All day long, people have been telling me about an article headlined: “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.” And I’ve had enough! I’m posting my reaction so that I don’t have to keep talking about it. Getting to the point: the piece is crap. But its writer, Yale Law School Professor Amy Chua, is also a marketing genius. Let me explain….
The article ran in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. It’s an excerpt from her memoir, which hits book stores on Tuesday. With everyone in the Asian American community jabbering about it, she and publisher Penguin Press are getting tons of free publicity for “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”
If, like me, you’ve never heard of this woman, don’t worry. The Wikipedia.org entry about her is oh-so-current. Yes, it just happens to have a link to today’s shrewdly-timed Journal article. Hmmm.
As for the actual piece, all I can say is that Chua is a narrow-minded, joyless bigot. Don’t waste your money on the book. I’ll even spare you the drudgery of reading her essay by giving you highlights from the Journal excerpt:
- Chua begins by explaining that the reason “Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids” is because the children are totally controlled. She doesn’t let her kids do sleepovers, have playdates, be in school plays, watch TV or mess with computer games.
- Her two daughters are also forbidden from choosing their own extracurricular activities. They have to be the top students in every subject except gym and drama. They must bring home A’s.
- Kids need to be relentlessly drilled to achieve. “What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it,” she writes. By the way, taking piano and violin lessons are a must.
- This overachieving — and overreaching — author writes about the time her father inspired her to excellence by telling her that she was “garbage.” A proud product of her upbringing, she once mentioned at a dinner party that she had, in the past, called her own daughter Sophia “garbage” — to the child’s face. Ugh.
The author & her daughters (Wall Street Journal photo)
The self-congratulatory essay goes on and on. You get the idea. Chua buys into the hardcore, traditional Chinese approach to tough love.
This is so sad because we’re talking about values that have nearly ruined so many of us.
Of course, what’s really sad is that Chua is perpetuating very dangerous ideas:
- Haven’t we had enough of over-pressured, guilt-ridden Asian immigrant and Asian-American college students committing suicide and acting out???
- Who gave her the right to define what is means to be “real” Chinese? Do all Chinese people have to behave like this to be authentic?
- If you look at the Wall Street Journal photo of her daughters, they still look like girls to me. Isn’t it frighteningly premature of her to hold them up as examples of her success? Would a good mother really behave like this?
I know casual observers will think Chua knows what she’s talking about because she teaches at Yale, and is a graduate of both Harvard College (magna cum laude) and Harvard Law School.
Well, there’s a dirty little secret about these lunatic, prestige-whoring Chinese parents that Chua represents. For all their lusting after the elitism of Ivy League degrees, what they admire more than anything is financial success. So on that note, I would like to recommend a different book for you to read: “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.”
Yes, the children of Asian immigrants can be happy and...rich!
A dear friend recently gave me a copy and I’m enjoying every page of it. This bestseller has been #1 on both The New York Times and Wall Street Journal lists. Even more than that, “Delivering Happiness” was the most popular gift book item for 2010, according to Publishers Weekly.
This memoir by Tony Hsieh tells how he co-founded the Internet company LinkExchange. He sold it in 1999 for $265 million, when he was 24. Later, he went on to help grow the Zappos.com footwear website into a $1 billion company. Along the way, he revolutionized the shoe business. Oh my goodness, he’s only in his mid-30s!
Tony was NOT a kid who loved his music lessons. He didn't ace Harvard either. Ha!
Like Chua, he’s also the American-born child of immigrants of Chinese heritage (his parents are from Taiwan). He writes about being a kid who was forced to play four musical instruments and pressured to study hard. Like Chua, he went to Harvard, too.
But read the book. The young man had fun! I found his memoir inspiring — and not just because he’s made money while I’m still sitting around counting my tiny stacks of George Washingtons.
I am in awe of people who get outside the box to do something different, something creative and original. Tony — may I call him Tony? — has a fabulous story. He didn’t submit to the browbeating of parental values and immigrant culture. Instead, he took chances, fumbled and made mistakes. That, in turn, gave him the wisdom to trust his personal vision.
But getting back to Chua’s essay. In it, she writes: “I’m happy to be the one hated.”
Poor thing. It’s the only time the word “happy” appears in this excerpt from her book.
As for me, I’m happy to be the one…who is finally happy. I sucked at piano, which my mother made me study because she had been a child too poor for lessons. My grades in college were so bad that one semester, I had a straight D average. Screwing up academically was the only power I had over my dad, a tyrant who wouldn’t let me take art or English courses.
I’ll spare you the rest…for now. You can read more details someday in my memoir. Haha.
Anyway, that’s my rant for tonight. Don’t bother with Chua. Instead, let us go on, with tenderness for ourselves and our children. Let us explore the joys of having a real life.
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And if you want to know why Amy Chua’s messed up — just like us — check out:
“Forget Amy Chua. Bigger fish to stir-fry: 4 ways I’ve been conned by Confucius.”
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On May 12, 2011, Amy Chua spoke for the first time ever to a group of Asian American adults. I was there. My reaction: Amy Chua Can’t Be Trusted.
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Jan. 22, 2012 — Hey, Happy Year of the Dragon to you all! As long as we’re on the topic of Chinese cultural obnoxiousness, maybe you’ll like to check out my post about the dragon. The old boy needs some new moves in the love department because he doesn’t treat his phoenix/woman very well. Click here. ~_~
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Hi Betty -
Just wanted to say thank you for creating this forum space. Like you, I grew up in New Jersey and NYC, the product of a Chinese father and a Korean mother. I have one brother, an Ivy League undergrad who went to medical school on a full scholarship. He did everything “correctly.” Our upbringing was similar to the way Amy raised her kids, although my brother got the lion’s share of attention, being the revered son in an Asian household. I loved painting and drawing but dropped out of my Advanced Placement Art class in senior year of high school, due to pressure from my father, who told me that even if I got into art school, he would never help me pay for it. For him, it came down to going to Ivy League or going to State University. I got into State…I am 31 and live in San Diego now, moved out here five years ago out of a desire to get away from my family and figure out who I am.
Right now I am also fortunate to be in therapy. It is certainly a process. Recently I realized that I am a shopaholic who uses material goods as a way to compensate for the nurturing and love I never received growing up. There are days where I stew over how my parents behaved – even to this day, they still don’t realize how much it hurts me and how rude I find it that they talk of my brother’s accolades and nothing else; as if my life were meaningless. I know that I don’t want to be a victim all my life, that the time has come to step out of that role and into being Me. I waffle back and forth though – I do very well on my own but go to pieces most times I talk to them on the phone. I am blessed to have a very caring, supportive boyfriend and am working on strengthening my relationships with my friends.
In reading these comments, I find the depth and intensity of these issues (and the tragic repercussions for some) takes my breath away. It touches upon my identity as an Asian American woman as well. Despite my shopaholic tendencies, I am not by nature a materalistic, narrow person – something I find common to most of my Asian peers. Neither am I a racist who only wants to hang out with other Chinese and Korean people.
Let’s hope that Amy Chua’s book continues to open both dialogue and minds about what it means to be the children of immigrant parents that we may hold on to the positive aspects of their values and transcend the negative behaviour patterns.
Hi! Jennifer,
We came from different background but I can totally understand about your shopaholic issues. When I looked back, I think I used “shopping, dine out, traveling and spending money” as my therapy instead of going to the real therapy.
Also I have some long time friends who will constantly listening to my whine and I will say they are my therapists with a lot of patience. Thanks for their endless support when I am down.
I don’t buy Amy Chua’s defense on her today show. She is just another liar in parenting!
Excellent response. I heard a review of this book on ‘Fresh Aire’ this afternoon, and it immediately reminded me of a student that I had last semester – she is a first-generation American of Chinese parents, and her research topic was the problems with the Suzuki method. She is a piano-perfomance major, and she hates the piano. When I asked her why, she said it’s because of her mother’s attitude towards it: ‘When your mother stands behind you shouting at you for 2 or 3 hours every day for 17 years, it takes the joy out of playing.’
Chua may be congratulating herself now for her outstanding parenting techniques, but I’d like to talk to her daughters in about 5 years and see how they’re holding up. For their sakes, I hope they can rise above this particular technique.
Therapy? Try suicidal. Some moms are so twisted that they should’ve been sterilized! As several of them in this piece: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/search?q=%22Cantonese+daughters+and+their+moms+-+the+negative+aspect+of+Chinatown%22
I know that blogger. His girlfriend’s Cantonese mom is the worst thing that happened to both him and her.
And for some of the rest of the commenters here, I’m plenty disciplined, WITHOUT having the dragon-bitch from hell breathing fire down my neck. Straight A’s (except in phys ed), AND learning Biblical Hebrew and Staten Bijbel Dutch from my Calvinist uncles. Top that, you whiners!
Amy Chua seems a bit fanatic although she left no-gambling from her list :) Indeed when children were left to their own choices few will make the best from their talents. Proper coaching is needed but having a laugh and relaxation here and there is a need too.
Also, I find it a bit remarkable when people of mixed descent get very fanatic about one part of themselves. Far more than people who are 1/1 one kind and then fully at ease with themselves? Who knew Bob Marley had a white father? Certainly Hale Barry forgot all about her other parts when adressing the audience at the Oscars.
I doubt Amy herself is more than 1/4 chinese and her sprouts, as pretty as they are, even look less chinese to me. So why the fanatism?
This strikes such a chord! My husband and I are both lawyers. He is Chinese, and I am white, but we were both pushed the same way, the conveyor belt I call it, to University and beyond! Well, good luck with that. Unable to be a straight A student, my husband suffers in the corporate world, not at home there at all, knowing this, but unable to break free because of the “disappointment” his father would then express. Because of losing face. What he is good at, what he does beautifully, is photography and design. He did this as an added extracuricular behind his parents’ backs. As for me, I sometimes did earn an A, but my childhood was utterly loveless. It seemed we were loved only if and when we brought home the A’s. As a result, my baby brother, who was “only” an average student in college and hated playing the oboe, now has an inferiority complex, whereby he constantly compares himself to my sister and myself who did make it through University. I remember a great rivalry between the three of us all through our childhood, a kind of constant struggle for scraps of love and attention, and although I still see my brother on a regular basis, the relationship with my sister, who was my parents favourite (which they at times expressed to our faces), has ceased to exist and in the case of my brother has turned to a hate so black you could shave midnight off it. I have moved to the other side of the country, as seeing my parents or even speaking to them on the phone physically drains me. And they keep pushing me! Wanting me to be a judge now! I was twenty-five when I realised that I had no idea who I was, what I loved, began to feel the great hollowness of my life. It took me a few more years to understand that my parents’ treatment of us has turned me into a raging perfectionist who obsesses over the tiniest details (which is the path to that mountainous A) and that this is a quality that really hinders me in my work, where people skills turn out to be equally as important as a sharp mind for the law, if not more so. This is the great irony. That I did well in school, did anything my parents asked, but did not learn the skills necessary for my job. I may not have kids myself, lest I pass this horror on.
Thanks, Betty. A voice of reason, finally.
Amy Chua pushes and loves. She tries her best to build strength, confidence, and character in her daughters. I am very sorry so many of you got pushed so hard you have mental problem. Amy Chua, and for sure her husband, I am certain, would have found out there’s an issue and changed their tactics accordingly had her daughters show any sign of issue. It is not fair to compare your failing parents to her.
I am an immigrant from Taiwan and I am more like Amy’s husband than Amy. Still I can appreciate Amy’s approach and efforts of raising her daughters. She’s a hard working, responsible, and loving mom and no devil.
Just my $0.02.
To sum up this whole BS ordeal in one sentence, Amy Chua manipulated many people into paying her attention (and royalties) with the controversial article which was followed up by an attempt to “repent” herself on television. For all intents and purposes, this is simply business, but how megalomaniacal and unsympathetic do you have to be in order to build up this whole facade at the expense of many Chinese-Americans and their scarred childhoods. I’m sure many people would again experience the suppressed shame and embarassment from reading the article without bothering to research the reason behind it all. Amy Chua may not be responsible for murder, but she had committed manslaughter.
TL;DR MARKETING WORKS!!!111zebralol
It is complete an embarrassment for Amy Chua to define her parenting method as the ‘Chinese’ way. If anything, her overly strict style of parenting is a terrible byproduct of totalitarian regimes that have governed Chinese countries throughout history (communism in china, martial law in taiwan).
In a world where citizens are socially and politically controlled by strict rules, intimidation, conformity (not being able to hold certain professions unless if you join a specific political party), and fear of disappearing for merely speaking one’s mind (and who knows what would happen if you did anything unconventional), people inevitably adopt these rigid elements of fear, intimidation, and narrow-minded ways into their life, and by extension, their parenting methods. It is deeply unfortunate that Amy Chua has chosen to prolong the legacy that authoritarian regimes have left on child-rearing styles in these chinese-speaking parts of Asia. Corporal punishment has fallen way out of fashion in schools of Taiwan following the elimination of martial law, yet Ms Chua is practicing totalitarianism at home in the most liberal of societies.
I hope Ms. Chua’s child-rearing style is not the only part of her Chinese heritage that she so vehemently celebrates and practices!
It is one thing to encourage your child to excel to the best of their ability, another to do it through extreme means of coercion, intimidation, humiliation in the name of what she calls ‘love’.
Chua seems to be spewing very misleading and potentially harmful garbage. She needs to look at all the available literature on parenting styles and ethnicity before spewing nonsense she has no business talking about. Studies show that Asian American (and Chinese American) students succeed in school *despite* the parenting styles of their parents and not because of it. They have the least parental involvement in their school work and the parenting style that is the most detrimental to school success (authoritarian and permissive as opposed to the most conducive, authoritative). See the book, “Growing Up the Chinese Way: Chinese Child and Adolescent Development”
Chua is a lawyer, not a developmental psychologist and it is no surprise that someone who’s occupation involves speciously distorting the facts and presenting one-sided, superficial arguments to sway others for monetary gain would do this kind of thing. She, I fear, is doing a tremendous amount of damage to parents and especially children of all ethnicities.
She also oversimplifies Chinese parenting styles. Chinese American parents, though tend to be very authoritarian (which as I pointed out is detrimental to school success) is also the most “democratic” and on many studies also tend to be extremely permissive according to research conducted by actual developmental psychologists.
I think what Chua means is really being an immigrant mother. It has nothing to do with being Chinese. I’m not Chinese, and I don’t even live in the US, but I have the same problem — how to explain to my kids that they need to work three times as hard to succeed in a society where they don’t have any family background and networks. While I agree that Chua is a self-promotor and doesn’t represent Chinese mothers, I do agree with a few points: kids in the West, including Europe where I live, are too comfortable and unmotivated, lazy if you will, and their parents have little interest in expanding knowledge themselves, let alone help their kids make the grade. Those who have money pay for tutoring, and those who don’t — tough luck. And then we all wonder how come Asians are so smart and excell at everything. I’m just saying that the rule of golden mean is what we need. A little coercion will not damage our children’s psyche. And too much most probably will.
Simply put I think your article was spot on!
Hi betty,
I found this article when I was surfing the web. I am not Chinese, but I have adopted a daughter from China, so I thought I would see what she had to say. I am very lucky to have a child who is sweet, curious, full of energy, smart, funny, etc. That being said, I am not responsible for the genes she carries, but I am responsible for how she turns out. When I started reading, I thought that maybe she would give some tips on why and how their children always seem to be at the top of the class. However, when I read her list, I was horrified. That has never been the American way, and there are plenty of us who are smart and driven. I have my daughter tutored so that she can learn the language of her birth, and so that she can communicate should she ever decide to visit China. We also take skating lessons but that is the extent of activities I decided on. She also attends Daisy meetings every other week. Sleepovers and play dates are essential to her social growth as well as learning how to deal with others and any conflict that may happen during these activities. Does this mean I don’t want the best for her, or want her to do her best? No it does not, but I want her to be able to figure out what she likes and then I will encourage and support her choices. I have always told her that I expect her best effort, but she does not have to be perfect. Thanks for having this blog.
The Amy Chua method works if you are a machine with no real emotions- or something close to that. I am still scarred by my past consisting of violent math drills and beatings for when I didn’t understand something correctly. I clearly remember trembling so hard and terrified of learning because it meant being punished. I remember my heart beating so fast I could hear it pulsing blood to my head. This has actually caused me til this day to have a mental block when it comes to doing anything mathematical. It has also affected my present day relationship with her. I have learned to move on, but when you experience this kind of trauma as a small child it remains with your forever. I can’t wait for Amy Chua’s daughters to come back at her with their own Harvard-bound biography books “The story of my messed-up life because Amy Chua was my mother”. Oh I forgot to mention- awww how sweeeet… when one of her daughters does it the way she wants it done there is a lot of snuggling and giggling in bed together afterwards. Oh – then it’s ok to have a bipolar personality. FREAK
Daria, I so agree with you!
I am a teacher in Mexico. I read the article of Amy Chua, and while I do not agree in her methods, I like the aspect of having expectations from your children, yes, even high expectations are allowed, why not. I am happy I red the article, because I did not know much about the Chinese mother stereotype.
Even after reading some comments on how scarring this methods have been for Asian-Americans, which I am saddened BTW, I take notes on how the Asian education excells in academics, a contrast in my coutry, where I have listened to parents giving up to a child who won’t study, where teachers see how parents won’t care about what their children, who they work for, do at school or even cjeck their notebooks, where mothers desert their children to grandparents or uncles because they got a new byfriend, I could go on and on, but those children’ futures are mostly doomed , and the academical aspect is just one of their problems.
Betty,
I apologize for not capitalizing your name in my previous post, and I just wanted to add that in defense of Amy Chua, (though I don’t agree with her methods) most people parent the way they were parented. It is apparent that her parents raised her in the same method she is using for her girls. It is also apparent that she feels this is ok, even though her husband does not. I do have to wonder though, is she so domineering that whatever he says is cast aside? What about her younger daughter who refuses to play the violin anymore? Perhaps she is more like her father.
Dear Betty,
like you, i am also an asian-american that has been goign to therapy since the age of 6. a couple of ironic things jumped out at me about this article
the book ‘deliverying happiness’ by tony hsieh? my mom got it for me, said that her friend recommended it to her, and i just finished reading it yesterday. i love the book, despite it being a largely based business book and i’m a psyc major at pepperdine university.
secondly, i got into an argument with my mother tonight. she said that one of her friends had emailed her an article about why chinese mothers are ‘better’ then american mothers. i had her email me the article. it’s a chinese article about amy chua and why all the things she is doing are right, basically an exact opposite of your blog.
i can’t tell you how much over the years i’ve argued with my mother and had problems because of it. i wish chinese parents would learn to get with the times and get with the cultures.
during our argument, she said “that is your american mind that is thinking the way you’re thinking right now” and how i wish i had the courage to say “yes, because i am an american and proud of it”
i’ve been badgered into staying silent during conflicts and confrontations with my mother. and until i hit the breaking point, i have no idea how to respond to her other than stare at her silently.
yes tough love can make for very independent individuals, but it can also break a child’s heart. i learned to be independent at a tender age of 6 because my parents divorced. so having a harsh single mother growing up, she made the tough love doubly excrutiating.
as what chris said in the previous post, i believe that parents raise their children after the way they were raised when they were younger. if thats the case, should i feel bad for the child that she had been because of the harsh parenting that she received, or should i feel indignant because she should have learned by being in america for so many years that things are different, especially the way children are raised, as children are the future of our society?
many things to ponder over. thank you Betty for this, i really appreciate it.
It is great to hear all of your voices and I am sad to be in the same race as Amy who does not represent all our views.
My mom never pushed me, neither me nor my wife were straight A students but we raised 3 lovely daughters who are great human beings. They all had piano and dance lessons in the context that what life can offer. I have to thank my wife for being a great mom who emphasizes on raising responsible human beings and not robots. She always teach them to have a “Heart” and the desire to fear and seek wisdom from God. 6 figures salary and straight A’s do not take you any where except bring your ego to the top of the Empire Building.
A person without “Heart” is what I call garbage. In a way I have all the sympathy for Amy because she was raised that way and inherited her father’s gene as well.
Success does not mean big houses and fancy cars, it is how you can use your house and car to help others in need. It is how you spread you wealth to those who are less fortunate.
I wish her well because her past and present actions may bring unhealthy and unwanted consequences.
I appreciate your humour and honesty.
I am one who is trying to overcome her upbringing of “obedience and performance” and I am proud to say I am a lapsed perfectionist! Once in a while some ugly head rears itself and I think I want my kids to be “perfect” but then I remember that “perfect” kids usually don’t want to be with their imperfect mother. So I’ll stick to my buffet-style parenting!
This woman is clearly a demented, psychotic sadist who cares nothing for her children’s happiness, emotional well-being and self-esteem. They are merely her trophies and exist as vessels for her bragging rights. I feel sorry for her kids, and I’m surprised child welfare and social service authorities aren’t knocking on her door and asking some question.
Sigh… her book is going to be a bestseller. Slate just picked it as audio book club pick for January. We need to write to them and get an Asian Am woman on the panel to discuss the book! I am so disturbed to read (above) that Jackie’s mom emailed her a Chinese article describing all the things that Amy Chua is doing right.
Yes, we can still expect excellence from our children. But we don’t have to use cruel and demoralizing methods to motivate.
Totally agree that this is pure hype on Penguin’s part. In addition to the ridiculous assertions in the excerpt about what does and doesn’t “work” (as if parenting is a problem to be solved) what’s annoying to me (as a writer) is how uninspiring her prose is.
Anyway, I got tired of the seriousness of the debate and decided to have a little fun with it. Chua may be a “Tiger Mother” but I am a GOAT MOTHER!! http://bit.ly/gDtUuo
My father or mother were not “Tiger Parents” but I guess Asians need to experience the tiger experience. I got married and came here. Started my school and my husband said if you don’t get “A”, I am not going to pay for next term…
Dear Betty,
Like Chua, I am Chinese, born in Manila from Chinese parents like hers, raised like her…
Unlike Chua, I vowed not to parent like my parents. To this day, I resent them, and I think I am in therapy because of them.
I encouraged my daughter to enjoy all the things my parents prohibited, sleepovers and play dates, and school plays.
I let my daughter miss school to watch the Oscars, and we bonded by playing Nintendo.
I never said, “I am right because I am your mother”.
I taught myself to say, “Mother does not know,” and “I am sorry. Mother is wrong.”
My daughter can only play The Carpenters on the piano, but she can do it really well!
And she is still one heck of an academic superstar! Near-perfect SAT scores and admission to Harvard, Princeton and Yale. No doubt in my mind about good fortune playing a major role in that. I am not an “oya baka” as they say in Japan.
I did not push. I encouraged. And I loved unconditionally.
http://www.thegoodchinesemother.wordpress.com
My family forced me to take up piano at the age of 4, because other Chinese children were doing it,too. Even though my parents never played themselves, they always claimed I wasn’t playing good enough. You making mistake! Playing credendo wrong! Your music must soar!
But how the fuck can your music soar, when you’re just expected to memorize a piece and play something perfectly, so mommy and daddy will be happy? I was always compared to this Japanese girl, who played so much better, and I hated having to face my parents after recitals. I remember one afternoon, my mother forced me to play a piece over and over, while calling me stupid and a coward. I am still trying to make peace with her. There’s always this sense of guilt if I’m not working hard 24/7, always achieving or producing. So what if I’m only taking two classes in grad school, bitch! I do my freelance writing on the side and that counts as a job! And sorry I’m not getting a publishing contract fast enough! Ugh.
I’ve never been able to cope with failure until my late 20s. I remember not getting into grad school the first time around at 24. Then I got laid off from my job and dumped by my boyfriend. I truly felt like dying, like there was no other way out. Every time I did something wrong, I felt like the world was going to end. I was afraid to make mistakes.
I haven’t sat down at a piano for years. I stopped playing at 17 because I started college. Now my mother complains about how much of a waste it was that I’m no longer playing. Sorry I can’t afford a large house and a piano, okay? Or that I was unable to practice piano daily because I lived in the dorms?
By the way, I finally started singing again, after being told no one wanted to see a fat, ugly Chinese girl sing. My voice is low and smoky. It’s not high or sweet. I bought myself a Les Paul, instead. This is who I was meant to be all along, not a perfect Chinese doll that bangs out perfectly memorized pieces for her parents.
I am white, married to a Chinese guy. My cousin and best friend Barb has 2 adorable Chinese kids in her branch of the family. I have lived in China for 15 years and have many Chinese friends who would disagree with this racist and career opportunist. I could say it is always Chinese women married to white men who are in our face – television, news, media – as experts on the Cultural gap – but that is another long story.
My father let us watch no more than 3 hours of TV a week. I cleaned my own room unwillingly, went to the supermarket on my bike for my mom, and had a first job caddying my dad’s golf clubs, I helped mind my siblings.
Other than that, we all had a lot of fun, and I stood first at school a lot of the time.
We are all of being manipulated to make easy money for Amy Chua and her complicit husband. Boycott Amy Chua’s book and also stop it from selling to Chinese in Asia, who are being tricked and manipulated as well.
From the viewpoint of narrow racism, which I usually do not use as a yardstick, but by which Amy Chua invites judgment, she and her husband are only one quarter Chinese, yet about to make a fortune in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, by appealing to Chinese ego, vanity, and the competitiveness of certain types of Chinese women with white or Western women.
Already anti-Chinese feeling is coming up in these discussions.
And do not think there are bookseller types stirring our genuine polarities.
The 2 worst problems for me apart from that are, a self-named Chinese woman who wants the strictest parent-child relationship flying under Asian traditionalism for herself wants the slackest, most easy going Western marriage to a man who is either a wimp who does not mind a boastful child-mistreating wife affecting his good name by implication in the mass media, and for millions of easy made money. Sorry, when you hit a big racist nerve, I don’t think this is hardship book writing.
A true traditional Chinese wife thus would clear this book with her husband, particularly when such a national uproar occurs. He could not turn his face away,saying well we are in America, she is separate from me, and can do whatever she wants.
Imagine if a White Man had written a book saying, I will not let my white or Chinese kids have a drink or water or go to the toilet for a few hours when they are doing music. Imagine that, the police might be at their door, Yale university or not.
All our race and gender polarities are being played by this couple, please think this over whether you are male, female, white, yellow, black, Hispanic, right wing, racist, liberal, or whatever.
Music is the last point. Here is the illogicality of the true bigot..Only play the violin or the piano, since they are to have no fun, and they do not intend to make money from it, why bother. No fun or no money. And only the piano or the violin, anyone who loves classical music or who can look a picture knows that classical music orchestras have dozens of other instruments in them.
This then is the world of the mind of Amy Chua, living out her own parental directive of so many years, told to excel, to win, to compete, to be called garbage and not mind, as long as success and wealth are there, to perceive a human orchestra where only two instruments perform, uncaring of the unfeeling dismissal of all the other clarinets, violas, oboes, flues, and trumpets.
Again, BOYCOTT in other countries.
Is it so easy for the rest of us to make money?
Is it so easy for us to understand a foreign culture?
Because Amy Chua and her husband are manipulators and marketers, is that a good reason to become overnight multi-millionaires? True, this book is a lively discussion point, but then so was Mein Kampf.
It sounds like the (stereo)typical self-imposed whitening of a Chinese woman — I don’t mean the book, mind you. :-)
I have a feeling that I’m the only commenter here who has actually read the book, not just the excerpts.
I attended neither Harvard nor Baruch, so … no comments.
I am a product of this exact sort of upbringing, an aloof academic scientist (Canadian born and raised) father and a stay at home traditional “tiger” Asian mother.
Now in my early 30s, work a steady desk job, make a decent living but still have a feeling of emptiness and underachievement due to issues from childhood, adolescence and in my first, ill-fated attempt at university. I received a lot of criticism, invalidation and discouragement, very little (if any) positive reinforcement. Whatever I did was never good enough, any suggestion that I could be anything in life other than a cloistered ivory tower scientist was met with dismissal and contempt.
My parents discouraged participation in sports. In fact, they discouraged and restricted participation in any social activity. I was frequently bullied at school, an easy target due to a lack of social skills and self esteem. They condoned this, as the isolation and rejection would supposedly help me focus on math and science.
I have a sibling who has always kissed up to their faces but gripes behind their backs, followed the proper academic path (probably after seeing how I was treated when I stepped out of line and feared the same happening to them) now lives in another part of the country and avoids visiting as much as possible (while still receiving financial support). Always makes up some excuse about not being able to fit it in their schedule, and the parents actually believe it. Their precious, properly raised trophy child would never be so ungrateful as to entertain the thought of snubbing them like that, right?
Pushing your kid to achieve A+s is one thing, but the classical music thing that Asian parents hitch their kids to p**ses me off to no end. I am unfortunately far too familiar with the ‘classical recital’ scene. It’s 95% for show, and Asian parents favour this means of ‘creative expression’ because it is an easy platform upon which their kids can be graded, compared and judged (there is only one ‘right’ way to play that piece, so don’t you dare screw it up). For some kids, yes, it does become a creative outlet and some find careers in that field, but that is rarely the intent of the (not exclusively but disproportionately Asian) parents who shove this down their kids throats. Most of these parents hum along with their showdog kids when they play at recitals (where all the judgments and comparisons are made) but know little to nothing about the pieces (or their composers) they have practiced to perfection. I wish I liked classical music now, I can understand the genius and work behind it, but I just can’t bring myself to listen to it even after all these years. Imagine signing up your kid for painting or acting lessons, for example. How would the typical Asian mom compare their kid’s canvas or acting with the other parents? They can’t in a way that leaves no alternate interpretations, and so they usually don’t.
Not all Chinese or East Asians raise their children this way, but a small subset does take it to Prof Chua’s extreme, as I know from first hand experience.
I am almost glad at times that I have let my parents down. They don’t deserve the right to use me as a showdog for their self-flattery and to boost their status.
On another note, I believe that Dr. Chua is using this book to promote the supposed superiority of her own culture, in much the same way that Rush Limbaugh does for “white America”, only with more complicated words.
Amy Chua’s expose on the supposedly “Chinese” way of bringing up children is at best misleading. There are about 1300m Chinese in China, and, according to the wikipedia’s article on “Overseas Chinese”, some 3.8m Chinese (0.29% of 1.3 billion) migrants and descendants now living in the the US, so Amy Chua (even if she speaks for all ethnic Chinese living in the US, which she does not) is not exactly a definitive authority on Chinese-ness. In any case, there are fundamental differences in cultural values and life experiences between Chinese who migrate from China (especially those who enter inter-racial marriages, including Amy Chua), and Chinese who either don’t have the desire or don’t have the opportunity to leave China. Also, society changes, even in a conservative society such as China. The so-called “Chinese” way of bringing up children as per Amy Chua would horrify quite a lot of Chinese in Modern China today. Whatever values that run in Amy Chua’s Chinese family tree and her present inter-racial family, those values can only be just their personal experiences. I think Amy Chua is a product of her own “tiger” mum, and like a hereditary disease, Amy is passing on the wounds from her own upbringing to the own children now. There really is nothing to be glorified in Amy Chua’s expose. It comes across as rather sad.
Hi Betty: You put my thoughts in much better ways, well done! I read the paper excerpt given by my daughter’s piano teacher, immediately I began to write (couldn’t hold back the urge). Here is my hub: http://hubpages.com/hub/Chinese-Mother-American-Mother. I can’t help myself including your this blog at the bottom of mine, it’s just so well said! Thanks!
I pretty much went through what most driven parents put their children through. I spent most of my growing years trying to prove my worth, as my mum’s favourite mantra was ‘You need to prove your worth’.The first time she said it was when I started first grade and asked for a watch to keep time. “You need to prove your worth. If you are top of your class , I will buy you a watch.” I got my watch!
Really, parenting is such a difficult task. My parents were both from poor families who had to borrow money to get into university,so they wanted to make sure we didn’t have the same problem. It is not true that children emulate their parenting skills. I basically went the other way with mine due to fear that they will grow up feeling worthless just because they can’t be top of their class or get straight As. I hire private tutors for them because I don’t want their childhood memories to be just of mummy screaming and threatening them.
However, unlike some here, I would like to thank Amy for writing her book. I made me face the fact that I should get involved with my children’s academic work and not be afraid of them hating me as a result. It would be far worse if they don’t reach their potential because of my fear that they will end up unhappy. What she said, strict parenting coupled with love, kind of makes sense. I never felt any love, just lots of criticism.
My children are smart but getting almost straight Bs because I tell them they just need to try their best. (which I am sure they don’t since mummy never scolds, so why bother??) I absolutely need to curb their computer gaming and TV time !! Why did I let my eldest drop out of music class because its boring??
My mother ended up getting 2 doctors and an engineer and she boasts that the has done her job well. Not sure how to view that since her super star straight As and always top of her class daughter( my perfect sis whom I couldn’t stand while growing up) is no longer in speaking terms with her and blames her for all her misery!
All depends on how one defines “success”…
我想要分享我自己本身的故事, 我是在台灣生後來去美國念研究所.
我記得從我小時以來, 母親就喜歡拿我和我姊姊比較. 事實上不僅是家人, 學校的老師教育方式在西方人眼中根本就是精神虐待.
學校老師的教育方式常深深傷害了我. 我記得有ㄧ次我的地理老師在發還我小考考卷時對我說, 你姊姊的成績很好你怎麼差那麼多.學校的校長和主任常常沒事就會到我們班上罵我們全班說我們是世界上的毒瘤. 也許是因為這樣我ㄧ直都很沒有自信, 常常覺得自己很沒用, 儘管當時我的成績平均有前五名. 鋼琴考試也有前三名 (我念音樂班). 當時我的ㄧ個音樂主修老師因為我比賽沒有得奬, 就會當眾羞辱我 (在我所有學姊的面前), 說我腦袋是石頭, 學音樂當嫁妝, 是他最糟糕的學生並叫我滾出他的辦公室. 當我強忍淚水告訴我媽老師對我說的話, 我媽不但沒有支持我, 還說老師都是對的要我去道歉, 我不但不能反抗他, 反而要我每個星期私底下花兩小時 (ㄧ小時$3000台幣!)去和他上課因為他是大牌老師可以讓我近好學校. (台灣音樂界的黑暗我在這就不詳述了) 我常常因此覺得沮喪失眠從來沒感到有很開心的學校生活.
我常想若這時我的家人可以支持我的話也許我可以比較快樂的撐過這段日子. 但我姊姊當時受老師們的喜愛, 我爸媽都覺得她才是乖小孩, 可是她在我生活中從來就不是好姊姊, 對我態度冷淡和冷嘲熱諷, 甚至常常對我說: “你是白癡阿!” 或是和我媽打小報告說我在學校別的同學是怎麼在背後說我壞話. 我想有ㄧ部份的原因是我們從小就常常被比較所以我們之間變得ㄧ點都不親.
種種不快樂的因素我告訴自己我ㄧ定要逃離這個家, 逃離這個環境. 所以我很努力的考托福, 順利的申請到美國的研究所. 剛來美國的前兩年在適應期但兩年過後奇蹟來了. 我從以前在台灣老師眼中平凡的學生, 變成美國老師眼中的音樂奇才, 我音樂比賽屢屢得奬. 我告訴自己既然來了美國就要踏出狹小的圈子所以我儘量交西方朋友融入這個環境. 所以我人際關係也比以前在台灣好很多. 我的人生在美國完全不ㄧ樣了並順利完成博士學業. 我常常想說這ㄧ切整個人生的大轉變都是從西方教育開始. 也許亞洲父母, 不但是父母, 還是整個亞洲老師的教育都不適合我.
也許我該慶幸我都撐過那段苦日子但常常午夜夢迴還是回想到以前恐怖的環境. 我和我家人已經不常說話了因為儘管我已做到我的目標家人還是不會以我為傲.
sorry I wrote this in Chinese because I type it faster than English.
Parental abuse aside, how morally, socailly, & politically retarded (repugnant) is it to use the term “superior” w/ ANY ethnic group?
recovering (asian) female
I’m a Cantonese-American raised by Mainlanders and thankfully, my parents were and are loving people. My mother is one of those crazy bitches but unfortunately for her, I inherited her obstinance. No one could ever convince her she couldn’t do something and it’s more or less the same for me.
I consider myself extremely lucky b/c my mother found a man that is willing to put up with her shit and she held onto him for dear life. My father found a woman who would be fiercely protective of her family and extremely driven to succeed despite her odds. Together, they are the cutest old Chinese couple you’ll ever meet. Many times, I wonder if in the case of immigrant wives, that they spend so much time and effort trying to live out the lives their circumstances could not afford them b/c they are so unfulfilled in both their working and personal lives. One of my aunts suffered from post-partum depression soon after coming to the US and was so isolated in her new surroundings that she eventually committed suicide. What also confuses me about Chua is her insistence that she doesn’t allow her children to socialize; my parents were working people and they and ALL their family and friends had R&R time. We may have not been able to play with our classmates from school but we regularly played with our cousins and the kids of our parents’ friends. You really didn’t have much choice during their weekend mahjong marathons and honestly, it isn’t a terrible way to grow up.
Out of all of my aunts and uncles (blood related and otherwise), I can say with certainty that my parents are the most well-adjusted and consequently, my brother and I, while not particularly financially or even academically successful, are as my mother said, “good, decent people.” She has told us that we are people that are always willing to help as much as we can (both my brother and I are active in the Asian American community and do a considerable amount of volunteer work, well after HS and college), that we are not materialistic, that we have surrounded ourselves with good, “upwardly mobile” friends. It is the highest compliment she could have ever given us and she has told us this repeatedly. They helped put us through college and never demanded that we study something we didn’t want (although we were not so subtly pushed toward it), just that we could find work and lead stable lives after we graduated. And isn’t that the whole point of going to college anyway? They loved us SO much, they didn’t hold it against us that we BOTH got our degrees in political science and we both decided to abort the path to law school. I’m getting ready to go into a physician’s assistant program (on my own accord) and my brother is on his way to getting a MSW (Masters in Social Work).
I hope that my story cheers you up. My mother may have done some of those terrible things that Cantonese mothers do and I will NEVER agree that those methods are anything less than abuse (this really gets my mother’s goat, not being able to tell me “I told you so!”) but I know she loves her kids and she has definitely mellowed out with age. She raised two very independent-minded, responsible, kind, happy kids.
P.S. I also played piano when I was a kid and I was never forced. My parents agreed to pay for lessons when I asked for them. I loved that they encouraged us to do things because they were useful life skills, like when they taught us how to swim. They did, after all, escape from China by swimming part of the way to Hong Kong.
I’m white, but I grew up really poor (like, homeless or no refrigerator in the house or such) so I never had sleepovers or any of that stuff either – and I never had music classes – and I was still expected to get straight As (except for PE, and eventually Mom folded on Math). Education was seen as my only ticket out of poverty. It sort of worked because I knew she was right and I wanted to live in a decent place. Of course now that I’ve gotten so many As I’ve also developed an anxiety disorder and put on about 100 extra pounds through stress eating, but the grades are the important part – right?
But the main reason I wanted to post here was this: I’m in a teaching credential program (high school social studies) and I’ve been grading college papers for years as a TA at my previous university. Grades are subjective and arbitrary. Asians get the benefit of the doubt, so it is possible for them to get straight As. That said, getting an A doesn’t actually mean you know what you’re doing. Many, many students out there get As in my chosen subject (history) without knowing anything *about* history (or economics, or government). They do not know how to *do* history. It’s like getting an A in music because you know how to hit all the right notes at the right time – sure, you can play the music, but if you don’t know how to *play* music you’ll never actually equal the grade you’re getting. Furthermore, grades are incredibly inflated (especially in college) so forcing students to work *that* hard when their classmates, who work half as hard, achieve the same GPA is not fair at all. It would be wonderful if we could throw the whole grading system out because all it is really doing is destroying most kids – of all races/ethnicities.
Even systems with points where you get this many points for that answer and so forth are arbitrary. Who decides what is important and what is not? I can by law teach that people arrived in what is now the US in 1609. This is considered important, but it is not *accurate.* Native Americans were already here. It is neither true in spirit – Spaniards established colonies in the contiguous US territory (Florida, for example) long before Brits did. It is only true in the context of American civic mythology, which is some of what is taught in K-12 social studies classes. A student who writes that I am wrong for saying that people arrived in what is now the US in 1609 can be downgraded. Do I want some poor mother-beaten Asian kid to relentlessly memorize the schlock that K-12 social studies textbooks relentlessly pour out, or do I want them to learn to think for themselves and learn to ask and research the answers to what *they* think are important historical questions? Which would bring a person more joy and self-identity? Which would be more likely to give the kids patience enough to survive the unfortunate times when we *do* need to buckle down and do something distasteful? Which would ultimately make a person a better citizen of the United States?
One last bit – authors of pieces in newspapers (articles, editorials, etc.) typically do not get to title or headline their own pieces. Usually it’s the editors who do that, and sometimes they do it without reading the article first. While I’m inclined to think that Chau is as bad as you say, I’m not so sure she should be blamed for the headline. We don’t actually *know* who wrote the headline, just the article and the book. (Editors also often title books, incidentally.)
it’s just gibberish to sell her book!
“junk food” for mindless parents who are trying to live their unfulfilled lives through their kids.
I agree to a large degree with many of the comments critical of Ms. Chua. However, as an attorney in Houston, I have spent over twenty years in the criminal and family courts [society's ground zero] I have witnessed thousands of young, and not so young, “children” who have received no discipline, no direction and no expectations from their permissive and/or disfunctional parents. There certainly must be a happy medium between the “tyranny” of the Amy Chuas and the countless “western” parents who give nothing to, nor expect anything of, their clueless children. The movie Idiocracy was not prophetic; we are already there!
I am Asian, raised almost the same way as Amy Chua but I am happy and glad that my parents pushed me to my potential. Looking back, I am trying to imagine what would it be like if my parents just let me do what I want…first sleepovers then partying, experimenting drugs, sex then abortion and maybe now maybe in therapy or in jail. So, is this okay? those kids that are let loose are you people sure they are happy? and successful? As oppose to those that were raised by the mothers like Amy Chua.
I love your post here. I just wish you had continued further with your story in this post. I’m a fifteen year old teenager going to a prestigious private school in northern California. My mother is exactly like the statements in “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” in oh so many ways. While she isn’t the same word for word, her statements have the same harsh and icy effect that along with growing up as a gay teen, have pushed me to the edge of suicide multiple times over many years, and created many painful memories of days where I would cut myself and contemplate suicide as early as the age of ten or eleven. Sure. I’m more successful than many of my friends thanks to how my parents have pushed me, however I am still damaged in many ways as well. I have virtually no self esteem to the extent where I have issues accepting anything less than what I aspire to be and to do. The effects of being brought up in this manner are apparent to me and many people around me. They’ve seen what it has done too. While they know my story, only some can truly understand it, as they have gone through the same “process” as youth. I use the word “process” because sometimes these asian parents often seem to be no more caring nor any less soulless than robots on an assembly line, creating a final product. While the assembly line creates products of quality, they aren’t all perfection. They often have flaws. They are broken. Just as many children are by these same means. It’s not just me and you. It’s far too many.
Ms Liu, I think you ought to go and apologize to your mother. Not all children raised the Chinese way, grow up being an ungrateful adult.
I was raised the Chinese way, despite the push and seemingly impossible target she placed on me, even as a kid, deep down I know my mother loves me. I am thankful for the education and what she had instilled in me. (It is still with me) “If you want anything bad enough, you have to work very hard to get it”.
The article titled “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” is a mere excerpt of Chua’s writing; in fact, the article title was not created by Chua. If one reads the entire novel, he/she will discover that this is a piece of writing that narrates her journey through motherhood and her recognition of the fact that she needs to pull back a little. In fact, Chua describes the encounter that caused her to produce this book: a seemingly drastic encounter with her younger daughter at a restaurant caused her to realize that she may not be doing the “right thing” in the tactics of raising her children. Her daughter was permitted to quit violin, and she was allowed to take the tennis lesson that she had desired. Additionally, Chua wrote that if she could have gone back in time, she wouldn’t have done some of the things she had done.
While I agree that the measures she take are quite extreme, she does present some wisdom in what she says. Perhaps her children are extremely intelligent, and anything less than an “A” would reflect laziness. If a person has an IQ 160 and has the ability to learn languages quickly, doesn’t it make sense for his/her parent(s) to hope that the child will get an “A”? She is merely trying to have her children reach their full aptitude. Too many people’s potential is wasted; their genius goes un-acknowledged forever. Yes, her means are drastic, but her goal is simple and true: to have her children achieve to their fullest ability.
I enjoy very much your post. Your therapy definitely worked cause you are such a fun person. Love you!
She is a narcissist. And it’s the book all about.
She can’t stand that Lulu rebel her parenting and she feel her status is challenged. she feel the need to defend herself by writing this book and tried to convince herself and her family that she is still right and an authority figure. I feel so sorry for Lulu that she has to go through her mother’s mental abuse all over again for publishing the book so soon after her rebellion.
http://winning-teams.com/recognizenarcissist.html
“It is difficult to recognize a narcissist because he (or she) spends all of his time acting, protecting his ego by presenting to the world a mask, a false image of himself.”
I stumbled upon this looking for ways to help my Chinese daughter in law. My son now living in China has married a lovely girl there and they will move here in the next few years. She calls me often and we talk quite a lot. She seems eager to be close friends with me and for that I am grateful. However, she has ZERO self esteem about so many things it really is heart breaking and so I went looking for some answers.
When I started to look at college classes for her to enroll in upon her arrival here she said “Oh, I’m not smart enough to go to school.” WHAT??!! She learned English in less than a year on her own and is very fluent. When we first tried to speak to one another she could barely request me by name to come to the phone and now we chat like old pals. Who told this lovely young woman she is “not smart enough” for school. Nothing I say convinces her.
I thought that she would enjoy taking some classes even some English language classes just to get to know some other young women who are also immigrants and to improve her skills. After that she could enroll in any program she so chooses as there are two major universities and one college in our city. My husband and I both have told her we would help her financially and with any other support she needs but, even with that support she believes herself to be destined to have to work at menial tasks forevermore. If that is what she truly wants that’s fine with me. I want her to be happy no matter what she chooses to do. But it’s the idea that she has such low self awareness and self esteem that really bothers me. Where does this come from! She has two brothers in China that her parents encouraged to go to school, own their own businesses etc. Why not her?
She is a very sweet, sincere, hardworking and kind young woman. I know she has so much to offer. It breaks my heart to hear her say “Oh, I can’t do that. I”m too dumb.” I’m not saying I’m blaming her parents. They seem like kind enough people. It’s just I am at a loss not being directly from China myself to understand her low value of herself.
Can someone give me some insight here? My son loves China and everything about the people, culture and language so he’s never complained about anything to do with this matter but, I know he doesn’t want her to feel this way about herself. She breezily dismisses this at times by saying “Oh, I can just start a business.” That’s fine too of course but, what if you want to learn to do something new? Photography classes or anything at all and this girl says “Oh, I wouldn’t be able to do that.”
I really do feel a pang in my heart when she talks this way about herself. I want her to feel that she has a whole new life ahead of her at the tender age of only twenty four! Some day she may have my grandchildren and I don’t think it’s healthy for them to see their mother feel that she is “no good” at anything or afraid to try anything new. My son goes to university and has big plans for his future and that’s wonderful. Maybe this young woman doesn’t understand that’s it is of immense value to have your OWN place in life.
Where has this twenty four year old bright, kind young woman’s confidence gone and why can I not convince her to even put one toe in the water of life? Is this due to her upbringing in China? If so, is there anything I can do to encourage her? I feel she is going to be missing out on so much joy in life by feeling she “can’t” try new things or learn things as well as anyone else can.
Her family have been extremely good to my son while he has been in China and I hesitate to put blame on her mother alone but, why do their sons not feel inadequate yet their daughter does? I care for this girl very much and want her to have every opportunity in life once she is here.
At one point she did hint to me of harsh criticism from her parents but, doesn’t see this as anything “wrong” No she seems to see herself as just “wrong” It pains me. She is utterly convinced not to try any new thing, never to dream any dream other than what she has been told she is “fit” for. I’m trying to be gentle with her in my suggestions and just let her know that I believe in her and I believe she can do anything she sets her heart to try. I do not wish to be critical of her parents either as that is not my place.
Any insight as to why this young woman feels so utterly convinced she is not as worthy as the next person to her own pursuits and dreams in life? She is utterly supportive of everything my son wants to do yet cannot even think of what SHE might like to do.
I want her to have her own dreams, her own pleasures, her own personhood. I am thrilled that she is so good to my son and he too has tried to encourage her. Maybe after twenty four years of believing you “can’t” It will just take time to encourage her to think in terms of “can”
okay, i’m going to jump in here….donna, your daughter is a “typical” chinese young person. if you read the comments on this post, you’ll find heart-breaking variations on the same theme. very generous of you not to blame the parents. on many levels, that amounts to blaming the victim.
my next post raises the point that we are all victims of confucianism. http://bettymingliu.com/2011/01/forget-amy-chua-bigger-fish-to-stir-fry-4-ways-ive-been-conned-by-confucius/
getting your daughter to take fun, enriching classes is a great idea. she needs to know what it’s like to have pure fun and explore her creativity. but frankly, i do think that like so many of us, she needs to end up in therapy.
since she’s young and relocating to america, she has a chance to explore a whole new side of herself. having you close by will be a gift for her.
Thank you for your reply. I think I am going to be reading here quite a bit. It does seem this young woman has simply been taught that she is “garbage” and is only fit for a certain role. This is extremely aggravating to see such a bright person feeling this way about herself. And as a matter of fact she has a lot going for her that many of my sons previous girlfriends did not. How sad that I can see so much in her that she cannot see in herself.
Youth should be a hopeful time in life. This girl seems to have decided already that life holds no new dreams for her outside of being a “wife” I’m glad she is devoted to my son and to her new family too but, she’s worthy of so much more for her own sake. I value her as a friend just as she is. She always seems to feel she must do “special” things for me to like her too. I require nothing more than the pleasure of her company. I truly like her just as she is yet this too escapes her understanding. Such low self esteem!
Thank you for the link again. Beautiful, smart, earnest, kind and a joy to be around and yet she thinks she is “stupid and unworthy” Who told her these ridiculous notions! I will follow your advice and perhaps she can speak with someone after she arrives here to help her with her confidence. If she agrees then yes therapy of some sort may very well be the only way to fight this utter lack of belief in herself.
‘Wow’ Betty..way to go, you ripped right through that control freaks 15 minutes of fame..the new fad for the month. Lazy Moms who can’t control their kids reach out to another ‘Benjamin Spock’, self help book of “I’m a clueless parent”.
Ms. Chua is the new smug example of Ivy School Elitism that missed the Oprah book tour. Her kids had to smile in that picture, they were told to do so.
This stereotype is the same as ‘Mafia’ is to Italians and dumb white liberal America will jump on it as the next certainty of the ‘Global Warming’ craze. Who wants robot kids living vicariously through the parents failures or wants. We need more creative kids, sure some will choose Science, Maths, Engineering; but what about Business, Art, Music, Entrepreneurial start ups, Comedy, Writing, Contruction, Marketing, Real Estate, etc.. according to Chua, (who’s American Educated) she embodies the throw back of Red China’s communist approach to schooling and home life. Her kids are prodigies not American kids. They will be unhappy young adults acting out like the Amish 16 year olds, that day will come. And does her husband have any balls left or is his job of planting a seed done. I’ve hung out with the free spirited Asian kids and like all others were a blast to be around. We all knew of the controlled ones who never had friends or were invited anywhere. They ended up dead, on pills, unhappy, cheating on their wives/husbands, depressed, bored and stuck at a job that sucked. Who gave Chua a hallpass to insult her kid in public, oh I get it…she’s not white.
Thanks for that great article Betty. It really does boil down to financial success; the academics are merely a stepping stone to get there (in addition to securing bragging rights and to cover Asian parent’s asses as far as vulnerability due to lack of education)
What’s funny is that many of the Chinese friends I have had in the past have grown estranged from their parents after a childhood that was filled with the drudgery mentioned in the A. Chua article, and not only that, they have failed miserably in attaining many of the high goals their parents had in mind for them. In contrast, many of my Caucasian friends, whose parents had little to no focus on education or musical pursuits, and instead allowed their kids to be “independent” and “fend for themselves” have turned out to be wildly successful.
I would have turned out to be a burned out, bitter South Asian myself, but at the last minute, I saw light at the end of the tunnel and managed to salvage what was left of my identity just in time for me to see the forest for its trees. Growing up, I had a childhood that, in comparison, would make that of Ms. Chua’s daughters feel like a Cakewalk. To give you an idea of what I mean, let me narrate to you a brief history of my younger years. Bear with me.
As a child, I spent the first seven years of my life growing up in India, in the poorest state, which boasted the highest illiteracy and crime rates in the country. Although I was born in the United States (my parents wanted me to be a naturalized citizen) I was whisked to India the first chance my parents got, so that I could be indoctrinated in traditional Indian values and follow the “model of success” that my parents had in mind for me. I only got to see my father once a year, sometimes once every two years during this time period, as he lived in the U.S, while I moved to India with my mother. Growing up in such a resource poor state where electricity was a luxury, and power outages in fifty degree weather were the norm, I quickly learned to appreciate the smaller things in life. Going five months without contracting a life threatening illness would be something of a record, and I would feel grateful to god. During my time in India, I contracted not just Typhoid, but also Hepatitis, Jaundice, and Diarrhea. Multiple times. The amount of time I spent in the hospital far outpaced any amount of time spent playing sports, or doing anything other than studying.
Which brings me to the topic of academics and extracurriculars. I attended a private school where having 86 students packed into a room measuring 14X20 feet was the norm. Not only that, the school was built and organized so that students would never leave the classroom for the entirety of the day. We were required to sit in our chairs from 7 AM to 3PM, in amazingly humid weather (there were no fans, no light bulbs, and no windows) while wearing stocky, excessively wooly school uniforms. The teachers would stroll in and out throughout the day, writing things on the board which we were required to copy down, so that at the end of the day, we could go home and memorize them.
Anyways, the teachers were horrible at their profession- they did not know how to teach. So at the end of the day, when I finally came home, I would continue my routine by attending what was commonly called “coaching” (we call it tutoring here in the U.S) for another five hours. After a quick lunch I would spend all my time from 3 PM to 8 PM being “coached” on two subjects in particular- Mathematics and Sanskrit (an ancient language). What did I do in my “free time” ? I had none. The school had no athletic facilities to speak of, and in our “Physical Education” period we were let loose of a piece of land filled with mud and told to “run around and play tag”. There were no gymnasiums, public libraries, cinemas, concert halls, or any other venues of pleasure, with the exception of restaurants. The only thing I could find comfort in was thus food. Sad eh?
Anyway, back to parenting. It turns out, I sucked at Math. Not because I didn’t understand it (I am oddly quite good at it now) but because, my teacher was wildly ineffective. Ironically enough, when a student got a problem wrong, instead of correcting the mistake and showing the student the correct way to go about doing it, my math teacher would throw the copy on the floor, call me a “dog” and cane me repeatedly. You wouldn’t believe this, but where I went to school, the teachers had the right to use a thorn filled cane to physically beat and abuse a child in front of the whole class, for doing something as trivial as drinking water from a water bottle without asking for the teacher’s permission (I learned this the hard way). These inhumane liberties were so prevalent, that they also pervaded my household. When my mother saw that hiring a tutor only improved me grades from near failing to a measly 83%, she got extremely angry. One day, when I came home from my final examination in math in 6th grade, my mother rushed out to greet me. Rather than offering me a glass of water, or giving me food to eat after the long, hot day, the first thing she asked me to do was to handover the question paper for the final. (They allowed us to take home the question paper with us afterwards). Thereafter, she sat me down with my tutor (who was there, waiting for me) and asked me to solve the entire exam right then, exactly as I had done at school, from memory. I shivered at the thought, because I knew that if I got even one question wrong, I was going to be in for a horrible surprise. But I agreed anyway, perhaps because at the time, I thought that I had well for once on a math exam. Boy was I off the mark- when I finished the exam and handed over the paper to my tutor, he instantly snatched it from my hand, looked over it with a devilish grin (I’ll never forget the look on his face) and triumphantly announced to my mother: “HE GOT A 75%!” My mother took one look at me, and rushed out of the room. Knowing that something was up, my tutor bid me goodbye right then and left. I sat there, waiting for my punishment, perhaps another round of scolding and slapping. But I was in for a huge surprise- my mother showed up with a leather belt, a shoehorn and a red face with bloodshot eyes. I almost peed my pants out of fear. What followed was a good hour of screaming, followed by me being pummeled into the ground by a combination of kicking and being hit with the shoehorn. At this point, I was crying so much I could hardly breathe or see clearly. But my mother didn’t stop there. When I got up in an effort to run, she ripped off my clothing until nothing but my underpants remained. She proceeded to whip me with the leather belt (I’ll never forget the welts that caused, nor will I forget the brand name of that dreaded belt- Calvin Klein- still hate it with a passion) in an effort to drive me out of the house.
Once I was out of the house, she threw me into the street and screamed all kinds of things about how I was an incompetent, good for nothing idiot. Needless to say, I was essentially being paraded to complete strangers (hundreds) on the open street with welt marks and bruises on my body while my mother continued her tirade from inside the gates of the house. This continued until one of my mothers friends calmed her down hours later.
That incident made me fearful of math until I graduated from high school. Only in college did I finally get over the stigma. But I still have nightmares about the abusive actions my mother perpetrated when I was a child. I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive her for such things.
Hello Betty,
I am Vera from Germany. Today I read the article of Amy Chuang. I got a bit more enlightened in a theorie that evolved the past year. Never did I understand the meaning why my mum (Filipina) made me attend piano lessons though I hated it so much. And why I got beaten by my dad (German) when I was SLIGHTLY inobedient.
Well now I got a different point of view. After reading Chuang’s article I can’t really be mad at my parents. It’s ever the question of one’s own view about the world.
My parents tried best to raise me up to be an obendient, friendly and again obedient person. Actually there’s nothing wrong with it – If my environment wasn’t German (compare to Western style of education). My parents never tried as hard as Chuang to make me excel in certain skills. This is why I always failed. I sucked at playing the piano and math became my worst subject. What remaiined was my personality of being someway dependent on other people’s opinion. I am in need for external pressure to do soemthing myself and deep inside I feel different than the others (who are 95% – felt – liberally raised).
Now, although I am the obedient and seemingly opinionless person, I am more individual (in the sense of stereotype individual) than people who try hard to be elevated above the mass. But I cannot celebrate my individuality. So it has become task of the last years of my life to adapt, to understand and as well to find self-confidence. It has worked quite well. I feel like I can understand my friends now and also I start to embrace my individuality. Now comes the point where I try to excel at certain things. On my own will and not just dream about being someone but actually working for it.
Anyway, I think an important module of my evolvement was accepting what has happened in my childhood, understanding my parents (they never meant ill). I stopped making them responsible for everything but came to think that I’m my own creator of luck. Now.
Many regards! Vera
A
@ Donna Hooper
Maybe you will read this.
I think it’s going to be a hard way to build up the self esteem of your daughter in law. You might consider it as low self-esteem, she will see it as how it works. In many Asian countries self esteem is acquired through obedience and fulfilling other people’s wishes. As long this is not given, the “self-esteem” will remain low. For some reason your son likes her. Is it maybe her obedience, that she maybe worships him and he enjoys it? This is sort of a coupling that exists in many marriages.
As Betty already said, a therapist would be a necessary step to change her opinions. In the long term this is probably the only way to make her adapt and as you said, make your grandchildren have a “good” mother.
On the other hand she might not be ready for it yet. I mean, she just came to the US and it is probably still all about the marriage and being a good wife in (the sense she sees a good wife). Maybe later she will see an urge of adapting to the western style.
BUT you have to know this sort of recognition can be really devastating. Then she would need a lot of therapy because this is just an innermost change of personality. You have to ask yourself if it really is necessary to change? Maybe there are other Chinese people she can be friends with. And you could also come a step closer and try to encourage her through e.g. forcing her to do something. Hey, I WANT you to do this lesson. What about that? This might give her a task in her new Home. And you can be there for her, whenever she starts questioning about typical American behaviour. I think it’s really important she has someone she can trust. And with you who has this “braver” western style of contacting people, you can build up this trust… make her trust you.
regards
donna, anonymous makes such good points. although, in my opinion, it’s not about changing your daughter-in-law or making her trust you. here’s the simple fact….
welcome, donna. with an asian daughter-in-law, you are officially part of asian america. there’s a new “normal” that is going to become part of your lifestyle and vocabulary! seems to me that there will be culture shock and new experiences all around.
just enjoy your daughter-in-law the way she is. for now. she is going to be very sensitive to your disapproval. she’s trained to have that kind of radar. if you can give her unconditional love, that will go a long way! and in time, as she adjusts to her new world, there will be room for new experiences.
p.s. — i hope you subscribe to my blog. there are also other blogs and websites you might enjoy reading. there is a whole new world with its own nuances and vocabulary. i have a bunch of links you might like on the next post, the one on confucianism.
ok. i’m gonna try to fade out again and leave you all alone to chat among yourselves. :-)
and p.s., if you have time, would love it if you looked at my chinese medicine post. more new ideas for all of us to discuss and consider. getting your feedback would be helpful to me!
Did you read the book and not just one excerpt? I did. She admits her flaws and mistakes. She was set straight by her thirteen year old. People should read the book in it’s entirety before commenting.
on monoday, i have a friend is giving me a FREE copy of the book — curious to read it.
i think it’s important to clarify that the overall discussion of this issue is taking place on multiple levels. most of the comments here are a reaction to the wsj excerpt. no matter what amy chua says about being taken out of context, the piece stands on its own as a published work. and as you point out sherry, the book has other stuff going on inside of it. so that’s another topic!
also, just want to add that a friend of mine heard amy chua speak on thursday, in berkeley, calif. during the talk, she said that her book publisher had her look at the wsj headline and content before it ran in the newspaper. so our comments to her essay are totally legit. no misunderstandings here!
I am not impressed by Amy Chua’s flaunting. I have always preceived bigots like her as the most pitiful people on earth. Ignorance is the mother of bigotry. Ironically, she claims to be intelligent and to have achieved academic honors, but she is, to me, the most ignorant person — only a dumb blabber trying to impress that she is successful and different. Give me a break, Amy Chua!
I think Amy Chua should apologize to all Asian-Americans for writing this book, and also apologize to her daughters as well. Children are a gift to us. They need to be loved and nutured, not have emotional abuse thrown at them by a parent. The way these girls are and were treated is child abuse. This Mother, and I use the term loosely, should have these girls taken away from her. She has stolen their childhood and inflected them with treatment which reflects how inferior she herself feels no matter what she has accomplished. Parents who do this to their children are passing on their lack of self esteem and lack of worth by controlling anyone who will let them, and I’m sure her daughters never has a choice, not as of yet, I hope once they become of age, they leave her behind and never look back. Her husband must be having a wonder ful life also. It is disgusting that a book like this would even be published and that anyone would buy it and seriously considering foolowing the dictorial methods used by this woman.
I am surprised to see that a lot of people have posted comments saying their parents raised them similarly to Amy Chua’s ways, and as a result hate their guts. Where I live there are obviously a lot of Chinese kids in my school who are valedictorians and musically talented, etc. But I don’t know, I’ve rarely heard of any parents treating them with such extreme ways like verbally abusing them or restricting them from any social life.
I’m also Chinese and my parents are Chinese… Like the stereotypes go, they expect me to bring home A’s and they also took me to piano lessons at a young age. But, that’s where all similarities between them and the likes of Amy Chua stops. I’ve gotten B’s before, and I’m far from being a science whiz, and in fact this weekend I just screwed up a piano competition big time. Did my parents give me the cold shoulder? Did they call me “garbage?” No. They gave me a hug and said that they were glad I tried. I should mention that my mom and dad and I are close. We joke around, I tease them, we play table tennis together… They’re always worried about my studies, yes. They wish for me to attend an Ivy or a top university, yes. But I feel that it’s genuinely because they want the best for me and want me to reach my fullest potential.
So yeah, Amy Chua’s methods are certainly appalling and overdone – but her heart, I think, might actually mean well. I’m not saying there’s no cases in which the parent might be sadistically totalitarian – but many times, Chinese parents (or at least the ones I know) aren’t strict because they are “living through” their kids and pushing them out of selfish reasons. Maybe they just really value education and want success for their son/daughter.
I think it’s best to reach a middle, moderate area between the extremes of a “tiger mom” and a mom who doesn’t push her kid at all. And like I said, Amy Chua certainly does NOT represent all Chinese parents. Or even all Asian ones. I hope that when Americans read this they’re not going to think every Chinese student ought to go see a shrink.
What we have …
is a failure to assimilate
Mom is the person who is solely responsible for the kid at least in the moral sense. But the balance she maintains actually makes her the best one.
Please, people — get a sense of humour and actually read the book before you condemn it. Chua is completely open and honest about the pitfalls of her appoach. (And for the record, after read the book myself, I think she’s an excellent mother.)
The fact that so many of you feel you can spout off about a book you haven’t even read & and an author you know of only through the media is embarrassing. And it reinforces yet another ugly stereotype — that of the rude, bigoted American.
Thanks so much for pointing out the other side of the coin! My Chinese parents and I have been “discussing”(more like debating over) the Tiger Mom’s method. The main point of disagreement b/w my parents (Tiger Mom camp) and I (Western parenting camp) is over the definition of “Success”. Chinese parents seems to equate Success = Happiness. We know that is not the case, flawed even. Their version of success is defined on financial success and prestige, which by no means guarantees happiness. Ever head of the mid-life crisis?
However, there is a rhyme or reason to Chua’s parenting technique. Success, arguable is objective. You can’t argue against the results. Albeit her method works for SOME kids. I don’t know how many times I tried to get those straight As and failed. How I forced myself to stick to playing piano even though my mom told me I could stop b/c I thought it was the Perfect Asian Kid thing to do. What about all the Asian American kids who aspired to the golden standard of “Success” and Perfection but fell short? We are left to grapple w/ our failures. Let’s not forget that Asian American women have the highest suicide/depression/mental health issues out of all ethnicities across the board. That saids something.
I have come to accept that my Chinese parents are like gods. You try to please them but you can never succeed. Now I’m working on building my own success story on my terms.
I’m not disagreeing with your note per se, but you’ve heaped on awful lot of criticism on a book you haven’t read, written by a woman you know nothing about… don’t you feel a bit like a biggot yourself?
From all accounts, the book is a memoir that discusses her successes and failures as a parent.
Hi!
I’m neither Asian nor American…German and living in the North…I saw an article about the crazy woman in a German newspaper and found your blog while google-ing around. I find it quite shocking that an educated person argues like that…what about social skills? How can it be good to isolate your kids from friends, and what is wrong with school plays?
I studied at Cornell together with several Asian students. One thing I observed in some Asian PhD students was that they were unable to work independently and, hence, had difficulties to advance in their work. Drilling kids to only stupidly memorize things does not make them more intelligent….and won’t help them later on when more is expected from them than just reciting vocabulary etc…
Hi Betty,
A home schooling friend of mine forwarded this link to me. I’m half Filipino and was raised in the Philippines in this sort of family. Except that it was not aimed at academic excellence, just at control.
I have six kids who were all/ are homeschooled. They go to the local university, and have been graduating with honors. ON THEIR OWN. We never pushed. They ignited their own flames.
They have melting pot identities (their Daddy is a New Englander).
I reject all this old world stuff. A family that cannot maintain closeness without force is not a truly close family.
The only good thing I see about this book is that it has finally brought all toxic-ly raised Asian Americans out of the closet to talk about it. And she had broken the biggest taboo of all, implying that her parents did worse to her.
I wonder if she had to suffer the corporal punishment menu of such families?
My father is Chinese and my mother is Vietnamese/French. I always thought that they were hard on my sisters and me, but after I read Amy Chua’s essay I can’t even complain. Amy Chua is ridiculous. Her daughters will grow up and leave her. That’s what I would do. It’s one thing to push your children to do their best, but threatening to burn their stuffed animals and forcing them to do 2,000 math problems because another kid got a better score is outrageous. For should a smart woman on paper, she is ignorant.
I wish you have read the book first before lashing out. The book was not meant to be a parenting guidebook but a memoir. One can really learn from her experience. Many times while reading it, I had to just shake my head in disbelief at Mrs. Chua. She really can evoke such a strong negative feeling. It’s like how can she not get it? Her daughter Lulu rebelled and she still did not get it. I doubt up to this day if she really learned her lesson and truly changed parenting tactics. It’s a really good reading material and great for discussion so please give it a chance and read it.
I will definitely buy the book! (Sorry, Betty.) I want to write an article on musical instrument choice for children and will include the author’s reasons why she restricts the instrument choices to piano or violin!
Chua is talking about the flaws of Western Parenting and the world we are in today. Nobody can blame her because she herself was raised the same way as her children. If you dont like to be raising kids the tiger way -then dont. But let us debate about why western kids are way behind asians.
Every parrent wants their children to get a good education and have a successful life. But not every parent feels the need to be superior, to have their children beat everyone else, to go ahead, etc. My kids Asian classmates make remarks like “anyone who is not in advanced math is really stupid”. They also make fun of the kids in orchestra who can’t play at the elite level because they haven’t had years of private lessons. The word is not superior, it is arrogant.
Isn’t it somewhat presumptuous of Ms. Chua to assume that she is a successful parent and that her superSTRICT “Chinese” parenting skills are superior, when her two daughter have not even began to live their own lives?
Ms. Chua is making the mistake of false equivalency in linking her children’s current outstanding achievements with possible future (financial?) success. While it seems more than likely that her daughter will eventually need to fill the gap of acquiring real social skills when they need to function in the real world outside of the ivory tower constructed by their mother.
In my own observation of immigrant Chinese families (my mother has 6 siblings and I have dozens of cousins in the Bay Area where we all live) where the emphasis of superior academic achievement becomes the one and only goal in parenting, I noticed that the children are secretly deeply resentful of their parents, have low self-esteem (which then manifests in many different psychological dysfunctions later in life), and are alienated from others in a singularly selfish manner. Real and truthful communication and genuine affection between members of immediate families are replaced with passive-aggressive behaviors of resentment and competitiveness. It’s difficult to find examples of mutual support in my extended Chinese family, but rather, our family history is littered with innumerable incidents of deliberate back-stabbing and exploitation. The only thing is, that narrative took decades to develop which goes to substantiate my initial point which is that this is way to early for Ms. Chua to declare “Mission Accomplished.”
PS – I’m actually working on a memoir of my own about my extended immigrant Chinese family and it focuses on the probable “cultural” causes to the persistent dysfunctional dynamic that exists in it. And for the record, I am a 50 year old, gay Chinese American male who was raised by a loving and considerate “non-dragon” Chinese mother who, on her own, graduated from McGill University in Montreal in the ’60s.
Betty,
Good for you for actually reading the book. I can’t bring myself to give her any more money or head space! I can’t wait until this book fades away as a bad memory–I think it got some really important conversations within the Asian American community going, but I’m ready for her narcicistic feeding frenzy to be over! My family knows her family well, and I know that her narcisism was constructed by her own dismal childhood stuff, but it’s hard to feel any empathy for her while she perpetuates negative stereotypes, and the very parenting that made her crazy. (identify with the aggressor, much?) I know for a fact that she is a slave to wealth–so please let her make her pile of money and go away…
Then maybe there will be an opportunity for healing to occur.
There is a lot of irony here, starting with the fact that Ms. Chua is raising 2 healthy, well educated girls here in America. That is something that is very unlikely to occur in China. In fact, the U.S. and Europe are home to the largest female diaspora in modern history. Thousands of girls abandoned by their Chinese mothers have been adopted by western women. Perhaps parenting is a bit more complicated than cultivating super stars. I think we all have something to learn from each other and compassion would be a good place to start.
people llike amy should be behind bars.
I (european) was married with a chinese women. when our girl was born the desaster starts. they do not have any feeling for humans. not at all.
it is just like money…what can I get for it.
it is the reason why I am a single dad and the girl do not like chinese people anymore…
what a wonder
Andy, I really think you failed to understand your wife and her culture. Misunderstandings like that is the reason you were divorced. Wars have been started over misunderstandings like this.
It’s one thing to not understand a different culture. It’s quite another to have misconceptions because you do not want to understand.
Andy, I really think you failed to understand your wife and her culture. Misunderstandings like that is the reason you were divorced. Wars have been started over misunderstandings like this.
It’s one thing to not understand a different culture. It’s quite another to have misconceptions because you do not want to understand.
As for Amy, I will agree with many things she has stated in her book, because i’ve been through quite a few of those childhood moments myself.
But I don’t believe one should raise his/her kids quite so strictly to the point that you would enforce your will unto them or else.
It does take some finesse and some coaxing, and some well-meaning lies. Direct confrontation and “my way or the highway” approach should only be reserved for the most dire and emergency situations like life or death or drug situations.
Not over something fun like piano or violin lessons, please.
Wow, look at this discussion! In a way, I feel like Amy Chua (a.k.a. Voldemort, as her kids apparently refer to her) entering my consciousness is a blessing because it led me to this and I’m suddenly feeling not so alone and confused!
I’ve always felt like the “Biggest Loser” of our Indian community because I burnt out at a critical time and not surprisingly looked for love in all the wrong places. I basically had no ambition in life other than to be a good mother….and to me that meant raising happy, well-adjusted children, though neither of those terms really describes me. It was interesting for me to read about others who feel no desire to raise children lest they cause them to suffer. For me, that was the only drive I’ve ever found in my life….to lavish all the love in my heart on innocent children. I’ am now “just” a stay at home mom, married to a social worker. We are total “losers” according to our community because we live in a small condo, we drive old cars, I don’t own a cell phone, etc, etc…..My inner Asian mother constantly stresses that I don’t have enough money to put my kids in all kinds of activities. But though my mind is still full of garbage statements that batter my self-esteem on a daily basis, I do find pure and simple joy in just watching my sweet children play. And my children are pretty happy kids and I’m pretty sure they never doubt that they are loved.
I would like to find myself a good therapist after reading all these posts though…yoga has been my cheap therapy, but I still find myself in the dark and ugly place more often than I’d like, and it hinders me from living my fullest life. Because though I was never sure about what I wanted, other than to be a mom…I know I have much to offer, and just have to learn how to get out of my own way.
I also wanted to add that the reason many Chinese/Asian/tough love parents succeed in having good relationships with their successful, happy, well-adjusted children are because those parents know how to bolster their high expectations with generous amounts of love and emotional support. They are authoritative, rather than authoritarian parents. Amy Chua represents the authoritarian variety and that is not a recipe for genuine success.
I mean, her kids call her Voldemort! She may be proud of that fact, but does she realize that he (who shall not be named) represents the epitome of evil, and soul-lessness? Isn’t it incredibly sad that her children feel that way about her?
I agree with Lakshmi. I too do not believe i’ve lived up to my folks’ expectations. But I have 2 wonderful kids, and it’s my greatest joy to see them everyday having fun and enjoying their life.
I do push them and I do want them to do better in school. But I don’t drive them as hard as my parents did with me. And I tried to spare them the harsh words that I received in my childhood. I’ve managed to succeed so far in that regard, but I still feel the need to make sure they do really good in school, and that need translates into some nasty arguments between me and my wife.
Anyhoo, i agree with Lakshmi. Life’s enjoyment comes not from winning every competition in life, nor does it come from having the biggest and best of every material thing.
It comes from knowing/realizing what you enjoy the most in life, and having the time and the mindset to enjoy them as much as you can.
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