WSJ: Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

I think some of you are missing the point and are getting way too stuck on the musical instrument just because you personally dont see yourself enjoying a musical instrument and would see yourself hating it as a kid. Kids are kids. They have the attention span of a gnat. Find me a kid that wants to do homework. Find me a kid that wants to do chores. How about eating healthy foods versus candy and ice cream? Playing an instrument is no different. How many here were forced to do any of those things? Now replace whatever you were forced to do like eating all your vegetables with playing a musical instrument, and how can you tell me its really any different? I agree the author's article was a bit extreme, but I honestly don't see much different in a Chinese mom forcing a kid to practice a musical instrument, with a Western mom forcing their kid to go to Sunday school or mow the lawn. It's called parenting and making the hard choices for the kid. You're not there to be your child's friend. You're there to make them a functional member of society.

Either way, it still doesn't change the fact that Chinese people smell like fish.

 

You know what's hilarious? As I'm sitting here surfing STR, I hear my asian neighbor's kids practicing their piano. LOL.

 

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Again, reread my post. I said the author was a bit extreme, and I'm sure a bit of it was dramatized to grab some hits to her article. Are you saying that as kids, none of us ever got into arguments regarding homework and chores? No tears were ever shed? Come on man.

Homework and chores and playing the piano all have beginnings and ends. You work hard on your homework, you finish it. You practice this song on the piano, for weeks, master it, you move on to another song. IMO, its no different than anything else. You put effort into it, you see results. It's just a life lesson. Saying it takes fear and obsessiveness is really showing your lack of being able to see what playing a musical instrument is all about. Are you saying you've never studied for a week straight and still failed a test? Do you just give up? Does it take a fearful and obsessive person to keep studying when you just don't get the concepts?

For every person that tells you they quit because they couldn't cope, there's one that didn't quit, and many probably are glad they kept with it.

I mean, honestly, is it that bad compared to say some Western parents who try to relive their childhood by forcing their kids to play the same sport they did and ripping them up? What about the mothers that put their daughters in beauty pageants? There is no difference.

The only difference is parents who cross the line, and those who find a happy medium. Musical instruments, sports, beauty pageants, homework, chores, basically any extracurriculars are all tools for parenting.

 

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Balloon knot.

 

Wouldn't it be sweet to see Chinese parents brawling at their children's music recitals like American parents do at their kids' sporting events? I'd pay to see it.

Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood.

 

Yeah, but how many people think that the guy screaming in the stands at his kid during a little league game is a good parent? Remember the Ramseys? How many people looked at them and said, "I'd like to tart a 6 year old up like that, great job!"

My dad called me a jerk once when I was about 12 or 13-I was being one. That hurt worse than a slap in the face did. Had he spent more time calling me garbage, I doubt I would have cared that he thought I was being a jerk.

 

By the same logic, you're ASSuming that every Chinese mother is like the lady in the article.

 

There was a complaint so we're stepping in. Nothing has been moderated but going forward any additional posts straying from the original topic will be deleted. Anything racist will be deleted. These types of threads always seem to bring out the drama. Don't start them if you're not prepared to deal with the inevitable.

 

Not at all.

The one who wrote the article? Sure-she's a lot like the dad of the 1 in 10000 (or whatever the number is) kid that makes it and then beats his chest about how his screaming and generally terrible attitude was the only reason that Jr.'s in the big leagues.

The kid made it, but that doesn't validate his method.

 

Sounds like a nice communist mother

 

I just wonder what put mom in such a hurry to have her daughter play
a piece of music. I could half way understand if there was a piano recital the next day
and it was what the child had to perform. That was not the case though. The technique to play that piece of music
could of been developed over a few days an hour or so at a time
without the screaming, threats and anguish that the mother imposed upon her daughter.
How can a childhood like this not create some emotional scaring?
Besides learning right and left hand independence did the child learn that if you scream
and threaten someone you can get them to do whatever you want ?

 

I think the lesson there was that "anything is possible if you work hard enough at it". It may have been an extreme example, but the message is there (at least to me).

 

It would be like taking a kid out and forcing them to ride a scary mountain bike trail over and over again until they "get it right!"

No bathroom, no food or water, no amount of crying or pleading will stop them from making their kid do it over and over...

And this behavior is not relegated to any one ethnic group. Though the author of this article prides herself on being of Chinese ethnicity, there are plenty of examples of this "parenting" from people with other backgrounds. Have you ever been at a kid's soccer game where one dad/mom is screaming at their kid to do better? Where they have the kid practicing day and night as if their life depended on it? Where they have their kid joining all kinds of organizations even though the kid has absolutely no interest in it whatsoever? At the risk of offending people, I would argue this is what you often see with parents who have their children as child actors, child fashion models, child - be the first to sail around the world solo...

Personally it feels a lot like a parent projecting their life onto that of their child.

 

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Prof. Chua attempts to reel it back in, responding to readers...

http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/01/13/the-tiger-mother-responds-to-readers/

 

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Why didn't the author choose a Chinese man to father her children? And is she wearing a rubber dress? A picture's worth a thousand words.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M4tdMsg3ts