Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#31

Post by wslh » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 4:34 AM UTC

klenwell wrote: post #17

A friend of mine, a mother of a gifted 5th grader wrestling with similar issues of parental control as Amy Chua, shared the WSJ article with me today. It reminded me of something Steven Pinker writes about in one of his books. In his book, he breaks down the work of Judith Rich Harris ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris ) to this formula: Genes have 50% influence over a child's development, peers 40%-50…

It depends of the parents. László Polgár (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r) trained all his daughters very well in chess.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#32

Post by kenjackson » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 4:34 AM UTC

There's truth in both articles. While I had lots of fun as a kid I certainly wish I was better at more things. Although with that said, most of the things I wish I was better at are probably things Chinese mothers wouldn't really push: basketball, dancing, drawing/art, and piano (this they clearly do support).

But parenting is hard. At the end of the day, if my kids are happy, nice, respectful, and can afford the things they want, I'll be happy for them.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#33

Post by toephu » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 4:40 AM UTC

Goto China and meet real Chinese. ABCs are not real Chinese. They are bananas. Yellow on the outside, White on the inside.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#34

Post by toephu » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 4:46 AM UTC

tastybites wrote: post #24

Just my couple of cents worth of first hand input... Most Chinese families aren't crazy-obsessed with achievement - I'd say about 1/4 of them exhibit this kind of insane behavior, but that's still a very, very high rate, which is where this stereotype comes from. The rest are similar to their high-achieving white counterpart families. Just as a data point, my two parents (two MDs and one PhD, yeah, it could have been…

exactly, the author of that blog post Jean Hsu married a white guy

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#35

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 4:47 AM UTC

ecuzzillo wrote: post #19

vsingh wrote: post #8

The "Chinese mother" approach to raising children is based around motivations at the second-highest level of Maslow's hierarchy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Ne... While this aggressive approach to parenting can be made to sound right on a certain dispassionate level, to some people it just feels intensely wrong in a way that's hard to explain. Why is that? What happens is that children r…

This is not intended to exactly disagree: Many times when people cite the Maslow hierarchy, they often to take it as an axiom that the hierarchy is completely exactly how people work, and to lead better lives, people must go about fulfilling exactly these needs in this order. As someone who presumably subscribes to the hierarchy, would you agree that you seem fairly certain that this is how it works? And, if so, can…

[deleted]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#36

Post by T-R » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 4:51 AM UTC

> In reality they are just molding all their kids to look exactly the same on paper.

I wasn't expecting this argument, but it reminds me a lot of how the RECRUIT company has managed to commoditize the workforce in Japan. By unifying applications and highlighting only certain traits, they've created a system where applicants all try to maximize only those specific traits (grades, entrance exam scores, TOEFL scores, etc.). On the other hand, companies mostly only see those traits, so they'll throw out an application if anything slightly negative shows up, whether it's that you've ever quit a job, or that your handwritten resume had less-than-perfect penmanship.

Optimizing for a small set of traits probably actually works well to a degree in the U.S. specifically because not everyone is optimizing for those same traits.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#37

Post by megrimlock » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 5:02 AM UTC

toephu wrote: post #28

nsoonhui wrote: post #6

I hope I don't sound too racist or anti-Semite. Why is it that when a Jewish mother does the same as the Asian mother, no one complains? I'm a Chinese btw.

Chinese or ABC? other than physical appearance ABCs are no different then white Americans. Chinese in China are nothing like ABCs in America. ABCs are a disgrace to the Chinese race. How does it feel to look Chinese but can't even write in supposedly "your own language". They shouldn't even be called Chinese, they are Americans.

HN expects a higher level of argument than unsubstantiated claims and lazy categorical insults. Please raise your game.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#38

Post by ZhannaSchonfeld » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 5:03 AM UTC

nsoonhui wrote: post #6

I hope I don't sound too racist or anti-Semite. Why is it that when a Jewish mother does the same as the Asian mother, no one complains? I'm a Chinese btw.

No Jewish mother does what Chinese mothers do, according to the original article. I'm Jewish, by the way. No Jewish mom would deny her bubbeleh dinner. EVER. I'd like to add that I wish my parents would have pushed me more.

How did Jews become a part of this, anyway?

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#39

Post by roadnottaken » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 5:04 AM UTC

Everybody likes to give their parents credit/blame for everything (good and bad) but that overlooks the fact that people have different personalities that are surprisingly inborn and resilient. David Brooks has a line somewhere (I'll try to dig it up) where he says the most important thing is to be a "good enough" parent: provide a safe environment where your kids are encouraged and stimulated. It's not necessary to be a super-parent. Extraordinary people are not solely the product of parenting and the main thing is to shepherd your kids through childhood so they can reach adulthood without any scars.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#40

Post by redcap » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 5:04 AM UTC

jasonyyun wrote: post #3

I don't want to start another topic, so I'll leave this - an excellent response from a user on Quora on the topic: http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-ex...

Seconded - the Quora response is excellent and suggests/hints that the pressure from parents is one reason why suicide is high among Asian-American females.