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)

#181

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 5:53 PM UTC

Jem wrote: post #116

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…

"I would like to bring up a possibility, which is possibly controversial: a lot of these kids let themselves be trampled on by their parents. In addition to (probably) being bullied at school, they are bullied at home by their parents. I really wish they would do more to stand up for themselves." I can imagine that only someone who has never been through years of systematic abuse / bullying would lay the blame on the…

[deleted]

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

#182

Post by izendejas » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 5:55 PM UTC

fhe wrote: post #126

izendejas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To use your line of reasoning, let's take another anomaly: Steve Jobs. The dude was adopted, was a community college dropout and did a ton of drugs. He woke up one day at 42 and found himself back at the CEO position of the company he co-founded and now he's considered by many the most successful CEO of our time. His company has a market cap of $300 billion+ and has created a whole lot of other intangibles by surroun…

Factual correction: Jobs went to Reed, hardly a community college.

Thanks.

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

#183

Post by rgrieselhuber » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 6:19 PM UTC

xiaoma wrote: post #113

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is undeniable that asians outperform westerners [Citation needed]

At least in the context of the US (which was the topic of the article): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_American#Education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Race_6_figure_household_an...

Looking at the breakdown, then perhaps Indian mothers are the superior ones? :-)

The point is that optimizing along one or two metrics such as income or education is myopic (which was the actual topic of the article), especially when you don't take into consideration the associated costs (opportunity and otherwise).

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

#184

Post by jeeringmole » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 6:24 PM UTC

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.

Exactly. For more details, go to the source: Carol Dweck. A good starting point is her popular book Mindset. (www.mindsetonline.com) There's also now online growth mindset instruction for middle school students (and older) -- see www.brainology.us.

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

#185

Post by neworbit » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 6:52 PM UTC

EthanEtienne wrote: post #92

sown wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was raised like this. My mom showed me no real love, nor did my family. I buckled under the pressure and when the time came for any real emotional support, they abandoned me in an attempt to get me to "try harder." I never forgave them and I don't talk to them any more. In the end, regardless of how they felt or their intentions, I was made out to be nothing more than an ornament, a product for the glory of the fam…

You should leave in the "fuck you". That emotional response is apt in to convey how much this screws up people.

If you're Dave Mclure, you should add a couple dozen more!

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

#186

Post by neworbit » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 6:55 PM UTC

izendejas wrote: post #79

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…

To use your line of reasoning, let's take another anomaly: Steve Jobs. The dude was adopted, was a community college dropout and did a ton of drugs. He woke up one day at 42 and found himself back at the CEO position of the company he co-founded and now he's considered by many the most successful CEO of our time. His company has a market cap of $300 billion+ and has created a whole lot of other intangibles by surroun…

Steve Jobs is the Chinese mother in this story, not the child. He demands excellence from his team and is sometimes pretty over the top about the demand part of that phrase.

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

#187

Post by danielrhodes » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 7:16 PM UTC

There's clearly some correlation between Chua's approach and 'success' as it is narrowly defined within an academic spectrum. However, in practice I think such methods discourage failure so strongly that the children grow up to choose only the narrow paths which guarantee success, and don't explore outwards.

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

#188

Post by gaoshan » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 7:16 PM UTC

Just to throw this out there and give an actual Chinese mom perspective on this...

The two Chinese mothers I know well here in the U.S. (my wife and her cousin) both of whom were born and raised in China, both of whom have 2 children of about the same age as the original author and both of whom are similarly educated to the woman who wrote the original article this one is in response to, were disturbed by the message and methods presented. They found it abusive, excessive and wrong and have been mailing links to this to all of their friends in anger.

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

#189

Post by tastybites » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 7:20 PM UTC

araneae wrote: post #149

tastybites wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are they supposed to do when they are beaten and locked out of the house for 24 hours with no food to eat? Is this a serious question? If that happens, you call the cops like the victim of any other kind of assault. I have a friend who did this and had dad arrested and taken to court. It worked phenomenally well - she was never beat ever again - wonder why?! > Both of which presumably do not have a background…

If that happens, you call the cops Just because one child did it, doesn't mean all children can. Heck, even adults can't sometimes. Haven't you ever heard of Stockholm syndrome? Or battered wife syndrome? Going up against someone who has power over you is hard.

I sure have, look at my other comments in the thread.

And I agree, it's hard, and not everyone can do it.

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

#190

Post by tastybites » Tue, Jan 11, 2011, 7:23 PM UTC

Jem wrote: post #116

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…

"I would like to bring up a possibility, which is possibly controversial: a lot of these kids let themselves be trampled on by their parents. In addition to (probably) being bullied at school, they are bullied at home by their parents. I really wish they would do more to stand up for themselves." I can imagine that only someone who has never been through years of systematic abuse / bullying would lay the blame on the…

> I can imagine that only someone who has never been through years of systematic abuse / bullying would lay the blame on the victim.

I'm Chinese and I know plenty of folks who went through this abuse. I know many kids who did stand up to the abuse - and as a kid who stood up to my parents (and whose parents changed because of it), I despise this horrible stereotype and wish more kids would muster the constitution to fight it.

You can only imagine nothing. If you weren't brought up in or witness to this kind of environment I don't even really know how you can make conclusions in your imagination about me.