Amy Chua, in her much discussed and much gasped-over Wall Street Journal article “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” opens with the claim that she has successfully raised two “stereotypically successful kids.” She asserts that children of “Chinese” mothers, who are not always ethnically Chinese, but merely dispositionally Chinese, turn into math whizzes and musical prodigies because these mothers impose a rigorous program that unapologetically demands extraordinary success.
She outlaws fun, or relegates it to the kind you find in her highly patrolled arena of excellence – it’s the wild guffawing fun of solving differential equations at record-breaking speed, or playing an instrument at Carnegie Hall. And she dismisses, with biting sarcasm and a suffocating sense of superiority, the propensity of Western parents to coddle their children. She writes about how her father called her “garbage,” and recounts the time she “did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me.” When I read that I couldn’t help thinking, first, that it’s no wonder Sophia behaves disrespectfully toward such a model of respectfulness. Then, in a burst of my own gleaming superiority, I thought, “My kid never treats me disrespectfully." Of course he does serve up some mild shots of attitude once in a while, but I like to tell myself that we have mutually earned the other’s respect, at least to the extent that no one has to call anyone garbage or rip up sheet music, or threaten starvation. Basically I think we've come to agree that neither of us will treat the other like shit.
Of course, when Chua mentions this name-calling business at a dinner party, the reaction is not good. One hysteria-prone guest burst into tears and “had to leave early.” Like John Boehner’s tearful performances, this seems to have some bizarre undercurrent of - possibly well-deserved, but certainly histrionic - self-pity masked as concern for others. Most people would just make a mental note not to have Ms. Chua dog sit anytime soon. Since her kids don’t have play dates or interact with other children in any significant way, at least no other children are in danger of being verbally abused by Chua.
Like Chua I too think “self-esteem” is highly overrated in Western parenting circles. With a good deal of embarrassment I confess that I’ve been heard telling Jackson that the B’s he got on Chinese or math tests simply weren’t good enough. Okay, fine, I might have said, “That’s ridiculous, what on God’s earth happened here?” I’ve also been known to say, with a raised eyebrow, that he can certainly do better than the semester grade of A-, or maybe it was something like, “Well that pretty much sucks.” And I think I’ve said more than once (but fewer than three times, I swear) that a draft of a paper is terrible. Or wretched, or something.
But I make a big effort not to scream or tear my hair out. Even though inside, under my Noe Valley nurturing mom costume, I may have the same psychotic, un-self-differentiating response to my kid’s “failure” as does Chua, I try hard to keep it to myself. I tell myself that imposing my ego needs onto my child is a losing, crazy-making proposition. I channel all of my nicer, more mentally healthy friends, and with a deep cleansing breath ask him instead what he thinks went wrong, ask him if he has the tools to do it differently next time and tell him if he doesn’t he ought to develop those tools or expect to encounter the same results. And I swear I never told him he was lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic. Even I, Asian mother of all Asian mothers behind my little disguise, recognize that a deficit of self-confidence isn’t best mitigated by being told that you’re pathetic.
I also agree with Chua that Western parents often unfairly blame the teacher, the school, the curriculum or other kids in the class for their child’s difficulties. Sometimes, however, it is the school’s fault, and I think it’s absolutely a parent’s responsibility to address problems in the school or classroom. For example, the rigidity, lack of flexibility and failure to tolerate – much less teach – real critical thinking is a feature of a certain kind of pedagogy that, naming no names, can be found in a certain Western European country’s methods whose citizens appreciate wine and cheese only slightly more than they admire their turgid bureaucratic mindset.
There are many too many unspeakably bad schools, probably many of them in New Haven, in which, no matter how much their parents beat them, students cannot learn successfully. But you can bet your ass they’re not the schools Ms. Chua has chosen for her children.
When her husband challenges her belief that children should be “permanently indebted to their parents,” telling her that, “Children don't choose their parents. They don't even choose to be born. It's parents who foist life on their kids, so it's the parents' responsibility to provide for them. Kids don't owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids," she strenuously objects.
“This,” she writes, “strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.” Well, maybe, but in my opinion it’s a better deal than having to explain to the press that your child was always such a good kid, until (insert heinous violent crime), or to the psychiatric nurse that you thought she liked playing The Little White Donkey and besides that she owed it to you to play it perfectly.
Chua cites a study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, which shows that almost 70% of the Western mothers and 0% of Chinese mothers said that "stressing academic success is not good for children." Okay, I wouldn’t say that. As with many of her other points, I agree with Chua. Success takes work. Kids don’t naturally want to work, nor do they inherently understand its value. Lack of incentive is not to be celebrated, nor is a job that could have been done better. But that’s about as far as I’ll go. Foisting our ambitions and desires on our kids rather than requiring merely that they pursue their own with discipline and focus is foolish, and terribly damaging.
Very importantly, too, Chua fails to point out that most “Chinese” parents – whatever their ethnicity – drive their children this hard because they feel they have to. Many recently immigrated families, members of less than fully acculturated communities, like the Jews (still) and most Asians, feel they have to work extra diligently to succeed in making their place in America. Conversely, the most entitled Americans – the entrenched bastions of non-ethnic white Americans (not to accuse all WASPs) seek “balance” because they and their kids can afford to be mediocre. Although this may be a fading reality, they believe that their entitlement to wealth and position and the connections they use to achieve this security will forever shelter them from the shadow of outright failure.
I understand Chua’s impulses all too well, but I think she needs to get a grip and both examine what her children are showing her now and think about what things might be like a few years down the road. She writes about her battle with Lulu over perfecting her daughter’s rendition of The Little Donkey:
“I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. 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...” Okay, I'm thinking, Abu Graib. Holy crap.
Chua continues: “Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it.” I think, What? What did she do? She gave you the name of the terrorist leader? “That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up…” Cracking each other up. Why, I simply clapped my hands when I imagined this delightful scene. It may be an extreme response, and I’m quite sure Chua is in every way a unimpeachable (though flawed, like all of us) mother and person, but I couldn’t help but think that this how victims of abuse behave when they are desperately trying believe that endearing themselves to their abusers is the only way they’ll survive.
Photo by Erin Patrice O'Brien for the Wall Street Journal
