those parenting books, I hate them all!) you must set out a few simple goals for you child (want them to have healthy habits, attitudes and to be good at a career in life that they will be happy with, etc) and then gather all the teaching and raising technique, removed the annoying philosophies that come with this techniques, and try those techniques and see which ones work best for your child as they grow and develop.
     
  11. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Cough. Not, er, just them. :shy:
     
  12. dbnp48 Q.E.D. Registered Senior Member

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  13. aplcr0331 Trained Killer Registered Senior Member

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    My Emotional Response

    Since the article istself touts the Chinese treatment of its children, we can start there: How about the Chinese policy of one-child? How many forced abortions are performed in China each year? Female infanticide does not seem like a motherly attribute, but maybe I'm just culturally insensitive. Abandonment and sex-selective abortions are really just ways to make sure Chinese kids excel, it's not a bad thing.

    I wonder how the decidely urban Ms. Chua views her own countries treatment of those outside of urban areas? Rural Chinese (most of the population) are treated as second class citizens. I guess being a good mom only applies to urban Chinese? What if a Chinese mom practices that devil worshipping practice of Falun Gong? Can she be a good Mom? No she can't because in China she is persecuted for her beliefs. Religous freedom is awesome, just not in the land of great moms.

    I'll apologize for American moms of the last 100 years. They lost their minds and some of their focus went on to things like; The right to vote, the right to initiate divorce proceedings, the rigth to their own bodies, the right to make decisions regarding pregnancy, the right to own land, and the fight for broader employment and more equal pay. I can see where a Chinese mom would view these things as minor in the grand scope of having a violin playing pianist in the family.

    Chinese students certainly are at very high academic levels. I'm especially impressed with their insight into plagiarism. Here's an excerpt from the an article I found on the subject:

    "Some examples include an associate professor at Tongji University who resigned from his position after plagiarizing a test given to his students from a test given at another college; the vice president of Southwest Jiaotong University, who was found guilty of lifting large parts of his doctorate dissertation from the work of a Nobel-nominated Chinese economist; and the president of Wuhan University of Technology, who was alleged to have copied the work of a Chilean scientist in a paper submitted to a national science conference.) Understanding why plagiarism and a lack of academic integrity are embedded in the Chinese higher education system is important for understanding why China will find it difficult to take its economic growth to the next level."

    More here if you are interested on the educational honesty (and ability) of Chinese students. The Chinese view of academics is probably what we should emulate, but their cavelier attitude towards cheating is almost comical. That would explain why everyone gets A's. Links on Chinese students cheating, here, here and here, oh and one more here.

    ** edit:I can't post links so just google Chinese student cheating, you'll be impressed by how good they are it **

    It's pretty interesting that Ms. Chua is able to raise her kids in such a manner that affords them the amount of success that they are attaining. How about a little acknowledgment that the very reason she's able to raise such great children is because they are in the greatest country on earth, with the greatest moms (and Dads) on earth.
     
  14. dbnp48 Q.E.D. Registered Senior Member

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  15. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    Even if she's asian, I kind of like her philosophy of parenting. I am okay with this bitch.
     
  16. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Asians (particularly Chinese) have a LONG history of studying hard to achieve (the Mandarins) - so this is a part of their culture. I know Japanese who get up at 6am to get ready for school, come home at 5pm, have dinner, then go back to school until 11pm for "daily review". They don't get 3-4 months off per year (which pretty much erases 80% of everything learned the year previously).

    Did you know Berkley used to offer placements that reflected "race". So, 12% of the population is "Black", Berkley offered 12% placements to "Blacks". 3% is Asian, so 3% of the placements were Asian. Whites, Latino, etc.... a few years ago they decided this wasn't fair and just cut "race" out of their prerequisites. A year later the percentage of Asians at Berkley moved from 3% to >40%.

    So, the reason this woman was newsworthy is because many "races" (we'll just say sub cultures in America) need to change their culture regarding education.
     
  17. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Well, if this is "Chinese mother syndrome" then I think they're doing a lot right. Maybe I wouldn't be quite so strict, but for sure this is better than a lot of Westerners.

    (In actual point, I have no idea whether Chinese mothers really do this or not, although I suspect the stereotype isn't completely wrong either. I also haven't bothered to look up whether or not the woman is actually Chinese, although I guess the relevance of that to her argument is actually nil. Is her name actually Chua? Guess she is then. Or not. There we are.)
     
  18. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    She sucks. You can be both highly disciplined and kind. She was just plain abusive. Holding your kids to high standards is fine, throwing fits and giving punishment if they come even second best is not.
     
  19. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Well of course they are doing a lot right, that's why they got the highest test scores in the world, but they are clearly doing something wrong as well that why they have the highest suicide and depression rates in the world.

    Also here are some Asian's perspective on her teaching style:
    http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/20/lac.su.tiger.mother.scars/index.html
    http://21cb.net/2011/01/14/asian-american-female-suicide/
    http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=c2b8f3a43bbe3e0445f23274028d24a7
    http://www.chinspirations.com/mhsourcepage/was-amy-chua-right-about-parenting-my-answer
    http://technorati.com/women/article/amy-chuas-book-on-model-minority/page-1/




    I agree but I think another aspect is the fundamental selfishness of her, that her children must pay her for her love, that children owe their parents everything, that parents always know best and children can never teach the parent. Perhaps that is Confucian philosophy there, aaah tradition.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2011
  20. dbnp48 Q.E.D. Registered Senior Member

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  21. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed to the central points of EF and VI - there is a middle ground: ultimately an extreme semi-Hawk strategy on this matter is doomed to fail, since not every person can be in first place.
     
  22. JuNie Registered Senior Member

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    Chinese girl I went to school with stabbed her mother to death because she was too strict.
    Another Chinese kid in my grade, named Jimmy, is now clinically insane; don't know if that's due to the strictness of his parents but he himself claimed his parents were extremely strict.

    I'd rather not have parents like this. It's one thing to make sure your kid does his school work etc. It's another thing to pressure a kid to the point where she wants to stab you to death.
     
  23. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Any woman anywhere who can put up with men are by far superior humans.
     

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