Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

The Wall Street Journal ran an article this week entitled "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior." The author, Amy Chua, outlined the reasons why she believes Chinese mothers like her "produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies." She focused mostly on strict Chinese parenting versus lenient Western parenting, and many of the comments on the article did so as well. Her main points were:

1. "Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem." While American parents think children are fragile, the Chinese do not, and will "excoriate, punish, and shame the child."
2. "Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything." American parents, on the other hand, feel as if they owe their children everything.
3. "Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences."

Some of the parenting techniques she described seemed less than superior to me. She told a story of practicing piano with her 7-year-old daughter Lulu that, if it had occurred in my home, I would be embarassed to admit to anyone, even if I achieved the successful result she described. I try, albeit not always successfully, to be positive when working or practicing with my children.

Chua's focus also seemed to be almost entirely on visible success. According to her article, her daughters must have straight A's and "be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama" (apparently worthless subjects in her mind). And in a study she sites comparing 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, 70% of the American moms believed that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." 0% of the Chinese mothers, on the other hand, felt that way. I stand firmly on the American side here. Not only do I want my children to love learning and think it is fun, I want them to focus on the process of learning rather than grades or other external ways to show off. As adults, I want their drive to come from within, not from an extrinsic drive to impress.

Despite the flaws I noticed, I finished the article convinced that she is a superior mother in many ways—but also certain that she attributed her success to the wrong factors.

First of all, she does care about her daughters' self-esteem. She just knows that Western-style empty praise will not result in good self-esteem. She writes, "as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't." Her tenacity amazed me. She believed her daughter could learn a difficult piano piece even when her husband and her daughter didn't think she could do it. "Every child can learn," Shinichi Suzuki taught, and this Chinese mother really believes it.

The second secret of her success, in my opinion, is that she believes in "letting [children] see what they're capable of and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away." My favorite expert on child learning is Mel Levine, who believes that one of parents' main jobs is to teach their children to work. I agree that instilling a work ethic and other positive character traits should be foremost in every parent's mind. Chua writes, "What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences." I dismiss her assumption that overriding their preferences must involve coercion as false.

Strict or lenient, I think the best parents believe that any child will succeed if she works hard enough, then teach their child to work hard. If her two points would have been "The Chinese mother knows that every child can learn" and "The Chinese mother instills a good work ethic," I would now be touting the absolute superiority of the Chinese mother. What do you think? Here's a link to the full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html?KEYWORDS=why+chinese+mothers+are+superior

She has just published a book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which I intend to read.