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Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

ernestipark 16y ago
I read the original article and honestly couldn't tell if it was a satire or not. I appreciate the honesty of the writer of this blog post though.
- temugen 16y ago
  I honestly thought the WSJ essay was as good or better than A Modest Proposal.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
jasonyyun 16y ago
I don't want to start another topic, so I'll leave this - an excellent response from a user on Quora on the topic: http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-explains-Why-Chinese-Mothers-Are-Superior-in-an-op-ed-in-the-Wall-Street-Journal/answer/Christine-Lu http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-ex...
- MaxGabriel 16y ago
  The quote from that comment is very telling. I did not choose the title of the WSJ excerpt, and I don't believe that there is only one good way of raising children. The actual book is more nuanced, and much of it is about my decision to retreat from the "strict Chinese immigrant" model. -Amy Chua
- nuggien 16y ago
  she seems to be blaming her mother for driving her sister towards depression and suicide. Kinda harsh. Could have been something else.
  - mechanical_fish 16y ago
    Not exactly. Depression killed her sister. She blames her mother for training her sister to hide that depression at all costs. She may never know "why" the depression happened (as if there needs to be a reason) but unfortunately she probably has a pretty good idea of why her sister didn't turn to family for help.
- redcap 16y ago
  Seconded - the Quora response is excellent and suggests/hints that the pressure from parents is one reason why suicide is high among Asian-American females.
hippo33 16y ago
Excellent response. Well balanced and honest.
aothman 16y ago
The point about turning out a generation of clones is spot on, and ultimately the cruelest irony of the whole thing. The best way to get into an elite college is by standing out as an individual; the colleges asian parents desperately want their kids to attend deal with the "asian clone" thing by rejecting the lot of them. The asian kid with a 1560 SAT and state violin awards (probably) isn't getting into Harvard, but if he had substituted kicking field goals for every minute he practiced violin...
- muhfuhkuh 16y ago
  "The asian kid with a 1560 SAT and state violin awards (probably) isn't getting into Harvard" 18% of Harvard students are Asian, so yeah, he (probably) would. And, that's with a long-standing policy of "ethnic cleansing" in Asian matriculation[1]. [1]http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2008/2/19/affirmatives-of-affirmative-action-a-study/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2008/2/19/affirmatives-of-...
  - nano81 16y ago
    That doesn't really nullify his point - what percentage of applicants were Asian?
    - muhfuhkuh 16y ago
      It really does nullify the point. If, as he claims, Harvard were trying to actively prevent the "asian clones" from invading, they would not allow a minority that makes up only 4% of the general population take almost up almost 1/5th of the slots, especially when you're underrepresenting whites, blacks, AND hispanics in the process (again, as a percentage of the general population). But, to answer your question, 23% of total applicants are Asian-American, and 18% of total accepted are Asian-American[1]. So, yeah, little Johnny Violin is likely getting into Harvard. [1]http://www.asianam.org/2006.htm http://www.asianam.org/2006.htm PS, yes, my math was totally mucked up. Thanks for pointing that out :D It should be around 8% acceptance, which is actually less than the acceptance rate overall. Hmmm... so I guess they are rejecting them in droves.
nsoonhui 16y ago
I hope I don't sound too racist or anti-Semite. Why is it that when a Jewish mother does the same as the Asian mother, no one complains? I'm a Chinese btw.
- nsoonhui 16y ago
  Downvotes! Care to explain why?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - ghurlman 16y ago
    Anecdote is not the singular form of data.
- muhfuhkuh 16y ago
  I can only venture a guess and say that Jewish people have always isolated themselves and their practices under the purposefully exclusive and secretive shroud of Judaism and all its tenets and customs. As such, Jewish parenting practices don't fall under the harsh lens of scrutiny as does the more blatant and hand-wavy aspects of Asian parenting (the mother's "mean face" and public displays of superiority in the form of music recitals and such referred to in the article).
- kujawa 16y ago
  You've never met any neurotic, therapy-prone Jews?
- drinian 16y ago
  Not Jewish, but I went to school with a lot of kids from successful Jewish families of varying levels of religiosity. I think at this point that the whole "overbearing Jewish parents" thing is more of a self-conscious joke than anything else, excepting perhaps some of the more religious Jewish families. I don't know if it's gotten to that point for Chinese-Americans yet. Also, by "a Chinese," what do you mean? Is there any hyphenation after that, e.g. -American, -Canadian, -Hong Kong, -Malaysian? Or are you a mainlander? There's significant cultural differences.
patrickgzill 16y ago
One thing I will grant about the original book and the controversy about it ... whatever the publicist got, was worth it.
vsingh 16y ago
The "Chinese mother" approach to raising children is based around motivations at the second-highest level of Maslow's hierarchy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Ne... While this aggressive approach to parenting can be made to sound right on a certain dispassionate level, to some people it just feels intensely wrong in a way that's hard to explain. Why is that? What happens is that children raised to heavily optimize "Esteem" have a hard time switching gears into "Self-actualization". It's no surprise that the "Chinese mother" disallows her child from starring in the school play. That would be a means of self-expression; it would throw a monkey wrench in the whole works. I've found many times in life that in order to self-actualize further, I've had to give up things that others praised. I think that in quitting Google and joining a startup (despite her parents' likely disapproval), the author has taken a big step towards self-actualization.
- ecuzzillo 16y ago
  This is not intended to exactly disagree: Many times when people cite the Maslow hierarchy, they often to take it as an axiom that the hierarchy is completely exactly how people work, and to lead better lives, people must go about fulfilling exactly these needs in this order. As someone who presumably subscribes to the hierarchy, would you agree that you seem fairly certain that this is how it works? And, if so, can you say why? At minimum, I'd say that it's not obvious to me that the order specified by the hierarchy is really in evidence. For example, I believe I've witnessed a fair number of people I'd say were self-actualized and esteemed who are fairly short on the friendship/family/sexual-intimacy front.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - vsingh 16y ago
    No, I do not believe in a strict order imposed by the hierarchy. My view, which I've come to through studying both Maslow's Hierarchy and Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration, is that you're able to operate at the highest level you've so far achieved during your lifetime, even if one of the lower levels is missing. For example, one who had all five levels fulfilled during childhood will be capable of self-actualization in later life even during periods of physical or fiscal insecurity.
bane 16y ago
Extremely well written, and echoes many of the comments in the quora thread (and in my own observations). There's a logic to it all though, in China for example, there isn't really any reward to be a big risk taker, and the downsides can be huge (social isolation, imprisonment, worse). Success then is to follow directions, do what you are told, and do it with supreme competence. This is often discussed in terms of the traditional Confucian Academies, and how dedicated studies could lead a peasant into a life of government service and success and pride for his family. But one has to look at what a classical Confucian education entails, literacy for sure -- but it was basically a monumental task of rote memorization. Unfortunately, Chinese parents who try to replicate this on their American born kids are doomed because they haven't quite gotten the message that those things aren't as valued here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classics
- jeanhsu 16y ago
  thanks! agreed--what is necessary for success is completely different here, yet many Chinese parents still think there is a magic formula, and that they know it!
  - bane 16y ago
    It seems to go both ways too. I find Americans can have a hard time being successful in other countries with vastly different socio-economic cultures as well. (ref: U.S. Investment Failure in newly capitalist Russia and China).
- jmspring 16y ago
  A well reasoned response. An area where the focus on rote memorization and lack of creativity/risk taking starts to show in the educational realm is in US grad schools. I've known of individuals coming to the US from China at the top of their class, but thrown into an environment where they need to think critically and strive for the unique idea upon which to base their dissertation on, they struggle. That is not to say that in grad school situations, finding an idea / area of study leading to a PhD is easy, but those with a background based in rote have struggled more in my experience.
klenwell 16y ago
A friend of mine, a mother of a gifted 5th grader wrestling with similar issues of parental control as Amy Chua, shared the WSJ article with me today. It reminded me of something Steven Pinker writes about in one of his books. In his book, he breaks down the work of Judith Rich Harris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris) to this formula: Genes have 50% influence over a child's development, peers 40%-50%, parents the rest. Harris's work is strongly disputed, yes. But Chua's article seems to strangely confirm it. By micromanaging her children's social interactions in a number of different ways, she wrests back a significant measure of influence back from their potential peers. I told my friend to note Chua's list of things she never lets her kids do: • attend a sleepover • have a playdate • be in a school play • complain about not being in a school play • watch TV or play computer games • choose their own extracurricular activities Notice these are all activities that would potentially expand the influence of her kids' peers and undermine her totalitarian regime. Chua probably believes that its her strictness and strong principles that are leading her children to excel. And these have their role, no doubt. But I would propose, following Harris, it is her oppressive control of their social lives which is the much stronger factor. An interesting extension of her social experiment will be when it's time for her kids to go to college (the photo accompanying the article indicated they haven't quite got there yet.) Sure, they'll probably go to an Ivy League school, maybe even Yale where their mother is a professor, so it won't be complete culture shock. Nevertheless: do her kids find peers who sustain their carefully disciplined social lives? Does mom continue to try to control their lives at a distance? Do they thrive with additional freedom? Or do they crack under it? *Edited for formatting and spelling.
- klenwell 16y ago
  One additional observation. I shared this with article with my Chinese girlfriend. This is what she texted me in response: I love the article. This is why we fight. I am your Chinese parent and call you "stupid" when I want to show you that I believe you can do better. When you tell me to "do whatever makes me happy," I feel you are being irresponsible because I can't control myself! I guess we fail at being each other's parents. :)
- wslh 16y ago
tastybites 16y ago
Just my couple of cents worth of first hand input... Most Chinese families aren't crazy-obsessed with achievement - I'd say about 1/4 of them exhibit this kind of insane behavior, but that's still a very, very high rate, which is where this stereotype comes from. The rest are similar to their high-achieving white counterpart families. Just as a data point, my two parents (two MDs and one PhD, yeah, it could have been real, real bad) weren't like this. I had a very normal childhood. I did all the things that white kids do. I would like to bring up a possibility, which is possibly controversial: a lot of these kids let themselves be trampled on by their parents. In addition to (probably) being bullied at school, they are bullied at home by their parents. I really wish they would do more to stand up for themselves. They can't be blamed, though, as their will has been systematically removed by the parents in most cases. Overall, this whole thing is a great example of very smart people doing very stupid things. A not unrelated issue is the high rate of Asian American girls/women who refuse to date and marry Asian guys. It's so blindingly obvious as to why, I'm surprised anyone ever has to ask the question.
- toephu 16y ago
  exactly, the author of that blog post Jean Hsu married a white guy
- lionhearted 16y ago
  > A not unrelated issue is the high rate of Asian American girls/women who refuse to date and marry Asian guys. It's so blindingly obvious as to why, I'm surprised anyone ever has to ask the question. Y'know, I'm not so convinced that that's it. I think people of a different genetic background as ourselves are naturally appealing to some extent, but dating/marrying outside of any race is largely taboo. Asian woman/Caucasian man is socially acceptable right now, but I think a lot more of it is going to happen going forwards. If China continues its ascendancy into an empire, I'd predict more Chinese man/Caucasian woman parings going forwards. The numbers already bare out that mixed race parings have been increasing at quite a high rate. With the skewed gender ratios, increasing Chinese wealth, and most likely international emergence of Chinese arts and culture and sex symbols... I think there's going to be a significant increase of Eastern European woman/Chinese man and Caucasian American/Chinese parings coming in the very near future.
hristov 16y ago
My sisters are in high school and it is one of those overachiever schools. They say a lot of their friends are nervous wrecks because of pressure their parents put on them about getting into a top college, and a lot of kids actually turn to drugs for that reason.
kenjackson 16y ago
There's truth in both articles. While I had lots of fun as a kid I certainly wish I was better at more things. Although with that said, most of the things I wish I was better at are probably things Chinese mothers wouldn't really push: basketball, dancing, drawing/art, and piano (this they clearly do support). But parenting is hard. At the end of the day, if my kids are happy, nice, respectful, and can afford the things they want, I'll be happy for them.
toephu 16y ago
Goto China and meet real Chinese. ABCs are not real Chinese. They are bananas. Yellow on the outside, White on the inside.
T-R 16y ago
> In reality they are just molding all their kids to look exactly the same on paper. I wasn't expecting this argument, but it reminds me a lot of how the RECRUIT company has managed to commoditize the workforce in Japan. By unifying applications and highlighting only certain traits, they've created a system where applicants all try to maximize only those specific traits (grades, entrance exam scores, TOEFL scores, etc.). On the other hand, companies mostly only see those traits, so they'll throw out an application if anything slightly negative shows up, whether it's that you've ever quit a job, or that your handwritten resume had less-than-perfect penmanship. Optimizing for a small set of traits probably actually works well to a degree in the U.S. specifically because not everyone is optimizing for those same traits.
roadnottaken 16y ago
Everybody likes to give their parents credit/blame for everything (good and bad) but that overlooks the fact that people have different personalities that are surprisingly inborn and resilient. David Brooks has a line somewhere (I'll try to dig it up) where he says the most important thing is to be a "good enough" parent: provide a safe environment where your kids are encouraged and stimulated. It's not necessary to be a super-parent. Extraordinary people are not solely the product of parenting and the main thing is to shepherd your kids through childhood so they can reach adulthood without any scars.
jzycrzy 16y ago
This makes me think of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, where he tells a parent their children will live in a time they can never visit or see and therefore must let their children have their own thoughts. The excerpt "On Children": Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.  They come through you but not from you,  And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts,   For they have their own thoughts.  You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,  which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.  You may strive to be like them,  but seek not to make them like you.  For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children  as living arrows are sent forth.  The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,  and He bends you with His might  that His arrows may go swift and far.  Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies,  so He loves also the bow that is stable.
- p_nathan 16y ago
  That is well said. I was chatting with a friend who is studying education for her PhD about the article. We were unimpressed by Chua's approach and think it's quite too extreme.
lionhearted 16y ago
A contrary viewpoint: After studying a number of different cultures and backgrounds and histories, I'm generally an admirer of the school of parenting laid out by Chua. Well, I think some of the more insulting/demeaning/negative-reinforcement isn't so great, but the overall focus on achievement and duty as superior to having fun... I do respect that. I'll explain why - I used to think the opposite until I read Andre Agassi's autobiography, "Open" - Agassi was one of the top tennis players in the world, hit #1 multiple times, and generally achieved tremendously a lot. He's now married to Stefi Graff, the top women's tennis player of all time, and they have two kids and seem like a really healthy and happy family. In his book, Agassi talks about hating tennis. He really does. His father, an immigrant to the USA from Iran, drilled tennis into him obsessively from a young age, constantly telling him he's going to be #1 in the world. Agassi was miserable a lot of that time. So, why do I think it's a good style of parenting? Because people from the driven overachieving backgrounds don't realize that people with more normal lives go through their own sorts of miseries. If anything, I think Western culture leaves people directionless and in angst and miserable through their younger years more often than not. The kid that just follows the minimum program, hangs out, drifts around, gets high a lot, and then wakes up at age 42 with no professional success, no real social circle, no accomplishments, no family, no skills, working at Starbucks... ...y'know, it's socially acceptable to criticize people for overachieving and striving at the expense of other things, but it's not really socially acceptable to criticize people for mediocrity. It's kind of taboo to put down that people who spend their youth chasing pleasure frequently break down into full-on existential crises and madness later in life. The vast majority of people don't self-actualize and don't achieve real meaning in their lives. Most people ascribe this to their background and external things. So you sometimes see people people who grow up under intense parenting styles say, "Well yes I tended to achieve more, but I was unhappy" - maybe, but remember that the grass is always greener on the other side... I'll say one very real downside of the intensive parenting style - it has a much higher variance/standard deviation of results. You're likely to make it very professionally successful, or completely break down under the pressure. That's the downside. But overall, would someone like Andre Agassi have been happier if he'd just farted along and been a middle manager at some warehousing/shipping company in Nevada? Yeah, he often hated tennis and hated his father, but in the end he inspired millions of people, got to experience triumphs most people will never feel, achieved a complete mastery and harmony between his mind and body in competition, built a family with an absolutely incredible woman, and lots of other good things. There's downsides, sure. But the grass is always greener on the other side. I could point out my opinions as to the flaws of any given parenting style, but I find the duty/achievement end of the spectrum to seem closer to overall well-being than the reverse.
niels_olson 16y ago
Another "strict parents" story, also coincidentally Asian: http://www.asiacarrera.com/bio2.html http://www.asiacarrera.com/bio2.html
- mbubb 16y ago
  An interesting example. In a job I wouldn't necessarily wish on anyone - but she ran her own website and was to some extent her own producer. This was before porn became socially acceptable. I am not sure why you cite her example. Is it "see - if you push too hard they will run off and become porn stars!!!" ? Or - is this the case: Here is someone who had the native intelligence and creativity and entrepreneurial wherewithal to take a basically crappy, exploitive situation and shape it to some extent. Not to say it is a utopian existence but she did this before there was a culture industry that produces Jenna Jameson (sp?) type of success with all of the open merchandising and acceptance. The 'Chinese Mom' (in this case German and Japanese - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Carrera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Carrera) quite possible helped in this case. And according to the wikipedia entry she herself is raising her kids in a 'conservative' manner.
felipe 16y ago
I am a western (Brazilian-American) living in China. All this drilling and tests may sound crazy, but I do think it teaches an important value that is missing in the west's education: discipline My wife is a teacher. She taught kids in the US (California) and here in China. One difference is that in the US a huge amount of her preparation time is spent on making lessons interesting to students, otherwise they disconnect. In China she is more focused on the lesson's subject matter, rather than tweaking the lesson for entertainment / attention value. True, Chinese education does not value creativity or self-expression like in the west (and Chinese students are aware of that). But the lack of discipline is not the way to go IMO. Jean Hsu's post is wonderful, by the way.
- bluekeybox 16y ago
  > in the US a huge amount of her preparation time is spent on making lessons interesting to students, otherwise they disconnect. In China she is more focused on the lesson's subject matter, rather than tweaking the lesson for entertainment / attention value. I came to the U.S. from Eastern Europe and went to a U.S. college. The introductory science textbooks were all guilty of this. The biology textbooks especially were simply unbearable to me. What makes learning material interesting to an American kid is not necessarily going to make it interesting to someone outside of the American culture. Also, some smarter kids are simply bored by the lame attempts of textbook publishers to add "pizzas" to make the material appear "interesting." Smarter kids just want content, in the most concise form possible, so that it would not take a lot of time to read and understand it. The thing that struck me most about American education: kids carrying around huge heavy backpacks with huge heavy glossy textbooks in them (those books would have cost a month's salary from where I was originally from) that were full of either cartoon-like drawings in poorly chosen colors or "stories" in colored boxes that all had very little to do with actual content and talked down to me as if I were mentally challenged. Oh, and those textbooks were published like every year or so in a new edition, so that you could not resell once you bought one and used it for the course. I was extremely happy when I got to graduate-level courses because it meant no more of those retarded textbooks.
  - mnutt 16y ago
dheerosaur 16y ago
I came across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan when I was reading about Japan on Wikipedia. It led me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society which says that the high suicide rate may be attributed to the societal structure. These societies set high standards for individuals and that may result in high performance from the society but, at the same time, may depress under-achievers to such an extent that people commit suicides.
- p90x 16y ago
  I've heard people bring up the argument of suicides when this subject comes up before. But I don't think it is a valid point because you are cherry picking statistics. If you want to make a more fair comparison you would need to look at a variety of factors to get a overall picture. Would it be fair for an Asian to look at the USA and pick something like school shootings ( or drug use, or criminality, or teen pregnancy - which ever stat makes the USA look worse) to attack the entire American style of parenting? Obviously it wouldn't be.
jchonphoenix 16y ago
I'm not really sure whether to agree or disagree. I have asian parents and went through the whole ordeal. I can honestly say that, as a kid, I didn't enjoy it, but then again, I can't imagine anyone would. However, I definitely would not be as knowledgeable, intelligent, or well brought up without the asian schooling. This article and most people against asian parenting's viewpoint is from the outsiders viewpoint. They all see the brutality of it and think "how could you treat your child like that." On the flipside however, it is undeniable that asians outperform westerners. Parenting likely has something to do with it. I'm not saying one side is right or the other. I'm just noting that there's a statistical imbalance and unless we're all willing to admit asian genes are superior to all others, outside influence must be responsible and parenting/culture is the most likely culprit.
- rgrieselhuber 16y ago
  > it is undeniable that asians outperform westerners [Citation needed]
  - xiaoma 16y ago
    At least in the context of the US (which was the topic of the article): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_American#Education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_American#Education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Race_6_figure_household_and.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Race_6_figure_household_an...
    - rgrieselhuber 16y ago
      Looking at the breakdown, then perhaps Indian mothers are the superior ones? :-) The point is that optimizing along one or two metrics such as income or education is myopic (which was the actual topic of the article), especially when you don't take into consideration the associated costs (opportunity and otherwise).
      - xiaoma 16y ago
        Look, you asked for a citation and I spent, apparently wasted, my time getting you two. Looking at income, education, percentage of children born out of wedlock, incarceration rates, and a number of other metrics, those of asian are doing very well compared to whites, blacks, and latinos. If you want to pick your pet metric and explain why asians actually aren't doing so well, then you should provide citations and make your case.
p_nathan 16y ago
Regarding the WSJ essay - my perspective is that what Chua's kids are going through is barbaric and will not generate well-educated, Renaissance-esque people. There is tremendous value in learning and discipline, and my observation of American schools makes me think that American schools are pretty weaksauce in the discipline and focus department. I don't think anyone out there denies that. To pick at a particular example of Chua - music. I am better-suited than some others to look at this, since I myself - and my sister - spent time learning music as children and into our college years. Mrs Chua! Your kids do well in violin and piano. And only violin and piano. Why violin and piano? Is the trumpet - a fine instrument! - beneath them? Or the viola, an underappreciated sibling to the violin? Perhaps it was simply too blue-collar to consider such an instrument as the guitar and its fine heritage in baroque European works. Or perhaps your children's true ability would have been in the drums. But, no, alas. It was the high-brow, well-respected violin and piano you chose for them. How simple it is to say, "ah, these are the respected instruments, the instruments bringing good face to us". Mrs. Chua, you have deeply restricted your children's musical activities. You really should not have done that. There is no call to regulate and legislate play like that. You should have let them explore their own mind, their own heart. They are Human beings too, and their perspective should be taken into account for their play. If they sought after being a professional musician, then there would have been time for focus, and much of it. Focus is the hallmark of a professional! But play is something else.
- gruseom 16y ago
  Or the viola, an underappreciated sibling to the violin? Thank you! I consider it the great mistake of Western music that the exquisitely-toned viola lost out to the squeaky fiddle. The Russians got it right: they call the violin skripka, which is exactly how it sounds, halfway between screeching and scraping. I actually have trouble listening to orchestral music because of this. That high-pitched squeaking gets in the way. It's as if the leading wind instrument had been the piccolo. Fully agree about barbaric parenting practices as well. :)
- nocman 16y ago
  I'd like to know more specifically the choice of acceptable instruments. My observation is that the choices of piano and violin are not limited to Asian families (at least, not in the US). There seems to be a link between people who wish to foster academic excellence in their children, and the choice to have them play piano and/or violin. I'd be interested to know if anyone here has any insights as to why those particular instruments are chosen, and I'd be even more interested to know why other instruments would be strictly excluded (whether by Asian parents or those of other heritage). Personally, I think it is a good idea to have kids learn piano for at least a couple of reasons. First, I think the visual layout of a piano can help attach a physical understanding to the concept of intervals and chords (specifically the distance between notes, and the clustering of notes in specific patterns to form chords). For me personally, I think that was a benefit, even though I play piano very little, and not very well. Secondly, I don't recall ever meeting an adult who took lessons as a child for any length of time (and then quit) who as an adult does not wish they had continued. Now surely there will be at least 7 people on HN who will now speak up, inform me that they hated lessons as a child, happily quit when they were able and never regretted it for a second. But unless my memory is failing me, that must mean we've never met (or at least we've never discussed piano lessons), and thus my statement still stands :-D To that I will add, that even with a number of "I quit and I'm glad" entries, I still think the majority of the adults in question wish they hadn't quit. Oh, and a third reason to play piano: they make nice weighted, touch-sensitive keybords now that do a pretty decent job of mimicking the feel of a real piano (at least close enough for me), and you can move them from room to room and house to house by yourself. (You won't have to get 3 to 5 of your soon to be ex-best friends to help you). We sold our old upright piano about 3 moves ago, and I've been celebrating the sale ever since :-D
jamesli 16y ago
I thought it was a satire at first when i read the original article in WSJ. I was astounded that Ms. Amy Chua was serious. How arrogant it is! It also makes me wonder why WSJ published such an apparently ridiculous article. What are the essential differences between claiming Chinese mother supremacy from white supremacy? Both my wife and I are Chinese. We have two lovely children. They are like free range chickens in our house and in the school. We showed them how to use Google, Wikipedia, Webster, etc. so that they can look for knowledge they are interested by themselves. They had their own gmail accounts when they were four years old. My older child had Twitter account when he was six, before my wife ever heard of Twitter. :) Because we believe love, trust, and confidence are most important for them to live a good life. The utmost goal of our education is for them to be independently thinkers, to work hard, to be creative, to have sympathy, to do right things for this society. And I have confidence to say there are many Chinese parents holding the same belief as we do.
- bm98 16y ago
  > It also makes me wonder why WSJ published such an apparently ridiculous article. Chua is trying to drum up interest for her new book on the same topic which goes on sale today. Her publisher, Penguin Books, is owned by Pearson PLC. Rupert Murdoch and News Corp (which owns the WSJ) has plenty of history with Pearson -- owning a significant stake in the company in the 80's, buying HarperCollins from Pearson in the 90's, competing with Pearson's Financial Times lately. I don't know if there is any Murdoch ownership in Pearson now, or any publishing agreements between the two companies, but I doubt the WSJ article was published based on editorial reasons alone.
- sethg 16y ago
  What are the essential differences between claiming Chinese mother supremacy from white supremacy? Naked appeals to racism are out of fashion. Attributing differences among ethnic groups to “culture” provides one with plausible deniability. As a further bonus, Chua’s op-ed provides anecdata for people who want to beat the drums of “if you are poor it’s your own fault for not trying hard enough”.
yason 16y ago
(Parenting anecdote warning) From my kids, I demand that they do their share of work (at home and later, in life), that they be kind and respect other people (but it's okay that other people may not always like it when someone sets their limits), and that they don't continue to do things for wrong reasons without thinking about it first (like doing stuff to mostly impress other people). I listen to what they want and try to hear what's true. I give them few things only: kids always want a lot of things but I do force them to prioritize and think it over a couple of times, so that they will learn to listen themselves to what they really want. And that they will learn to appreciate the value of what they have. You can't have everything in life or everything will lose its value. I let them make choices themselves, given that some final limitations are followed. For example, they can wear what they like as long as I've checked they've got enough clothing so that they'll be warm. When they're spending their money, they can do whatever they want with it. For example, they can invest all their money in candy; however, I don't let them eat candy every day all over the week as we have specific days for goodies. That's pretty much it. I don't have any vocational or educational goals or hobby-wise demands for them. I trust that they will eventually do what they simply can't not do. Long idle periods may precede but that's okay. As long as you're alive, time is indefinite. I don't claim to have—or gain—control over their lives and choices, barring some rules they as kids need require and with regard to the physical world. I consider it good to be humble enough to understand that I have no idea whatsoever of what's best for them in their lives. I might have an idea or two about what I would do and I sometimes talk about that but I don't dare suggest they had to follow. I don't always know how to do all that. But most of the time I think I get it right eventhough I'm still learning myself. I'll just mostly try to be there when they need support. And that's hard and demanding too, and I think that too often I can't do that either. But I'm pretty confident that when a couple of kids live with me for about 18 years in a rather intimate living arragement, something will stick and that imprint will be close to what I wanted to say. Time only will tell if I turn out to be right or wrong but I merely hope they'll find it valuable, one way or another.
qiqiyan 16y ago
Does it occur to anyone that the eastern/western parenting styles can be easily mixed? When it comes to things like being honest, making good use of time, never give up easily, commitment to hard work, it doesn't hurt to exercise the eastern parenting style to force the kids to form these habits. The kids will thank you later. When it comes to what the kids should do as hobby/career, the kids should be given a lot of freedom, as one can only do well in stuff that he/she's truly passionate about.
zslwork 16y ago
it true For chines mother one agassi, there are more than thousand Chinese children pushed that much hard that don't make it anywhere.
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yardie 16y ago
I'm a constant immigrant and I can say this is not really a Chinese phenomena, but probably has more to do with immigrant mindset. I think because she is a successful driven professor she has upped the ante on this. So, in addition to what her mother considers successful she has added the cutthroat business and academic world of what is considered successful, then drummed that into her kids and got a book deal out of it. As an immigrant from a caribbean island I see where she is coming from almost perfectly. Immigrants to the US aren't, in general, ditch diggers and gardeners. It requires a clean record, education, and motivation. Then when you arrive in the US the state isn't required to give you anything. From the moment you land, you and your family are basically on your own to find housing and work, though they do have local outreach programs to help in this. This survivorship mode carries on even when you are successful and especially when you have kids. My mom had few words for me, "STUDY!" and "What did you learn today?". "I love you", was reserved for birthdays and Christmas. Playing was reserved for weekends and summer breaks. The one thing she did impart to me was motivation. At some point, when work demanded more from her, I had to be completely self-sufficient (or as much as a 10 year old could be). I was looking after my brother and sisters, studying, and running the household by myself (notice I haven't mentioned my father...long story). I enrolled in music courses, summer study courses, and enrolled at a magnet school. My mother stopped pushing me to excel and I started doing it on my own. Now, I've moved to another country and started a family. And that same immigrant psychology of sink or swim has manifested in me. My son is only 3 but I'm pushing him to excel academically. I've said some of the same words to him that Chua has told her daughters (minus the verbal abuse). And I think at some point he will also be self sufficient, no angry mother or father leaning over his should to make sure he does his work or chores. At the same time, the relationship I have with our mother is vastly different than what my brother and sisters have with her. I speak to her like a soldier speaks to an officer. They speak to her like a child to speaks to a mother. I'm really jealous that they have this type of relationship, and they are jealous that I'm the golden son.
- sethg 16y ago
  Classic joke: “What’s a Jewish dropout? A boy without a Ph.D.”
stcredzero 16y ago
While trying to give them an academic advantage, these parents are really stunting their personal and social development. This rings true in my experience. I don't think my parents understood the difference between substantive (and personal) success and societal success. Actually, for me the pervasive and insistent message was that my passions do not matter and are probably wrong and bad. Their narrow-minded formula for success (great grades, ivy league, medical school, high paying job) may work for some, but it alienates those who might find success elsewhere. I was one of these kids. At middle age I am still dealing with the emotional scars and just starting to find my true place in the world.
flannell 16y ago
I graduated in '99 with a 2.1 CompSci degree - the year a Chinese chap threw himself off the top of an 10-storey engineering building because he couldn't go back with a 2.1 degree.
mbubb 16y ago
I read that WSJ article and had it clanking around in my head for a few days... I was countering it with some of the 'free-range' parenting styles you read about. The most valid insight of the article was that some things (ie - violin, number theory, LISP, organic chemistry) are inherently hard and require discipline to get through the 'rote-learning' boring parts. The 'touchy-feely', "let's make math interesting" style of parenting/ teaching misses this. There is something to 3 hours of violin vs 45 minutes and 2 hours of TV as a reward... I am no 'Chinese Mom' but see that this style of parenting is best for a kid who has certain proclivities. If they have an impulse towards music it is important for them to push them selves past the drudgery of practicing scales onto real accomplishment. If the kid hates music then drop it and find something else. But push them enough so that they understand that if they work through the initial tough part some real beauty lies ahead.
kahawe 16y ago
I am sorry, the WSJ article seemed like a lot of trolling to me. It never touched on the subject of why Chinese mothers are allegedly "superior" at bringing up "better" or "more successful" children (whatever that may be). Instead it took a long and round-about way of justifying why indeed Chinese mothers are "a superior" to their kids whom they seem to constantly boss around - with the best intentions. I think Jean Hsu was spot on in her article, however: all this commanding and strict parenting just has to REALLY numb down the kid's initiative and will to "play" and "explore", try new things and learn on their own. This may sound very harsh but for me, this bossing around just creates busy drones at best and at worst those kids will be very, very much lacking any orientation, motivation, initiative and a unique personality of sorts. How can you find happiness on your own when the close bond with the person who has been controlling your life for 20, 25 years is suddenly gone?
toblender 16y ago
As an Engineer with a crazy controlling Chinese father. I know parents make a big difference in the early years. I've experienced not having attend sleep overs, any extracurricular/sports, friends over, or phone calls. Most prisoners have more freedom. My dad being a teacher back in China, ended up giving me hours of extra homework on top of the regular easy stuff from school. Sure your kids may get into med school or become that lawyer, but I'm almost certain at some point they are going to hate you for ruining their childhood. Also they are just going to develop bingeing personalities and have overloads the moment you take your eyes off them.
to_the_top 16y ago
its a problem in Canada: http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/10/too-asian/ http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/10/too-asian/
arethuza 16y ago
From that WSJ article: "What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it." I always thought it was your unlikely to get good at anything that you don't find fun.
p90x 16y ago
Am I the only one who thought that Amy Chua's article was more than a little 'tongue in cheek'?
Quarrelsome 16y ago
I've met people that were raised like that and they're broken. They lack the volition to do things by themselves and are unable to make their own choices. I used to converse a lot with a girl brought up in this manner and if you asked the question: "why" a lot about the things she did or was about to do (like planning to go to a particular college) you would ultimately end up with: "I don't know". Also I would bet that those kids are bullied to at least some extent at school. They would have been at mine at least. :D
didip 16y ago
I was raised like this as well and surrounded by Asian parents who do this. I see a few of my Asian peers, as young parents, exercising the totalitarian technique as well. I supposed, in the end, my dad did it. I accomplished all his goals at relatively young age. But that comes with a huge cost. I never see him as a loving caring dad. He is always the target to beat. Sucks to be him now, old and alone. This article and other Asians who follow Amy Chua's style of parenting rarely see this one perspective: The oppressive technique is cargo-culted to death among Asian parents. It is used by Asian parents who themselves, are not successful like some sort of miracle drugs. This technique only works IF the parents themselves are successful. If the parents are lazy, glutton, and messy, there is no way this technique will make the kids dapper and discipline. For those of you who suffer/ed Asian parents oppression, there's always the satirical: http://highexpectationsasianfather.tumblr.com http://highexpectationsasianfather.tumblr.com
danielrhodes 16y ago
There's clearly some correlation between Chua's approach and 'success' as it is narrowly defined within an academic spectrum. However, in practice I think such methods discourage failure so strongly that the children grow up to choose only the narrow paths which guarantee success, and don't explore outwards.
gaoshan 16y ago
Just to throw this out there and give an actual Chinese mom perspective on this... The two Chinese mothers I know well here in the U.S. (my wife and her cousin) both of whom were born and raised in China, both of whom have 2 children of about the same age as the original author and both of whom are similarly educated to the woman who wrote the original article this one is in response to, were disturbed by the message and methods presented. They found it abusive, excessive and wrong and have been mailing links to this to all of their friends in anger.
DisposaBoy 16y ago
I'm sorry for going OT and I know this isn't reddit but it has to be said because everyone knows that... > Japanese girls are superior!
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queensnake 16y ago
Best retort I've seen, of this: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/01/why_chinese_mothers_are_not_su.html

I read the original article and honestly couldn't tell if it was a satire or not. I appreciate the honesty of the writer of this blog post though.

temugen 16y ago
I honestly thought the WSJ essay was as good or better than A Modest Proposal.
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jasonyyun 16y ago

I don't want to start another topic, so I'll leave this - an excellent response from a user on Quora on the topic: http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-explains-Why-Chinese-Mothers-Are-Superior-in-an-op-ed-in-the-Wall-Street-Journal/answer/Christine-Lu http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-ex...

MaxGabriel 16y ago
The quote from that comment is very telling. I did not choose the title of the WSJ excerpt, and I don't believe that there is only one good way of raising children. The actual book is more nuanced, and much of it is about my decision to retreat from the "strict Chinese immigrant" model. -Amy Chua
nuggien 16y ago
she seems to be blaming her mother for driving her sister towards depression and suicide. Kinda harsh. Could have been something else.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  Not exactly. Depression killed her sister. She blames her mother for training her sister to hide that depression at all costs. She may never know "why" the depression happened (as if there needs to be a reason) but unfortunately she probably has a pretty good idea of why her sister didn't turn to family for help.
redcap 16y ago
Seconded - the Quora response is excellent and suggests/hints that the pressure from parents is one reason why suicide is high among Asian-American females.

hippo33 16y ago

Excellent response. Well balanced and honest.

aothman 16y ago

The point about turning out a generation of clones is spot on, and ultimately the cruelest irony of the whole thing. The best way to get into an elite college is by standing out as an individual; the colleges asian parents desperately want their kids to attend deal with the "asian clone" thing by rejecting the lot of them. The asian kid with a 1560 SAT and state violin awards (probably) isn't getting into Harvard, but if he had substituted kicking field goals for every minute he practiced violin...

muhfuhkuh 16y ago
"The asian kid with a 1560 SAT and state violin awards (probably) isn't getting into Harvard" 18% of Harvard students are Asian, so yeah, he (probably) would. And, that's with a long-standing policy of "ethnic cleansing" in Asian matriculation[1]. [1]http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2008/2/19/affirmatives-of-affirmative-action-a-study/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2008/2/19/affirmatives-of-...
- nano81 16y ago
  That doesn't really nullify his point - what percentage of applicants were Asian?
  - muhfuhkuh 16y ago
    It really does nullify the point. If, as he claims, Harvard were trying to actively prevent the "asian clones" from invading, they would not allow a minority that makes up only 4% of the general population take almost up almost 1/5th of the slots, especially when you're underrepresenting whites, blacks, AND hispanics in the process (again, as a percentage of the general population). But, to answer your question, 23% of total applicants are Asian-American, and 18% of total accepted are Asian-American[1]. So, yeah, little Johnny Violin is likely getting into Harvard. [1]http://www.asianam.org/2006.htm http://www.asianam.org/2006.htm PS, yes, my math was totally mucked up. Thanks for pointing that out :D It should be around 8% acceptance, which is actually less than the acceptance rate overall. Hmmm... so I guess they are rejecting them in droves.

nsoonhui 16y ago

I hope I don't sound too racist or anti-Semite. Why is it that when a Jewish mother does the same as the Asian mother, no one complains? I'm a Chinese btw.

nsoonhui 16y ago
Downvotes! Care to explain why?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- ghurlman 16y ago
  Anecdote is not the singular form of data.
muhfuhkuh 16y ago
I can only venture a guess and say that Jewish people have always isolated themselves and their practices under the purposefully exclusive and secretive shroud of Judaism and all its tenets and customs. As such, Jewish parenting practices don't fall under the harsh lens of scrutiny as does the more blatant and hand-wavy aspects of Asian parenting (the mother's "mean face" and public displays of superiority in the form of music recitals and such referred to in the article).
kujawa 16y ago
You've never met any neurotic, therapy-prone Jews?
drinian 16y ago
Not Jewish, but I went to school with a lot of kids from successful Jewish families of varying levels of religiosity. I think at this point that the whole "overbearing Jewish parents" thing is more of a self-conscious joke than anything else, excepting perhaps some of the more religious Jewish families. I don't know if it's gotten to that point for Chinese-Americans yet. Also, by "a Chinese," what do you mean? Is there any hyphenation after that, e.g. -American, -Canadian, -Hong Kong, -Malaysian? Or are you a mainlander? There's significant cultural differences.

patrickgzill 16y ago

One thing I will grant about the original book and the controversy about it ... whatever the publicist got, was worth it.

vsingh 16y ago

The "Chinese mother" approach to raising children is based around motivations at the second-highest level of Maslow's hierarchy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Ne... While this aggressive approach to parenting can be made to sound right on a certain dispassionate level, to some people it just feels intensely wrong in a way that's hard to explain. Why is that? What happens is that children raised to heavily optimize "Esteem" have a hard time switching gears into "Self-actualization". It's no surprise that the "Chinese mother" disallows her child from starring in the school play. That would be a means of self-expression; it would throw a monkey wrench in the whole works. I've found many times in life that in order to self-actualize further, I've had to give up things that others praised. I think that in quitting Google and joining a startup (despite her parents' likely disapproval), the author has taken a big step towards self-actualization.

ecuzzillo 16y ago
This is not intended to exactly disagree: Many times when people cite the Maslow hierarchy, they often to take it as an axiom that the hierarchy is completely exactly how people work, and to lead better lives, people must go about fulfilling exactly these needs in this order. As someone who presumably subscribes to the hierarchy, would you agree that you seem fairly certain that this is how it works? And, if so, can you say why? At minimum, I'd say that it's not obvious to me that the order specified by the hierarchy is really in evidence. For example, I believe I've witnessed a fair number of people I'd say were self-actualized and esteemed who are fairly short on the friendship/family/sexual-intimacy front.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- vsingh 16y ago
  No, I do not believe in a strict order imposed by the hierarchy. My view, which I've come to through studying both Maslow's Hierarchy and Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration, is that you're able to operate at the highest level you've so far achieved during your lifetime, even if one of the lower levels is missing. For example, one who had all five levels fulfilled during childhood will be capable of self-actualization in later life even during periods of physical or fiscal insecurity.

bane 16y ago

Extremely well written, and echoes many of the comments in the quora thread (and in my own observations). There's a logic to it all though, in China for example, there isn't really any reward to be a big risk taker, and the downsides can be huge (social isolation, imprisonment, worse). Success then is to follow directions, do what you are told, and do it with supreme competence. This is often discussed in terms of the traditional Confucian Academies, and how dedicated studies could lead a peasant into a life of government service and success and pride for his family. But one has to look at what a classical Confucian education entails, literacy for sure -- but it was basically a monumental task of rote memorization. Unfortunately, Chinese parents who try to replicate this on their American born kids are doomed because they haven't quite gotten the message that those things aren't as valued here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classics

jeanhsu 16y ago
thanks! agreed--what is necessary for success is completely different here, yet many Chinese parents still think there is a magic formula, and that they know it!
- bane 16y ago
  It seems to go both ways too. I find Americans can have a hard time being successful in other countries with vastly different socio-economic cultures as well. (ref: U.S. Investment Failure in newly capitalist Russia and China).
jmspring 16y ago
A well reasoned response. An area where the focus on rote memorization and lack of creativity/risk taking starts to show in the educational realm is in US grad schools. I've known of individuals coming to the US from China at the top of their class, but thrown into an environment where they need to think critically and strive for the unique idea upon which to base their dissertation on, they struggle. That is not to say that in grad school situations, finding an idea / area of study leading to a PhD is easy, but those with a background based in rote have struggled more in my experience.

klenwell 16y ago

A friend of mine, a mother of a gifted 5th grader wrestling with similar issues of parental control as Amy Chua, shared the WSJ article with me today. It reminded me of something Steven Pinker writes about in one of his books. In his book, he breaks down the work of Judith Rich Harris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris) to this formula: Genes have 50% influence over a child's development, peers 40%-50%, parents the rest. Harris's work is strongly disputed, yes. But Chua's article seems to strangely confirm it. By micromanaging her children's social interactions in a number of different ways, she wrests back a significant measure of influence back from their potential peers. I told my friend to note Chua's list of things she never lets her kids do: • attend a sleepover • have a playdate • be in a school play • complain about not being in a school play • watch TV or play computer games • choose their own extracurricular activities Notice these are all activities that would potentially expand the influence of her kids' peers and undermine her totalitarian regime. Chua probably believes that its her strictness and strong principles that are leading her children to excel. And these have their role, no doubt. But I would propose, following Harris, it is her oppressive control of their social lives which is the much stronger factor. An interesting extension of her social experiment will be when it's time for her kids to go to college (the photo accompanying the article indicated they haven't quite got there yet.) Sure, they'll probably go to an Ivy League school, maybe even Yale where their mother is a professor, so it won't be complete culture shock. Nevertheless: do her kids find peers who sustain their carefully disciplined social lives? Does mom continue to try to control their lives at a distance? Do they thrive with additional freedom? Or do they crack under it? *Edited for formatting and spelling.

klenwell 16y ago
One additional observation. I shared this with article with my Chinese girlfriend. This is what she texted me in response: I love the article. This is why we fight. I am your Chinese parent and call you "stupid" when I want to show you that I believe you can do better. When you tell me to "do whatever makes me happy," I feel you are being irresponsible because I can't control myself! I guess we fail at being each other's parents. :)
wslh 16y ago

tastybites 16y ago

Just my couple of cents worth of first hand input... Most Chinese families aren't crazy-obsessed with achievement - I'd say about 1/4 of them exhibit this kind of insane behavior, but that's still a very, very high rate, which is where this stereotype comes from. The rest are similar to their high-achieving white counterpart families. Just as a data point, my two parents (two MDs and one PhD, yeah, it could have been real, real bad) weren't like this. I had a very normal childhood. I did all the things that white kids do. I would like to bring up a possibility, which is possibly controversial: a lot of these kids let themselves be trampled on by their parents. In addition to (probably) being bullied at school, they are bullied at home by their parents. I really wish they would do more to stand up for themselves. They can't be blamed, though, as their will has been systematically removed by the parents in most cases. Overall, this whole thing is a great example of very smart people doing very stupid things. A not unrelated issue is the high rate of Asian American girls/women who refuse to date and marry Asian guys. It's so blindingly obvious as to why, I'm surprised anyone ever has to ask the question.

toephu 16y ago
exactly, the author of that blog post Jean Hsu married a white guy
lionhearted 16y ago
> A not unrelated issue is the high rate of Asian American girls/women who refuse to date and marry Asian guys. It's so blindingly obvious as to why, I'm surprised anyone ever has to ask the question. Y'know, I'm not so convinced that that's it. I think people of a different genetic background as ourselves are naturally appealing to some extent, but dating/marrying outside of any race is largely taboo. Asian woman/Caucasian man is socially acceptable right now, but I think a lot more of it is going to happen going forwards. If China continues its ascendancy into an empire, I'd predict more Chinese man/Caucasian woman parings going forwards. The numbers already bare out that mixed race parings have been increasing at quite a high rate. With the skewed gender ratios, increasing Chinese wealth, and most likely international emergence of Chinese arts and culture and sex symbols... I think there's going to be a significant increase of Eastern European woman/Chinese man and Caucasian American/Chinese parings coming in the very near future.

hristov 16y ago

My sisters are in high school and it is one of those overachiever schools. They say a lot of their friends are nervous wrecks because of pressure their parents put on them about getting into a top college, and a lot of kids actually turn to drugs for that reason.

kenjackson 16y ago

There's truth in both articles. While I had lots of fun as a kid I certainly wish I was better at more things. Although with that said, most of the things I wish I was better at are probably things Chinese mothers wouldn't really push: basketball, dancing, drawing/art, and piano (this they clearly do support). But parenting is hard. At the end of the day, if my kids are happy, nice, respectful, and can afford the things they want, I'll be happy for them.

toephu 16y ago

Goto China and meet real Chinese. ABCs are not real Chinese. They are bananas. Yellow on the outside, White on the inside.

T-R 16y ago

> In reality they are just molding all their kids to look exactly the same on paper. I wasn't expecting this argument, but it reminds me a lot of how the RECRUIT company has managed to commoditize the workforce in Japan. By unifying applications and highlighting only certain traits, they've created a system where applicants all try to maximize only those specific traits (grades, entrance exam scores, TOEFL scores, etc.). On the other hand, companies mostly only see those traits, so they'll throw out an application if anything slightly negative shows up, whether it's that you've ever quit a job, or that your handwritten resume had less-than-perfect penmanship. Optimizing for a small set of traits probably actually works well to a degree in the U.S. specifically because not everyone is optimizing for those same traits.

roadnottaken 16y ago

Everybody likes to give their parents credit/blame for everything (good and bad) but that overlooks the fact that people have different personalities that are surprisingly inborn and resilient. David Brooks has a line somewhere (I'll try to dig it up) where he says the most important thing is to be a "good enough" parent: provide a safe environment where your kids are encouraged and stimulated. It's not necessary to be a super-parent. Extraordinary people are not solely the product of parenting and the main thing is to shepherd your kids through childhood so they can reach adulthood without any scars.

jzycrzy 16y ago

This makes me think of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, where he tells a parent their children will live in a time they can never visit or see and therefore must let their children have their own thoughts. The excerpt "On Children": Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.  They come through you but not from you,  And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts,   For they have their own thoughts.  You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,  which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.  You may strive to be like them,  but seek not to make them like you.  For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children  as living arrows are sent forth.  The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,  and He bends you with His might  that His arrows may go swift and far.  Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies,  so He loves also the bow that is stable.

p_nathan 16y ago
That is well said. I was chatting with a friend who is studying education for her PhD about the article. We were unimpressed by Chua's approach and think it's quite too extreme.

lionhearted 16y ago

A contrary viewpoint: After studying a number of different cultures and backgrounds and histories, I'm generally an admirer of the school of parenting laid out by Chua. Well, I think some of the more insulting/demeaning/negative-reinforcement isn't so great, but the overall focus on achievement and duty as superior to having fun... I do respect that. I'll explain why - I used to think the opposite until I read Andre Agassi's autobiography, "Open" - Agassi was one of the top tennis players in the world, hit #1 multiple times, and generally achieved tremendously a lot. He's now married to Stefi Graff, the top women's tennis player of all time, and they have two kids and seem like a really healthy and happy family. In his book, Agassi talks about hating tennis. He really does. His father, an immigrant to the USA from Iran, drilled tennis into him obsessively from a young age, constantly telling him he's going to be #1 in the world. Agassi was miserable a lot of that time. So, why do I think it's a good style of parenting? Because people from the driven overachieving backgrounds don't realize that people with more normal lives go through their own sorts of miseries. If anything, I think Western culture leaves people directionless and in angst and miserable through their younger years more often than not. The kid that just follows the minimum program, hangs out, drifts around, gets high a lot, and then wakes up at age 42 with no professional success, no real social circle, no accomplishments, no family, no skills, working at Starbucks... ...y'know, it's socially acceptable to criticize people for overachieving and striving at the expense of other things, but it's not really socially acceptable to criticize people for mediocrity. It's kind of taboo to put down that people who spend their youth chasing pleasure frequently break down into full-on existential crises and madness later in life. The vast majority of people don't self-actualize and don't achieve real meaning in their lives. Most people ascribe this to their background and external things. So you sometimes see people people who grow up under intense parenting styles say, "Well yes I tended to achieve more, but I was unhappy" - maybe, but remember that the grass is always greener on the other side... I'll say one very real downside of the intensive parenting style - it has a much higher variance/standard deviation of results. You're likely to make it very professionally successful, or completely break down under the pressure. That's the downside. But overall, would someone like Andre Agassi have been happier if he'd just farted along and been a middle manager at some warehousing/shipping company in Nevada? Yeah, he often hated tennis and hated his father, but in the end he inspired millions of people, got to experience triumphs most people will never feel, achieved a complete mastery and harmony between his mind and body in competition, built a family with an absolutely incredible woman, and lots of other good things. There's downsides, sure. But the grass is always greener on the other side. I could point out my opinions as to the flaws of any given parenting style, but I find the duty/achievement end of the spectrum to seem closer to overall well-being than the reverse.

niels_olson 16y ago

Another "strict parents" story, also coincidentally Asian: http://www.asiacarrera.com/bio2.html http://www.asiacarrera.com/bio2.html

mbubb 16y ago
An interesting example. In a job I wouldn't necessarily wish on anyone - but she ran her own website and was to some extent her own producer. This was before porn became socially acceptable. I am not sure why you cite her example. Is it "see - if you push too hard they will run off and become porn stars!!!" ? Or - is this the case: Here is someone who had the native intelligence and creativity and entrepreneurial wherewithal to take a basically crappy, exploitive situation and shape it to some extent. Not to say it is a utopian existence but she did this before there was a culture industry that produces Jenna Jameson (sp?) type of success with all of the open merchandising and acceptance. The 'Chinese Mom' (in this case German and Japanese - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Carrera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Carrera) quite possible helped in this case. And according to the wikipedia entry she herself is raising her kids in a 'conservative' manner.

felipe 16y ago

I am a western (Brazilian-American) living in China. All this drilling and tests may sound crazy, but I do think it teaches an important value that is missing in the west's education: discipline My wife is a teacher. She taught kids in the US (California) and here in China. One difference is that in the US a huge amount of her preparation time is spent on making lessons interesting to students, otherwise they disconnect. In China she is more focused on the lesson's subject matter, rather than tweaking the lesson for entertainment / attention value. True, Chinese education does not value creativity or self-expression like in the west (and Chinese students are aware of that). But the lack of discipline is not the way to go IMO. Jean Hsu's post is wonderful, by the way.

bluekeybox 16y ago
> in the US a huge amount of her preparation time is spent on making lessons interesting to students, otherwise they disconnect. In China she is more focused on the lesson's subject matter, rather than tweaking the lesson for entertainment / attention value. I came to the U.S. from Eastern Europe and went to a U.S. college. The introductory science textbooks were all guilty of this. The biology textbooks especially were simply unbearable to me. What makes learning material interesting to an American kid is not necessarily going to make it interesting to someone outside of the American culture. Also, some smarter kids are simply bored by the lame attempts of textbook publishers to add "pizzas" to make the material appear "interesting." Smarter kids just want content, in the most concise form possible, so that it would not take a lot of time to read and understand it. The thing that struck me most about American education: kids carrying around huge heavy backpacks with huge heavy glossy textbooks in them (those books would have cost a month's salary from where I was originally from) that were full of either cartoon-like drawings in poorly chosen colors or "stories" in colored boxes that all had very little to do with actual content and talked down to me as if I were mentally challenged. Oh, and those textbooks were published like every year or so in a new edition, so that you could not resell once you bought one and used it for the course. I was extremely happy when I got to graduate-level courses because it meant no more of those retarded textbooks.
- mnutt 16y ago

dheerosaur 16y ago

I came across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan when I was reading about Japan on Wikipedia. It led me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society which says that the high suicide rate may be attributed to the societal structure. These societies set high standards for individuals and that may result in high performance from the society but, at the same time, may depress under-achievers to such an extent that people commit suicides.

p90x 16y ago
I've heard people bring up the argument of suicides when this subject comes up before. But I don't think it is a valid point because you are cherry picking statistics. If you want to make a more fair comparison you would need to look at a variety of factors to get a overall picture. Would it be fair for an Asian to look at the USA and pick something like school shootings ( or drug use, or criminality, or teen pregnancy - which ever stat makes the USA look worse) to attack the entire American style of parenting? Obviously it wouldn't be.

jchonphoenix 16y ago

I'm not really sure whether to agree or disagree. I have asian parents and went through the whole ordeal. I can honestly say that, as a kid, I didn't enjoy it, but then again, I can't imagine anyone would. However, I definitely would not be as knowledgeable, intelligent, or well brought up without the asian schooling. This article and most people against asian parenting's viewpoint is from the outsiders viewpoint. They all see the brutality of it and think "how could you treat your child like that." On the flipside however, it is undeniable that asians outperform westerners. Parenting likely has something to do with it. I'm not saying one side is right or the other. I'm just noting that there's a statistical imbalance and unless we're all willing to admit asian genes are superior to all others, outside influence must be responsible and parenting/culture is the most likely culprit.

rgrieselhuber 16y ago
> it is undeniable that asians outperform westerners [Citation needed]
- xiaoma 16y ago
  At least in the context of the US (which was the topic of the article): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_American#Education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_American#Education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Race_6_figure_household_and.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Race_6_figure_household_an...
  - rgrieselhuber 16y ago
    Looking at the breakdown, then perhaps Indian mothers are the superior ones? :-) The point is that optimizing along one or two metrics such as income or education is myopic (which was the actual topic of the article), especially when you don't take into consideration the associated costs (opportunity and otherwise).
    - xiaoma 16y ago
      Look, you asked for a citation and I spent, apparently wasted, my time getting you two. Looking at income, education, percentage of children born out of wedlock, incarceration rates, and a number of other metrics, those of asian are doing very well compared to whites, blacks, and latinos. If you want to pick your pet metric and explain why asians actually aren't doing so well, then you should provide citations and make your case.

p_nathan 16y ago

Regarding the WSJ essay - my perspective is that what Chua's kids are going through is barbaric and will not generate well-educated, Renaissance-esque people. There is tremendous value in learning and discipline, and my observation of American schools makes me think that American schools are pretty weaksauce in the discipline and focus department. I don't think anyone out there denies that. To pick at a particular example of Chua - music. I am better-suited than some others to look at this, since I myself - and my sister - spent time learning music as children and into our college years. Mrs Chua! Your kids do well in violin and piano. And only violin and piano. Why violin and piano? Is the trumpet - a fine instrument! - beneath them? Or the viola, an underappreciated sibling to the violin? Perhaps it was simply too blue-collar to consider such an instrument as the guitar and its fine heritage in baroque European works. Or perhaps your children's true ability would have been in the drums. But, no, alas. It was the high-brow, well-respected violin and piano you chose for them. How simple it is to say, "ah, these are the respected instruments, the instruments bringing good face to us". Mrs. Chua, you have deeply restricted your children's musical activities. You really should not have done that. There is no call to regulate and legislate play like that. You should have let them explore their own mind, their own heart. They are Human beings too, and their perspective should be taken into account for their play. If they sought after being a professional musician, then there would have been time for focus, and much of it. Focus is the hallmark of a professional! But play is something else.

gruseom 16y ago
Or the viola, an underappreciated sibling to the violin? Thank you! I consider it the great mistake of Western music that the exquisitely-toned viola lost out to the squeaky fiddle. The Russians got it right: they call the violin skripka, which is exactly how it sounds, halfway between screeching and scraping. I actually have trouble listening to orchestral music because of this. That high-pitched squeaking gets in the way. It's as if the leading wind instrument had been the piccolo. Fully agree about barbaric parenting practices as well. :)
nocman 16y ago
I'd like to know more specifically the choice of acceptable instruments. My observation is that the choices of piano and violin are not limited to Asian families (at least, not in the US). There seems to be a link between people who wish to foster academic excellence in their children, and the choice to have them play piano and/or violin. I'd be interested to know if anyone here has any insights as to why those particular instruments are chosen, and I'd be even more interested to know why other instruments would be strictly excluded (whether by Asian parents or those of other heritage). Personally, I think it is a good idea to have kids learn piano for at least a couple of reasons. First, I think the visual layout of a piano can help attach a physical understanding to the concept of intervals and chords (specifically the distance between notes, and the clustering of notes in specific patterns to form chords). For me personally, I think that was a benefit, even though I play piano very little, and not very well. Secondly, I don't recall ever meeting an adult who took lessons as a child for any length of time (and then quit) who as an adult does not wish they had continued. Now surely there will be at least 7 people on HN who will now speak up, inform me that they hated lessons as a child, happily quit when they were able and never regretted it for a second. But unless my memory is failing me, that must mean we've never met (or at least we've never discussed piano lessons), and thus my statement still stands :-D To that I will add, that even with a number of "I quit and I'm glad" entries, I still think the majority of the adults in question wish they hadn't quit. Oh, and a third reason to play piano: they make nice weighted, touch-sensitive keybords now that do a pretty decent job of mimicking the feel of a real piano (at least close enough for me), and you can move them from room to room and house to house by yourself. (You won't have to get 3 to 5 of your soon to be ex-best friends to help you). We sold our old upright piano about 3 moves ago, and I've been celebrating the sale ever since :-D

jamesli 16y ago

I thought it was a satire at first when i read the original article in WSJ. I was astounded that Ms. Amy Chua was serious. How arrogant it is! It also makes me wonder why WSJ published such an apparently ridiculous article. What are the essential differences between claiming Chinese mother supremacy from white supremacy? Both my wife and I are Chinese. We have two lovely children. They are like free range chickens in our house and in the school. We showed them how to use Google, Wikipedia, Webster, etc. so that they can look for knowledge they are interested by themselves. They had their own gmail accounts when they were four years old. My older child had Twitter account when he was six, before my wife ever heard of Twitter. :) Because we believe love, trust, and confidence are most important for them to live a good life. The utmost goal of our education is for them to be independently thinkers, to work hard, to be creative, to have sympathy, to do right things for this society. And I have confidence to say there are many Chinese parents holding the same belief as we do.

bm98 16y ago
> It also makes me wonder why WSJ published such an apparently ridiculous article. Chua is trying to drum up interest for her new book on the same topic which goes on sale today. Her publisher, Penguin Books, is owned by Pearson PLC. Rupert Murdoch and News Corp (which owns the WSJ) has plenty of history with Pearson -- owning a significant stake in the company in the 80's, buying HarperCollins from Pearson in the 90's, competing with Pearson's Financial Times lately. I don't know if there is any Murdoch ownership in Pearson now, or any publishing agreements between the two companies, but I doubt the WSJ article was published based on editorial reasons alone.
sethg 16y ago
What are the essential differences between claiming Chinese mother supremacy from white supremacy? Naked appeals to racism are out of fashion. Attributing differences among ethnic groups to “culture” provides one with plausible deniability. As a further bonus, Chua’s op-ed provides anecdata for people who want to beat the drums of “if you are poor it’s your own fault for not trying hard enough”.

yason 16y ago

(Parenting anecdote warning) From my kids, I demand that they do their share of work (at home and later, in life), that they be kind and respect other people (but it's okay that other people may not always like it when someone sets their limits), and that they don't continue to do things for wrong reasons without thinking about it first (like doing stuff to mostly impress other people). I listen to what they want and try to hear what's true. I give them few things only: kids always want a lot of things but I do force them to prioritize and think it over a couple of times, so that they will learn to listen themselves to what they really want. And that they will learn to appreciate the value of what they have. You can't have everything in life or everything will lose its value. I let them make choices themselves, given that some final limitations are followed. For example, they can wear what they like as long as I've checked they've got enough clothing so that they'll be warm. When they're spending their money, they can do whatever they want with it. For example, they can invest all their money in candy; however, I don't let them eat candy every day all over the week as we have specific days for goodies. That's pretty much it. I don't have any vocational or educational goals or hobby-wise demands for them. I trust that they will eventually do what they simply can't not do. Long idle periods may precede but that's okay. As long as you're alive, time is indefinite. I don't claim to have—or gain—control over their lives and choices, barring some rules they as kids need require and with regard to the physical world. I consider it good to be humble enough to understand that I have no idea whatsoever of what's best for them in their lives. I might have an idea or two about what I would do and I sometimes talk about that but I don't dare suggest they had to follow. I don't always know how to do all that. But most of the time I think I get it right eventhough I'm still learning myself. I'll just mostly try to be there when they need support. And that's hard and demanding too, and I think that too often I can't do that either. But I'm pretty confident that when a couple of kids live with me for about 18 years in a rather intimate living arragement, something will stick and that imprint will be close to what I wanted to say. Time only will tell if I turn out to be right or wrong but I merely hope they'll find it valuable, one way or another.

qiqiyan 16y ago

Does it occur to anyone that the eastern/western parenting styles can be easily mixed? When it comes to things like being honest, making good use of time, never give up easily, commitment to hard work, it doesn't hurt to exercise the eastern parenting style to force the kids to form these habits. The kids will thank you later. When it comes to what the kids should do as hobby/career, the kids should be given a lot of freedom, as one can only do well in stuff that he/she's truly passionate about.

zslwork 16y ago

it true For chines mother one agassi, there are more than thousand Chinese children pushed that much hard that don't make it anywhere.

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yardie 16y ago

I'm a constant immigrant and I can say this is not really a Chinese phenomena, but probably has more to do with immigrant mindset. I think because she is a successful driven professor she has upped the ante on this. So, in addition to what her mother considers successful she has added the cutthroat business and academic world of what is considered successful, then drummed that into her kids and got a book deal out of it. As an immigrant from a caribbean island I see where she is coming from almost perfectly. Immigrants to the US aren't, in general, ditch diggers and gardeners. It requires a clean record, education, and motivation. Then when you arrive in the US the state isn't required to give you anything. From the moment you land, you and your family are basically on your own to find housing and work, though they do have local outreach programs to help in this. This survivorship mode carries on even when you are successful and especially when you have kids. My mom had few words for me, "STUDY!" and "What did you learn today?". "I love you", was reserved for birthdays and Christmas. Playing was reserved for weekends and summer breaks. The one thing she did impart to me was motivation. At some point, when work demanded more from her, I had to be completely self-sufficient (or as much as a 10 year old could be). I was looking after my brother and sisters, studying, and running the household by myself (notice I haven't mentioned my father...long story). I enrolled in music courses, summer study courses, and enrolled at a magnet school. My mother stopped pushing me to excel and I started doing it on my own. Now, I've moved to another country and started a family. And that same immigrant psychology of sink or swim has manifested in me. My son is only 3 but I'm pushing him to excel academically. I've said some of the same words to him that Chua has told her daughters (minus the verbal abuse). And I think at some point he will also be self sufficient, no angry mother or father leaning over his should to make sure he does his work or chores. At the same time, the relationship I have with our mother is vastly different than what my brother and sisters have with her. I speak to her like a soldier speaks to an officer. They speak to her like a child to speaks to a mother. I'm really jealous that they have this type of relationship, and they are jealous that I'm the golden son.

sethg 16y ago
Classic joke: “What’s a Jewish dropout? A boy without a Ph.D.”

stcredzero 16y ago

While trying to give them an academic advantage, these parents are really stunting their personal and social development. This rings true in my experience. I don't think my parents understood the difference between substantive (and personal) success and societal success. Actually, for me the pervasive and insistent message was that my passions do not matter and are probably wrong and bad. Their narrow-minded formula for success (great grades, ivy league, medical school, high paying job) may work for some, but it alienates those who might find success elsewhere. I was one of these kids. At middle age I am still dealing with the emotional scars and just starting to find my true place in the world.

flannell 16y ago

I graduated in '99 with a 2.1 CompSci degree - the year a Chinese chap threw himself off the top of an 10-storey engineering building because he couldn't go back with a 2.1 degree.

mbubb 16y ago

I read that WSJ article and had it clanking around in my head for a few days... I was countering it with some of the 'free-range' parenting styles you read about. The most valid insight of the article was that some things (ie - violin, number theory, LISP, organic chemistry) are inherently hard and require discipline to get through the 'rote-learning' boring parts. The 'touchy-feely', "let's make math interesting" style of parenting/ teaching misses this. There is something to 3 hours of violin vs 45 minutes and 2 hours of TV as a reward... I am no 'Chinese Mom' but see that this style of parenting is best for a kid who has certain proclivities. If they have an impulse towards music it is important for them to push them selves past the drudgery of practicing scales onto real accomplishment. If the kid hates music then drop it and find something else. But push them enough so that they understand that if they work through the initial tough part some real beauty lies ahead.

kahawe 16y ago

I am sorry, the WSJ article seemed like a lot of trolling to me. It never touched on the subject of why Chinese mothers are allegedly "superior" at bringing up "better" or "more successful" children (whatever that may be). Instead it took a long and round-about way of justifying why indeed Chinese mothers are "a superior" to their kids whom they seem to constantly boss around - with the best intentions. I think Jean Hsu was spot on in her article, however: all this commanding and strict parenting just has to REALLY numb down the kid's initiative and will to "play" and "explore", try new things and learn on their own. This may sound very harsh but for me, this bossing around just creates busy drones at best and at worst those kids will be very, very much lacking any orientation, motivation, initiative and a unique personality of sorts. How can you find happiness on your own when the close bond with the person who has been controlling your life for 20, 25 years is suddenly gone?

toblender 16y ago

As an Engineer with a crazy controlling Chinese father. I know parents make a big difference in the early years. I've experienced not having attend sleep overs, any extracurricular/sports, friends over, or phone calls. Most prisoners have more freedom. My dad being a teacher back in China, ended up giving me hours of extra homework on top of the regular easy stuff from school. Sure your kids may get into med school or become that lawyer, but I'm almost certain at some point they are going to hate you for ruining their childhood. Also they are just going to develop bingeing personalities and have overloads the moment you take your eyes off them.

to_the_top 16y ago

its a problem in Canada: http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/10/too-asian/ http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/10/too-asian/

arethuza 16y ago

From that WSJ article: "What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it." I always thought it was your unlikely to get good at anything that you don't find fun.

p90x 16y ago

Am I the only one who thought that Amy Chua's article was more than a little 'tongue in cheek'?

Quarrelsome 16y ago

I've met people that were raised like that and they're broken. They lack the volition to do things by themselves and are unable to make their own choices. I used to converse a lot with a girl brought up in this manner and if you asked the question: "why" a lot about the things she did or was about to do (like planning to go to a particular college) you would ultimately end up with: "I don't know". Also I would bet that those kids are bullied to at least some extent at school. They would have been at mine at least. :D

didip 16y ago

I was raised like this as well and surrounded by Asian parents who do this. I see a few of my Asian peers, as young parents, exercising the totalitarian technique as well. I supposed, in the end, my dad did it. I accomplished all his goals at relatively young age. But that comes with a huge cost. I never see him as a loving caring dad. He is always the target to beat. Sucks to be him now, old and alone. This article and other Asians who follow Amy Chua's style of parenting rarely see this one perspective: The oppressive technique is cargo-culted to death among Asian parents. It is used by Asian parents who themselves, are not successful like some sort of miracle drugs. This technique only works IF the parents themselves are successful. If the parents are lazy, glutton, and messy, there is no way this technique will make the kids dapper and discipline. For those of you who suffer/ed Asian parents oppression, there's always the satirical: http://highexpectationsasianfather.tumblr.com http://highexpectationsasianfather.tumblr.com

danielrhodes 16y ago

There's clearly some correlation between Chua's approach and 'success' as it is narrowly defined within an academic spectrum. However, in practice I think such methods discourage failure so strongly that the children grow up to choose only the narrow paths which guarantee success, and don't explore outwards.

gaoshan 16y ago

Just to throw this out there and give an actual Chinese mom perspective on this... The two Chinese mothers I know well here in the U.S. (my wife and her cousin) both of whom were born and raised in China, both of whom have 2 children of about the same age as the original author and both of whom are similarly educated to the woman who wrote the original article this one is in response to, were disturbed by the message and methods presented. They found it abusive, excessive and wrong and have been mailing links to this to all of their friends in anger.

DisposaBoy 16y ago

I'm sorry for going OT and I know this isn't reddit but it has to be said because everyone knows that... > Japanese girls are superior!

deleted 16y ago

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queensnake 16y ago

Best retort I've seen, of this: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/01/why_chinese_mothers_are_not_su.html