By So did any of you have Mom’s like this?:
A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to 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
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.
I’m using the term “Chinese mother” loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. [Wall Street Journal via The Marmot's Hole]
You can read a whole lot more at the link.
12:16 pm on January 11th, 2011 1
Chinese MILFs are great. However, I still prefer my little freaky Nipponese's's's's.
1:02 pm on January 11th, 2011 2
Maybe it's time for the pendulum to swing back. Less Dr. Benjamin Spock and more drill instructor parenting.
It might be worth a try if you wanted to risk being reported to child protective services by "concerned" neighbors.
3:46 pm on January 11th, 2011 3
saw this mom in an interview today…. while i agree with a lot of what she said, she came across as being so arrogant, i think a lot won't listen to her.
7:02 pm on January 11th, 2011 4
Piano or violin only? What's wrong with oboe, flute, or French horn?
9:01 pm on January 11th, 2011 5
I have a bonerphone they can learn to play.
I'll even throw in free tutoring… at least from an academic point of view.
I have held it a lot and I fully understand how it works… but, sadly, I can't quite reach the mouthpiece.
If I could, though, I probably wouldn't be able to hold a job.
9:37 pm on January 11th, 2011 6
This was pointed out elsewhere and I can't find the article. Ms. Chua, who like her husband teaches at Yale law School, said in an interview that her children speak Chinese but are being raised Jewish.
1:23 am on January 12th, 2011 7
I wonder if she has a chapter on "marrying up". I've noticed a lot of "famous" Asian women these days are married to Jewish males. If her being "Chinese" is what makes her such a superior mom, why did she have to marry outside her race? Think how much "better" her children would be if she had married another superior Chinese.
1:37 am on January 12th, 2011 8
As one wag pointed out she did fail to produce a male heir. A major error.
2:00 am on January 12th, 2011 9
As an expat who is living here in China, and yes I am of mixed blood the father is a Jew and the mother Asian, but not chinese.
I can tell u from first hand accounts if i mention i have a drop of jewish blood chinese people get all stereotypical "oh so this is why u are so smart, and jewish people are so good in making money, can be good lawyers u have good logic etc etc etc etc…"<–and the list goes on.
so being in a country where its fairly been subjected to a new world of capitalist markets and where the rich get richer and poor well get poorer, and the mindset of it's a dog eat dog world in the chinese society. getting rich and being a new rich is a good thing, even if it means if u have to stomp or go over a few heads (figuratively and literally)
so if a chinese marries a person of jewish descent to them its acceptable because hey its another way of getting ahead in the rat race and if there future off spring can be more superior mentally and make that dollar, why not.
do i agree with this? no, seeing as i come from a blue collar family back home in u.s. but i sometimes have to talk about my background if i need something done or not done.
back more on topic though. kids these days are treated too "special" the chinese call it "Little Emperorors" or "小皇帝" which quite frankly pisses me off, American kids seriously need some strict discipline boot camp style, and i dont mean jsut yell, hit the little asshole if you need to get something into their head quickly without a motuhful form them. I am no parents..soon to be in the future… and rather I am a late 20s guy, but I have actually told my parents before "i a glad you beat my ass and slapped me a few times for all the wrong doings i did as a brat" and at times i think my parents were quite restraint in some of the not so ncie things i did in my younger life. in all honesty no parents wants to hit their kids, i would be in tears if i had to hit my kid in th future… but i still would do it so they dont grow up to be jack asses. seriously if my parents did not give me tough love parenting i seriously would be in a much worse place than I am now. so for that i love you mom and i love you dad. my two parents who were "Judge and Executioner"…in that order
i think though this chinese parent is a little off the top,
2:03 am on January 12th, 2011 10
sorry for my poor spelling. i dont know how they do it in korea but business dinners here means u got pretty boozed up before contracts are signed..oh and under the table briberies, but thats another story for another time
2:59 am on January 12th, 2011 11
#10…. it's the same in Korea…. lol
I remember getting many spankings from my father growing up (I'm 100% white American) and I remember him often telling me (and meaning it); 'son, this hurts me more than it will you'.
9:28 am on January 12th, 2011 12
Jay K. 10, you'll just have to improve. Spelling standards are very high here at the ROK Drop.
9:57 am on January 12th, 2011 13
#9 Jay K, I agree. I understood you just fine.
#11 Thomas, I'm 100% Anglo-American, With a dash of irish/scottish/english.
But there is no block for that on the EO forms, so I just check (other)
("white" be a COLOR man. I ain't no color! I'm an Anglo-American man)
Sorry. You would have to be there to understand.
10:02 am on January 12th, 2011 14
The proof is in the figures.
The US would be bankrupt if the Chinese didn't buy their debt.
Rich China, poor USA.
Chinese mothers are superior. American mothers are inferior and stupid.
End of story.
11:53 am on January 12th, 2011 15
@14
And that's why you'll be china's bitch soon enough.
12:10 pm on January 12th, 2011 16
China's bitch is the US. I mean China is your banker. You better be nice to him or he'll cut you off and no more nice house you live in. It's tent city for you, my friend.
12:14 pm on January 12th, 2011 17
Am i the only one who took from the article that being a superior Chinese mother simply means verbally abusing your child until they succeed or commit suicide.
12:44 pm on January 12th, 2011 18
What do they do with children with true learning disabilities?
1:18 pm on January 12th, 2011 19
You should ask that question to American school teachers, JoeC. After all they have to put up with naturally slow learners.
3:06 pm on January 12th, 2011 20
and of course like all superior Chinese women she's with her a white man lol.
3:08 pm on January 12th, 2011 21
@19
better than dealing with a bunch of suicidal nut jobs
4:02 pm on January 12th, 2011 22
Well, the chinese have a reason to be arrogant, their economy is booming. They've also grown quite an empire. Unlike little weinered coreans, btw I see Tom is still here waiting for the US to fail, because it's the only way he'll get satisfaction. Let's see: corea got taken over how many times in history? and corea actually NEEDED and GOT an IMF bailout! corea is nothing except to be a lap dog for another country. That is the indisputable proven FACT from history. Keeping calling names Tom, and hoping for the U.S. to fail, because all you have is hope of failure, not proven failure like your own country. Pee in the wind, dude, keep it coming!
Back to the article: the Chinese, in spite of communism, are doing something right. Although this seems very familiar to the Japanese. Did the coreans learn to torture their kids with all of the studying and no fun from chinese or japanese? Or were they actually the leader?
The really funny thing is that these people succeed in the U.S., where success is possible. They don't succeed in their own countries, because under their society it's about favors, not talent and hard work.
I personally find the article disgusting. The author says: "I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic"
"He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her— "
And finally: "We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone…."
Man, if that's parenting, then the gooks,nips, and chinks can keep it. That may be parenting, but it's not living. There is definitely a balance somewhere between lazy welfare trash (of all colors) and these over achievers. I think it's called "average". I like living in that zone.
5:20 pm on January 12th, 2011 23
I personally find the article disgusting. The author says: “I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic”
—
In other words, she meant, stop being a lazy stupid white fat ass (their other genetic half).
6:24 pm on January 12th, 2011 24
As for the kids, well, the kids are not happy, but they're not sad, either. They just don't get to experience much of anything that gives them positive growth as a human. You don't understand day without night.
I wholeheartedly agree that some "western" parents should be a little tougher, but having lived in a very similar East Asian country for much of the past decade, I can say that the word "happy" can't be applied. "Satisfaction" works, though, but not for the kids. The mothers feel "satisfied" when they get to brag to their friends on Friday nights while getting perms that THEIR child is ranked #1.
I think we're (Westerners) going to hear this a lot in the coming years as the East Asian economies continue to grow and dominate. People are starting to wonder why/how these countries do so well, and many immediately jump onto parenting styles as benchmarks of a successful country.
Asia hasn't always been regarded this way. They didn't used to test so high, just like "we" didn't use to test so low. One can't ignore the correlation that economic prosperity and, for lack of a better word, laziness share.
I think we'll continue to see East Asian scores rise for maybe a decade and then they'll drop. West Asia will follow that trajectory as well. Korea and Japan is already dropping and China is sure to follow. China is currently riding the proverbial wave and that's great for their burgeoning middle class, but they, too, will crest and be forced to watch the tide roll back. That's how this game works. It ebbs and flows. There's nothing superior to it.
There's so much talk of BRICs and how they are the economies of the future and, in fact, I agree. I wouldn't, however, use the word "future" because they are actually the economies of the "past" as well. Soon, they will be fully joining the ranks of powerhouse economies, but there are a few things to remember. A) That was not simply because of tough-love parenting techniques and B) if you were to look at any history book, you'd see that nations like China, India, Russia and Brazil have constantly been regarded as the economic leaders for centuries.
20th century wars put them out of the loop for awhile just like it will again. They will cycle in and out and that's how it goes.
When Africa has their day (and they will), will we be reading articles about how African mothers are superior? When these nations start to develop, should other countries who are less developed look upon them as the pinnacle example to be emulated?
In other words, do we start to look at India's caste system as a criterion that is able to foster economic success and prosperity? Or China's Confucian culture?
I bet we'll start chastising China et al for the exact reasons they claim to be successful. After all, the original article was going after every aspect of "Western" culture that many, at some point, wanted to emulate.
In fact, we could probably use that article as a form rant and insert any nation + irrelevant cultural idiosyncrasies and make a case for it.
In the end, the current economic cycle is putting parts of Asia on top while other once dominant countries are cycling around. Most Asian nations are recovering from decades of political, economic and social turmoil. That tenet has seeped into the minds of many Asian parents and students and has inspired them to work harder not only for themselves, but for the good and prosperity of their nation. Of course, regardless of origin, everybody wants their nation to thrive, but sometimes the citizenry of successful and fully-developed nations take the painstaking efforts of their grandparents for granted and become entitled rather than inspired. It’s not just about individual happiness, success and pride in Asia. In fact, as a society, it’s not about that in the least. Collectivism and utilitarianism are at the heart of Asian academic honors. There is always a greater good, it appears.
6:38 pm on January 12th, 2011 25
Scores are dropping in Korea?
I I don't think so. Korea is only second, after one richest region in China with hand picked elite students from Shanghai.. 
Dropping like a rock in Japan yes, Korea? no.
9:53 pm on January 12th, 2011 26
ah Korea always proud to be second place such a great bitch mentality.
10:10 pm on January 12th, 2011 27
Much better than being next to last like stupid low scoring Americans, Oh Yeah.
12:01 am on January 13th, 2011 28
only a korean can describe always being somebody's bitch as being better,I'm sure being second on scoring will make you excellent ball suckers.
12:59 am on January 13th, 2011 29
Tom. I'm Asian-American and you are giving us a bad wrap. Did you get beat up by all the white kids when you were little? Get a life dude. Don't be mad because you couldn't study in the US and had to settle for Canada. Did you get molested as a KATUSA?
3:23 am on January 13th, 2011 30
Did you get molested as a KATUSA?
Only by the Senior KATUSA.
/I keed, I keed
3:28 am on January 13th, 2011 31
somebody stated here how possibilities are more transparent in the west, i still think this holds true. being in china for quite some time, ive seen the idea of "guanxi" (relationships) work to such an extent where favors and pulling strings determine really how well u can succeed; its disgusting.
on another off shot from the mentioned above, the new chinese(mainlandf) wh do emigrate to the west, let's jsut say canada and usa for the sake of argument; most are not poor actually a good portion of them were not middle class but more than likely the least upper middle class in mainland's society.
I've noticed a trend in China where usually government officials or businessmen/women makes lots of money and then send it all off to the west and live their comfortably getting the money probly included many shady and gray areas of earning it; but if the future generation doesnt have to live in a dog eat dog world as is the case in China I can see why the chinese would relocate somewhere else…
it's not bad it's not good, those are just the facts thru my eyes
4:10 am on January 13th, 2011 32
Tom is just angry because he has a little weiner! Maybe after beating his Korean girlfriend around, she left him for a foreigner with a larger appendage?
My guess is Tom didn't have the stones to join the military. You can bet that when it comes down to war, Tom would be crying his eyes out and begging for foreign intervention. People like him always do, of course he probably would do nothing to help. Although I suspect he would probably collaborate with the invaders.
Considering the history, Korea is China's and Japan's bitch Tom, and deservedly so in my opinion because of Koreans like you.
I say Korea should be given back to China. Koreans are just Chinese hillbillies anyway, although that may be an insult to the Chinese.
When the Chinese occupy Korea again, and they will someday, I'll be thinking you Tom-in this world or the next.
5:11 am on January 13th, 2011 33
Well, obviously Chinese moms are superior…
…at robbing their children of a happy childhood so they can be conditioned to be superficially attractive to an equally soulless spouse who will offer them a loveless semi-arranged marriage of convenience which will produce some equally bitter and hateful offspring.
Everyone I ever knew who lost their childhood to this kind of abuse was screwed up in the head.
Three hours of childhood is best spent being a child… not pointlessly grinding out heartless notes on a musical instrument… unless you really want to.
Someone call Child Protective Services and stop the slave labor before they have children of their own and the cycle of abuse continues.
Out of curiosity, am I the only one around here that noticed the unfocused, unhappy and angry Korean children who are forced to hold a schoolbook and pretend to "study more" while daydreaming of Nintendo DS… meaning they spend hours and hours neither studying nor playing.
Finding a kid's likes and abilities and pushing them to excel is necessary. Forcing them to waste their childhood on unnecessary "skills" to fulfill a parent's lost dreams in poor parenting.
Go back to China and work as a gulag commandant instead of pretending to be a mother, sweetheart.
7:15 am on January 13th, 2011 34
I’m wondering how such obsession with perfection could result in the massive scale of substandard and faulty products that come from China. The drywall that rots, contaminated heparin for dialysis patients, plumbing labeled 'copper' laden with impurities that make the pipes rust after five years. Poisoned dogfood. By the Chinese government's own admission 20 percent of the products made in China for domestic consumption failed quality and safety standards. I'm afraid to wear a pair of socks before soaking them in warm water for a while to dilute potential contaminents. And if I accidentally find I've bought food from that place it goes right into the trash can. It’s also the world’s largest producers of both substandard and counterfeited medicines. And their regulators are corrupt. Guess the perfection ends with childhood. They pick a weak victim.
8:43 am on January 13th, 2011 35
Their system of 'perfection' only works in the USA where the culture is fair and open. In China, it's about who you know and who you blow, success has nothing to do with skill. That's why they ALL want to go to the US. Even the agiprop on this board is in a North American university because the bottom line is the worst college in North America is still more prestigious than the best Asian college, and opportunity is what the US has taught the rest of the world.
You can push for perfection all you want, but corruption ruins everything. Just look at China, Philippines, and numerous other Asian, African, Caribbean, and South American countries. It's a lesson the USA better start paying attention to….
5:31 pm on January 13th, 2011 36
Here's a contrary view from another Chinese mother. She was raised by the traditional (Prof. Chua's) method but her feelings about this have, as she puts it, evolved.
She adopted a child from China who wasn't born to be 'perfect.' While Ms. Anker doesn't say it, her daughter may have been given up for adoption because of her limited potential for perfection. The rejection of such children is not a uniquely Asian thing, but while in many western countries it is seen as a weakness of character in parents who reject them, in some East Asian countries, rejecting them is the cultural expectation.
Sixty-five years ago, many western countries became aware of the horrors that could occur when a society tipped over into a manic obsession with physiological perfection. The awareness in East Asia? Not so much.
We have many examples to show that trying to fit children into some ideal of perfection may be counter productive. While some western parents press and drill their children to be Olympics or tennis stars, beauty queens, get them on TV or become child prodigies before they even leave the womb, every parent's child can't be No. 1. In fact, the evidence indicates that some of the greatest achievers are those who reject the conventional paths. Einstein was considered an under achiever in school who started his career working in a patent office. Bill Gates dropped out of college. Jobs and Wozniak frittered away their time tinkering with gadgets in a garage.
There is also some evidence that there may be evolutionary beneficial reasons why some of us are born with 'abnormal' brains. Examinations of Einstein's brain showed he had aberrations. Aberrations can be found in the brains of many great prodigies. They also find that those most gifted to excel with computers have a variant of autism called Asperger's syndrome.
I guess, just as there are no perfect children, there are no perfect parents. Approaches should be suited to the needs of each family. An alternative to the traditional Chinese way where children are considered as lumps of clay that must be shaped and fitted into molds is likening children to plants. The parents' roles are to provide the right environment and all the necessary nutrients but be able to stand aside and allow them to branch off and blossom in their own unique ways. There are many middles in between those.
6:54 pm on January 13th, 2011 37
Einstein was an excellent student. He did good work in the patent office and devoted his spare time to physics. After he published his work on relativity, quantum physics, and statistical mechanics, he quickly climbed the academic ladder.
Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard not because of poor performance, and certainly not to goof off, but to found Microsoft.
8:18 pm on January 13th, 2011 38
#37
You missed my point. I wasn't saying they weren't smart but they were unwilling to follow convention.
"Einstein was considered an under achiever in school who started his career working in a patent office."
Einstein was considered an under achiever by his professors. He "skipped classes and had to cram for exams" While he graduated with a teaching degree, "His professors did not support him in his search for an academic job, and he was unemployed until he found work as a patent inspector in Bern, Switzerland."
Irregardless of the end results, had Bill Gates parents been Chinese, his decision to drop out of college may not given him the support he got from his actual parents.
9:45 am on January 14th, 2011 39
Here's a fun fact about the Chinese that you didn't know before.
Chinese people like to:
*Breathe air.
*Drink water.
*Eat food.
10:19 am on January 14th, 2011 40
"A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. "
There's 1.4 billion of them, that's how. There are many stereotypically successful Chinese kids because there are so many of them.
1:13 pm on January 15th, 2011 41
Tom explain then why for centuries people migrate from the East to the west, and not Vica versa.
8:35 am on January 16th, 2011 42
A lot of actual Chinese mothers think that Amy Chua is a psycho biatch, too.
The Beijing Backlash Over Crazy Chinese Moms
Amy Chua's parenting techniques say a lot about a Chinese culture that glorifies suffering, lacks individual rights, and tells mothers they're only as good as their kids.
I was dumbfounded when I read “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” an excerpt of Amy Chua’s book published in the Wall Street Journal one week ago in which she details some of her draconian methods of child rearing. I have to say none of the Chinese mothers I know in China behave that way. Ms. Chua, a law professor from Connecticut with two daughters, is quite alone in believing her superiority.
Still, I can think of three reasons why Chinese mothers get away with mother-from-hell behavior:
1. Traditional China values women by the children they raise. Muyizigui is an age-old Chinese saying that means a mother is only worth as much as her son. This must have made things even worse back when polygamy was permitted in China, until 1949. One can imagine all the determined wives competing with each other through their children.
2. The glorification of suffering. This is not unique to Chinese mothers or Chinese culture, but Chinese do believe “eating bitterness” is necessary and vital in order to achieve success. Passion and enjoyment are irrelevant. Chinese wear their pain as a war veteran wears his medals. As Ms. Chua has made clear, suffering earns one bragging rights. It would be totally pointless if Ms. Chua's daughters actually enjoyed playing the musical instruments she has them practice day in and day out.
3. The Chinese, as a people, were deprived of individual rights. Since the individual rights of parents are not guaranteed, it is natural that parents would see fit to deprive their children of the same. Success means one can impose one’s will on others.
• Lisa Miller: Amy Chua Talks about Her Controversial BookDespite these three deeply rooted bits of cultural heritage, however, most Chinese mothers have adopted a more enlightened mindset in bringing up their children. To make sure I wasn't mistaken about this, I posted a synopsis of Ms. Chua’s article on my Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter.) Immediately, hundreds of people responded. While many confirmed my belief, quite a few of the responses came from young people claiming that they were treated the same way Ms. Chua treats her daughters. All of them claimed to be unhappy as children; none of them expressed any gratitude toward their parents.
There were also quite a few angry responses from local Chinese moms.
“Now the term 'Chinese Mother' is notorious abroad,” reads one Weibo comment. “I resent that deeply. I am a Chinese mother who is enlighted and puts my child’s happiness before anything.”
It is ironic that as young Chinese mothers in Beijing and Shanghai are embracing more enlighted Western ideas about child raising, mothers from Connecticut are sinking deeper into China’s darker past in child rearing.
Huang Hung is a columnist for China Daily, the English language newspaper in China. She is also an avid blogger with more than 100 million page views on her blog on sina.com.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/20…