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

jeanhsu.com

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

#161

Post by e40 »

lionhearted wrote: post #46

A contrary viewpoint: After studying a number of different cultures and backgrounds and histories, I'm generally an admirer of the school of parenting laid out by Chua. Well, I think some of the more insulting/demeaning/negative-reinforcement isn't so great, but the overall focus on achievement and duty as superior to having fun... I do respect that. I'll explain why - I used to think the opposite until I read Andre…

ryanwaggoner made the point I thought of when I read your comment, but I want to reinforce it.

For every success there will be 10 (or more) broken children who go through this "method". They will hate their parents. They will have a broken sense of self. They will not be socialized. They will have emotional problems, sometimes serious ones.

How do I know this? I've met the failed ones. I've never met a success from this method, either, and I'm 50.

The people that I've met that were a "success", were both smart, hard working and focused. And, they had one thing which is not praised much anymore: common sense.

I have known more smart people than I can count in my life. A fraction of them had much common sense or "life smarts". Yeah, they could run rings around me with their programming or math or whatever ability, but they often couldn't make a good decision to save their life.

Lastly, I'll say that whatever drive your child has, cultivate it. You cannot create drive, it either is or isn't.

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

#162

Post by e40 »

Confusion wrote: post #62
lionhearted wrote: post #46

A contrary viewpoint: After studying a number of different cultures and backgrounds and histories, I'm generally an admirer of the school of parenting laid out by Chua. Well, I think some of the more insulting/demeaning/negative-reinforcement isn't so great, but the overall focus on achievement and duty as superior to having fun... I do respect that. I'll explain why - I used to think the opposite until I read Andre…

The plural of anecdote is not data. The story about Agassi is nice, but a red herring. Most people do not succeed in such a spectacular way. They remain mediocre and still 'hate tennis and their father'. A prime example are Chinese olympic teams. If you've seen the documentary about the rowing team, hand-picked, drilled in military style and note they still losing to Western teams, you can be nothing but sad for them…

How do we know Agassi is a success? We know he failed at many things for a large part of his personal life. Just because he became #1 at tennis doesn't make him a good person. It does seem like he's found a good place in life, but I don't think anyone here knows what daemons might be present in his mind.

I think we judge success by a shallow metric. Money or fame or success at a single thing in like is not a gage of success. Success is made from many things, not this narrow list.

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

#164

Post by joshhart »

lionhearted wrote: post #46

A contrary viewpoint: After studying a number of different cultures and backgrounds and histories, I'm generally an admirer of the school of parenting laid out by Chua. Well, I think some of the more insulting/demeaning/negative-reinforcement isn't so great, but the overall focus on achievement and duty as superior to having fun... I do respect that. I'll explain why - I used to think the opposite until I read Andre…

Andre Agassi was addicted to meth for Pete's sake. This is a joke of an argument.

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

#165

Post by metageek »

kapilkaisare wrote: post #94
lionhearted wrote: post #46

A contrary viewpoint: After studying a number of different cultures and backgrounds and histories, I'm generally an admirer of the school of parenting laid out by Chua. Well, I think some of the more insulting/demeaning/negative-reinforcement isn't so great, but the overall focus on achievement and duty as superior to having fun... I do respect that. I'll explain why - I used to think the opposite until I read Andre…

I am trying to fit this in with what I've seen in college and at work. I attended computer engineering college in India, and here it gets extremely competitive. You've got gazillions of students fighting over a college seat not because they love programming or because they love software, but because being a computer engineer is key to financial success. So, they slog over their grade 12 scores and IIT-JEEs and CETs,…

>Once they get into college, it's all about getting 'distinctions' - grades higher than 66%.

66% correct, or 66th percentile? At every school I went to, 66% correct would be a failing grade.

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

#166

Post by klbarry »

e40 wrote: post #159
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate to say it, Sebastian, but this whole comment seems built on the back of a false dichotomy. You don't either berate your kids and force them to toil for years at something they hate OR they turn into listless, lifeless middle managers who just fart along. Plus, you're completely ignoring survivorship bias (in some cases literally): for every Andre Agassi, there are probably thousands of parents who told their kid…

I would add one: 4. Hard work is more important than being smart. The reason for this has been discussed a lot, but the jist is that telling kids they are smart causes them to feel like there is something wrong with them when they try new things and fail ("I'm smart, why can't I solve this??!"). Praising hard work has been shown to work better.

This was shown in experiments Jonah Lehrer wrote about in "How We Decide"

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

#168

Post by klbarry »

lionhearted wrote: post #101
mcantelon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sometimes the main reasons said out loud - "well, I just want to be happy" - seem to mask other darker reasons, like fear of failure or inertia or feeling ill-equipped to make a difference. Sometimes obsession with external validation masks the same things. There are no easy answers as to what is best for any given human, but there's definitely a market for those looking for the kind of easy answers that Amy Chua is…

You know cantelon, I'm going to think twice next time before I take up a position that the people who agree are quiet, and the people who disagree are loud. I put my perspective and reasoning up as impersonally as possible, and people are voting up someone who blames everyone else for their problems, saying he hates me and "fuck you"? It's... I dunno man, there's been some good discussion but I'm incredibly disappoin…

I think people are downvoting this because it appears you're fighting the wrong person. "sown" was the one who cursed at you, so this reply seems a bit out of place, since this reply is above "sown"'s post.

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

#169

Post by ryanwaggoner »

e40 wrote: post #159
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate to say it, Sebastian, but this whole comment seems built on the back of a false dichotomy. You don't either berate your kids and force them to toil for years at something they hate OR they turn into listless, lifeless middle managers who just fart along. Plus, you're completely ignoring survivorship bias (in some cases literally): for every Andre Agassi, there are probably thousands of parents who told their kid…

I would add one: 4. Hard work is more important than being smart. The reason for this has been discussed a lot, but the jist is that telling kids they are smart causes them to feel like there is something wrong with them when they try new things and fail ("I'm smart, why can't I solve this??!"). Praising hard work has been shown to work better.

That's what he meant by #3 :)

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

#170

Post by bho »

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…

(My parents are from Taiwan, they came to the states for grad school, I was born in the US)

To reply to your last statement: Some of the families that we know continue to discipline their children during college. In the case that they only have a single child, that means the family picks up and moves to the college town of choice. I would be curious to know how these kids fare in the workplace after college.

On the other hand, I have seen other families who have treated their children with strictness (where the parents were themselves teachers/professors), have their kids rebel against them in college. Their personalities did a complete 180 as they were suddenly relieved of the harsh treatment, which often landed them into trouble.

I am one of those kids who was pushed into piano at age 4. I'm not going to lie - I hated playing for maybe the first 3 or 4 years. My dad would sit with me and force me to practice over and over again. But one day, something clicked, and to this day I have a greater appreciation of music than any of my peers, and I also have a love of music that can only come from myself. I didn't need my dad to force me to practice - I wanted to.

I think that my parents eventually switched tactics during my childhood (for better or for worse) after they were convinced that I would choose a path for myself that wasn't detrimental. I'm thankful for that - I find that I have pursued a lot more hobbies on my own and experienced things that didn't fit the asian mentality.

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