Amy Chua - Making Friends Worldwide
Nothing riles up the smug defensive Westernised middle-classes like telling them how to be better parents. Sue Bradford learned this the hard way in New Zealand when bringing in well-meaning but practically impossible anti-smacking legislation.
"I just want my child to be happy" is a namby pamby phrase spluttered out at middle class brunch's everywhere that's leading to ruin in the Western world.
Of course parents don't want children to JUST be happy, it's a defensive default mechanism to prepare them for inevitable underachievement. All parents these days as of old have quantifiable measures of success and failure by which they judge their child's life and with it their skill as a parent. Sit next to tables of competing parents talk about their children and you will see what I mean. To an outsider some are just nasty.
The only parents I have ever spoken with who genuinely mean they want their kids "just" to be happy are ones whose child has severe intellectual or development incapacity. You cannot fault that, they are on a different playing field as a parent. Happiness for that child and parent is as easy as a smile.
Yale law professor Amy Chua has espoused some of her beliefs on child-rearing that of course upset namby pamby's all over the English speaking Universe. And may I add, more Westernised Chinese. She's receiving more violent hate mail than Sarah Palin.
I've written about this recently about managing expectations of parents. There's a difference with Chua's children as they appear to actually be achieving to her expectations and brilliant students. They can match her hype because she's never given them an excuse for failure.
Handmirror's Stargazer "thee who doesn't like labels and I don't mean Prada or Gucci" has covered off child failures with tragically Kiwi words to the effect that it doesn't matter if you fail as long as you try your hardest.
Bullshit it does. Human nature requires us to compete and to strive to win. Whatever we define that win to be.
"Oh Mum it doesn't matter if I get a C- because you know, I'm happy and I tried my best".
"Yeah Dad I think I'll quit med school and all those years spent educating me and go on the dole because that would make me happy and I've tried my best"....
Find me a middle-class parent who would ever be happy and accepting that their child said those words?
What makes us happy? Well if a very generic being "happy" makes you a better success in life than having loads of money then people all over the world would give away all their money and go bludge off others all day doing nothing, having no performance pressure, being happy.
But then why do poor people all look and seem so desperately bloody unhappy?
Only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates seem to wake up in the morning wanting to be poorer.
As I am entirely results orientated if I truly believed that being happy and successful could be measured in anything other than personal achievement, such as Stargazer mentions, community work, then you can damn well guarantee I'd quit everything instantly and do more community work than any of the Handmirror's put together.
If being happy and successful was measured as how many children you had, sure, I'm competitive, I would have already grabbed the nearest male and have ten just to make sure I was winning at that as well.
Chinese people have lived centuries feeling they are inferior and most in miserable poverty until recently. Rather than staying inferior and blaming others like most groups of people seem to strive towards, they use that in the 21st century as motivation to make sure their kids will not be inferior to those in the West. So why are they pushing their kids so hard?
They feel that they have to. And they are probably right.
According to Chua "Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them". This is strength and confidence in a child that many Westerners just don't have. They expect less than an A so they accept it. I agree with her that give a child an excuse for failure and they'll find it.
That's why the Chinese are not only superior climbing in growth over other groups of people, they are also winning the war competing against the West. The west that has in a screaming sea of welfare bred failure into the vernacular by not valuing achievement such as earning money, career advancement, independence and actually celebrating finding and then being good at something.
China is fighting WWIII with the US and winning without firing a single shot. They now in essence own its future. They've done so because the US has adopted an "everyone must win" policy that started with lobbying for home ownership even for people who could never afford it and massive corporate and personal welfare bailouts to those who fail. Success hasn't been rewarded, failure has.
Stargazer's piece was typical of Western reaction towards other groups of people trying and succeeding to actually beat them. Fear. If a group of persons is suitably tame and non-threatening because of their inability to motivate and educate themselves out of poverty and into wealth these sorts of liberal panty-waisters can fawn praise and understanding over their lives because it will never threaten their own standing of middle class existence.
Stargazer's acceptance of "I just want to know that you really sincerely tried" lowers again the achievement drivers that are natural for human beings to desire. Saying you "just" want your child to have tried. Why "just" if trying is good enough? "Just" is an acceptance of second best.
Chua's raising daughters. This is also a little different because the Chinese female also has only recently realised that she can beat the male. Chinese history has not been kind on women, Chua herself would know that women have to try harder. In China the male, no matter how thick, is more important than the female and this bias still is ingrained. Ironically the Mainland one-child policy has helped Chinese women in many ways with parents heaping all attention without a male who is preferred.
New Zealand women have an excellent record in the past generation of smashing their male counterparts in achievement as children. All my younger female friends and acquaintances are the smartest, largest independent achievers in their family. Regardless of the measure. All have parents who have tried to keep up the egos of other lesser siblings with a large cuddle and words that they were winners too.
Such Westernised coddling of a smashed up achievement ego of losers continues into unhealthy ages. Welfare Within Families is as rife in New Zealand as government whereby often the least successful and motivated members are given assistance over others.
In Chinese culture the sibling, especially if male, would have simply been locked in his room until he wasn't so pathetic and scolded by his father that he couldn't let a girl beat him as it was embarrassing the family.
I won't call the piece of Stargazer's as far as xenophobic as it is carefully worded and genuinely considered but I will call it ignorant of how an entire group is powering on in the world while others are hugging their children to death, giving them "choices" and chanting PC slogans masking failure like "I just want my kids to be happy" and the emphasis of "cool, no pressure" parenting.
Happiness as the Chinese know from their years living in poverty, takes money in 2011 and with that money you can buy a nice warm large home, look after your friends, entertain, ensure you have choices to marry or partner well and stay away from abusive partners. Money makes other countries respect and fear you. Countries that in the past have ignored you.
It also takes a certain amount of inner strength and independence to be truly "happy". Ultimately if the Chua's in the world push their child too far and act inappropriately, a hand turns around and slaps it across her face.
A Westerner would deem this failure as a parent and the Chinese disrespectful, but the true path to happiness is getting to a state where you are so independent financially and emotionally from your parents and others that you no longer care what they or other people think and how they measure their own success or yours.
Those parents opposing Chua so vehemently, viciously and taking great umbrage as to how she has reportedly raised her own children are clearly not at that point yet either as children or parents.
posted by Cactus Kate at 3:54 AM
20 Comments:
I am not a fan of Amy Chua. As Ben Stein so eloquently pointed out, nobody is more mollycoddling than a Jewish mother, and Jews, as a rule, have never been accused of having motivational problems.
The Stick method may drive many Chinese to be successful, but it is generally at the expense of being decent, well-rounded human beings who don't hate their parents. The last thing on earth I am going to do is make my daughters practice the piano for five hours a day if I don't think they at least have some natural talent or propensity for it.
There are plenty of ways to motivate a child without resorting to shaming them all the time.
"The only parents I have ever spoken with who genuinely mean they want their kids "just" to be happy are ones whose child has severe intellectual or development incapacity. You cannot fault that, they are on a different playing field as a parent."
Ain't that the truth!
I haven't read the Stargazer post, but have seen some media on the Chua story. Go her!
The "just try" and "just achieve" mentality in our education system means children like #2 daughter can pass and "achieve" all 3 levels of NCEA without actually doing any serious or seemingly meaningful learning. Thus ending up qualified to go to University but not actually able to go due to lack of skills for independant learning.
Likewise the battles a parent endures with said child when they try to instill a learning/study regime that differs from what the schools have. Students these days can learn how to use the system to achieve a "pass", and not actually "pass" due to learning.
Likwise having employees who have come thru "just try" education/family environment. They expect a gold star just for turning up each day, and if they ever do something proactive and beyond their immediate JD, they sulk if not immediately praised and rewarded. Sod That!
Kate, you are only half right. You miss the other part of the equation. Chua is bright. Fracking bright. She is married to a Jewish bloke, who is also fracking bright. And she is in the US. Kids with the potential hers have can cruise and get "A"s from a US school. It is the equivelant of "merit" from NCEA. And my boys are told -- at school and by me -- that you get acheived in NCEA from the weetbix packet. That's a FAIL. Acheived is a B. Excellant is an A.
(Oh, my ex was chinese, I'm raising the kids as a Solo Dad, and both were in the top bunch in their classes in decile 10 schools. Yes, they both play musical instruments. And computer games, and watch TV. Chua's style is not mine... but it is typical of the elite regardless of their ethnicity).
Accepting failure is the mark of the non elite.
Yes. I don't hear too much waffle from Chinese youth workers about the need for their employers to treat them "special" because they are Gen Y/Z/whatever. They understand that competing and impressing the people you report to are how you succeed in business and professional life. The coming generation of western workers have grown with the 'birthright' to tell their employer how they should treat them. Consequently they are going to see their purchasing power slide as China's rises.
If I may be so bold, Cactus, what makes most of the people I know happy is being able to live comfortably while doing something they enjoy.
I dispute your assertion that it is "human nature" to strive and compete. Indeed, all the sociological and anthropological evidence suggests the contrary - that most human-beings respond to others with generosity and co-operation.
In order to make people strive and compete it is first necessary to set up a complex - and rigidly enforced - system of rewards and punishments: an environment in which generous and co-operative behaviour towards others counts against them.
Just think of so-called "reality" shows like 'Survivor'.
Were a group of people cast into the Nicaraguan jungle they would not behave like the contestants in the TV show.
All the striving and competing in 'Survivor' - and in real-life capitalist societies - is artificially created by those who own, and run, the show. In order to "win" contestants have to surrender every positive aspect of their personalities and learn to behave like utter bastards.
Doesn't sound much like winning to me.
The premise of chua's article is that heavy handed parenting produces better children and, by extension, superior people. The world abounds with counterexamples, one of the more obvious being fundamentalist Christians who “chasten” their children into zombie-like obedience. These children grow up unable to reason coherently about the world, and consequently are driving one of the major threats to Western culture. The article also conveniently ignores the downsides of teaching reliance on external motivation, which we see manifested in the brutal collectivist culture of China.
Just as there's still 'white' parents who bring up their kids like Chua, there's 'Asian' parents who molly coddle their children in ways far worse than any liberal white parents do... where does the 'little emperor' title come from?
I have come across a generation of socially retarded, morally bankrupt, spoilt beyond rotten, asian young 'adults' which would make your average NCEA layabout look like a hard worker!
In her own way (bearing in mind that she is actually an American) Chua is perpetuating the whole 'Confucius =superior culture' line the Chinese Government has been pushing for some time to justify the way they run the country, the idea that Chinese are somehow different from everyone else, and need to be treated differently.
Unfortunately, this is not quite the reality, in fact rich Chinese behave just like rich white western parents with their kids, some push them hard, some spoil them stupid.
Chua is really similar to a lot of control freak helicopter parents. She is more a product of American culture than the culture she relates too.
I'm surprised about the fuss, her book may do well in places like Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China where the new rich could do with kicking a bit of spine into their kids, but it's hardly a different or unique way of bringing up your kids in Western culture when you look back at history.
Isn't it bizarre, the vociferous reaction that Chua has elicited, at least in the U.S.? It is interesting how radically cultural ideas of child-rearing differ.
One of the problems, at least in the West, with the "I want my child to be happy" approach is that we don't define "happiness" well. Often parents don't possess happiness themselves and have no idea what it is. So it's a little hard for them to instill it in their kids. Some parents seem to mistake aimlessness for happiness; others confuse it with consumerism or ambition.
The first- and second-generation Chinese I've known in the U.S. have almost all had a powerful work ethic. They seem to value work and achievement as objectively good. That's a recipe for success in a technologically advanced culture, and so it's not surprising that many do very well, and deservedly so.
On the other hand, in my observation, not all these folks were, deep inside themselves, happy people. Driven, yes. Professionally and often financially successful, yes. Happy (as in contented or satisfied with their lives), no more than any of the rest of us.
ok, first of all, i can't even believe i'm commenting here, but there you go.
it's going to be a little hard for me to respond to this, because i'm not about to put my kids personal lives out there for public judgement. so let me take another tack. i think you missed the bit in my post about setting solid expectations, and making those expectations challenging but acheivable. yeah, i used motivational theory from organisational behaviour 101 on that one, as well as a book i read called "see jane win".
but. i've also attended the funeral of the 19-year old son of an acquaintance of mine. i've seen the suicide rates in asia, and the consequences to families of kids who have been unable to meet those very high expectations - even if they don't kill themselves. i've read countless stories about kids in india who kill themselves over exam results - it's a major social issue over there. if you're into bollywood films and can get a version with subtitles, i'd recommend "three idiots". it's fluff, but does cover this particular issue quite well.
for me, it's a balance between encouraging them to acheive, but not putting so much pressure on them that they buckle under it. i'd rather have a "failed" child than a dead one, but luckily, i haven't had to make that choice and i hope i never do. i want my children to know that i'll be there for them, no matter how badly they stuff up. i want them to know that no matter how angry i am with them, i'll never be so angry that i want them dead. i know amy chua and other similar parents feel the same way, but funnily enough, if you don't say that explicitly to your kids, they don't always know it.
i also think my kids have the right to live their own dreams, rather having to be forced to live mine. i don't think they're accessories which i use to show off to my friends, trying to prove what a wonderful mother i am by making them perform feats of brilliance. if that's what they want to do, fine, but they won't be doing so because of the insecurities of their parents. the main point of my response to chua is that kids deserve to be treated like human beings ie with respect and given the ability to make choices about their futures - age appropriate choices of course, but choices nonetheless.
Interesting .You seem to believe that your wealth or lack of defines you.I have noticed the wealthiest NZ'ers are almost all successful failures.i.e Bob Jones,Watson,Hotchin,Fay,Richwhite, etc.I think it was Kipling who said regarding success and failure...'treat those two imposters exactly the same'!
Anon 12.27am - why do you consider those people failures? Just because the general population hate them? My point is that I'm guessing none of them actually care which is one of the premises of happiness.
I would rather be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy. I can't seem to find anyone who disagrees with that. It is about choices and the more money you have in life the more choices you have.
Stargazer - thank you for the further clarification of your stance. You have commented here as to why I comment on your blog, because our views on everything differ but fundamentally we are all polite to each other and respectufl of each others blog space.
Regarding youth suicide, well I think NZ's stats in that regard are awful. It's not good over in Asia but the fundamental cause of suicide is mental. Not all poor or underachievers commit suicide and likewise many successful people (high achievers) top themselves. It takes a special kind of fucked up to kill yourself. Many people who do have deep fundamental problems that cannot be attributed to just one thing. Personally I think NZ's rate is highly attributable to the weather. It's shite.
Chris (Trotter) - The problem with Survivor is that people are dumped into usually Socialist shitholes or dictatorships and told to survive. If the competitions were held in 1st world countries then there wouldn't be a fight for scarce resources because the market would provide. I mean Nicaragua? Borneo? Tocantins? Guatemala? Gabon? No free markets there.
Hasten to add Chris, I know you like me but if we were in Nicaragua together there's no way we would both be coming out of the jungle.
'why do you consider those people failures? Just because the general population hate them? My point is that I'm guessing none of them actually care which is one of the premises of happiness.'.....this is quite funny really...you think being hated by the general population would not impact on your happiness quotient'....as for 'failures'..all mentioned made a shedload of money when their investment 'vehicles' crashed and burned....funny that!Woody Allen said its better to be rich than poor if only for financial reasons'...that I can't argue with.
CK -
Samoa?
Generally -
What Chua is saying I largely agree with. Where I have a problem with it is the convergence that Stargazer raises. There is a point at which parental expectation has to realise the limit of the child's abilities.
From my own children, I have one with an honours degree and two diplomas whose chosen career is what I would have called 40 years back "Purchasing Officer"; the other has no university qualifications and earns at least twice my salary.
Go figure...
Perhaps the answer lies in the difference between unconditional love and unconditional approval
Too much focus on academic or musical attainments leaves no room for social or sporting activities. And it frankly sounds as dull as dishwater. I don't just want a brainy geek kid; I want a fit, healthy kid who has friends. One of my kids is very bright but we like to challenge him with social sports. Over the years this has improved his fitness and co-ordination. He is mixing with all sorts of people and it teaches him to have fun and improve at something without the pressure of becoming top level. It has also given him an interest in watching and coaching sports.
He still has time to study and play the piano, and I do have expectations that he will be in the top three in his main school subjects. The Asian kids can take number one spot; I would rather go with a Kiwi upbringing.
As an older person, I've seen many people try out parenting theories on their kids, and usually abandon them for good reason. I don't think you'd be any different, Kate. Also, were your parents tigers. . . I think not.
Exactly how does Amy Chua discipline her children if they don't do what she wants ?
withhold privilieges...cell phone internet etc ? banishing to their room ? yelling, screaming, threatening starvings and beatings ?
given your views on Maori, Kate.
What of the Chua methods would you recommend they adopt while acknowledging the cultural and socio economic differences of the 'type' of Maori you regularly berate and Chua's privileged chinese american culture ?
heh...i can't believe i'm asking you for parent tips.
Maybe you could write us a book...'The childless persons guide to raising kid's' :)
We have many thousands of years raising kids under our belts and only recently did we need all this help to do the job. The great issue today is that there is no real pressure in the West to work to survive. That's nice but ignores the reality of adult (and a lot of children's) life for most of human history. The mistake is to think our moment of perceived monetary wealth will be with us always and being soft cocks, whether or not you are gifted, will be an option for ever.
One thing I like about Hong Kong is the myriad of small businesses. We dumped that for the mega store model.
@ pollywog
What is a "cultural" Maori difference? I get a feeling you are still defending appalling behaviour.
read this...
http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/9629/comment-page-1#comment-11288
download the paper and internalise it's findings
then get back to me or hit up the author
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