Quote:

---

...Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can't. Once when I was young—maybe more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me "garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn't damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.

As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)

Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out.

I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do. I think there are three big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets....

---

Quote:

---

The pedagogy practiced by parents and teachers was poisonous because it called for the destruction of a child’s will and the murder of his soul. Obedience to authority was believed to be of prime importance, the basis of all education, so that willfulness and wickedness were to be eliminated in a child’s very first year of life. Love of order was to be instilled by the age of two. The suppression of the child’s emotion, of the child’s vitality, of his desire to know, was considered necessary pedagogical practice.

---

Quote:

---

“As long as the child will be trained not by love, but by fear, so long will humanity live not by justice, but by force. As long as the child will be ruled by the educator’s threat and by the father’s rod, so long will mankind be dominated by the policeman’s club, by fear of jail, and by panic of invasion by armies and navies.”

Boris Sidis, from “A lecture on the abuse of the fear instinct in early education” in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1919.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Bytemite:
It's really not better or worse, but frankly, this author has no god damn idea what they're talking about. Yes, she's chinese, fine. She STILL doesn't.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Bytemite:
Two: So... also a heaping helping of spite, intended for people who hate her for being successful, lavished on her would-be failure children.

How very well adjusted she is. I should apologize, right away, for her verbally abusing and dominating her children.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Bytemite:
She was looking for self-assurance, and she won't get it from me.

Doesn't matter if she lied to the world, even if she did, her own children and society would have born the burden of the truth of it.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Bytemite:
Calling a child garbage and refusing to allow a child leave a bench even to go use the restroom or eat for two days is not "just yelling." That's something else entirely.

But see it however you want to. I won't dominate you.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Bytemite:
Two: This really is only digging this woman deeper in my mind. The main thing that shocked her out of her abusive behaviour here is the realization first that her child is developing a dangerous level of anger and defiance, and second that someone might call child services on her.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I'm not going to judge the value of that culture...

---

Quote:

---

Still, there were 'difficult' teachers that were able to teach me a lot without having to be an ass about it, so I it can be done without the cruelty.
....
Say what you will about 'Chinese parenting' but at least those kids aren't getting neglected.

---

Quote:

---

But, I'm young, I'm not a parent and have barely any teaching experience, so really I'm just guessing or theorizing here.

---

Quote:

---

After her young children presented her with handmade birthday cards:

I gave the card back to Lulu. “I don’t want this,” I said. “I want a better one — one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. I have a special box, where I keep all my cards from you and Sophia, and this one can’t go in there.”

“What?” said Lulu in disbelief. I saw beads of sweat start to form on Jed’s forehead.

I grabbed the card again and flipped it over. I pulled out a pen from my purse and scrawled ‘Happy Birthday Lulu Whoopee!’ I added a big sour face. “What if I gave you this for your birthday Lulu- would you like that? But I would never do that, Lulu. No — I get you magicians and giant slides that cost me hundreds of dollars. I get you huge ice cream cakes shaped like penguins, and I spend half my salary on stupid sticker and erase party faovrs that everyone just throws away. I work so hard to give you good birthdays! I deserve better than this. So I reject this.” I threw the card back.

After her daughter’s beloved paternal grandmother Popo died, Chua insisted the girls write a short speech to read at the funeral. Both girls refused (“No please, Mommy, don’t make,” Sophia said tearfully. “I really don’t feel like it.”). Chua insisted.

Sophia’s first draft was terrible, rambling and superficial. Lulu’s wasn’t so great either, but I held my elder daughter to a higher standard. Perhaps because I was so upset myself, I lashed out at her. “How could you, Sophia?” I said viciously. “This is awful. It has no insight. It has no depth. It’s like a Hallmark Card — which Popo hated. You are so selfish. Popo loved you so much — and you — produce–this!”

---

Quote:

---

Your guesses and theories are pretty good, IMO. You sound like a good teacher. I wish you could teach my kids music.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
...cause this lady and James Dobson are saying essentially the same thing, almost word for fucking word - I am not whatever kidding.

---

Quote:

---

It's a brave woman in this day and age who writes a parenting memoir. What made you want to do it?

I didn't write this book to tell people how to parent. In fact, I wrote this book in a moment of crisis. I was raised by extremely strict but extremely loving Chinese immigrant parents. To this day I adore them and I feel I owe them everything. I tried to raise my children the same way. My daughter rebelled against this kind of parenting and I felt like my family was falling apart. So the book is about many of the strengths I see in that kind of parenting but it's also about the mistakes.

What has provoked the most reaction?

The story I'm getting most flak for her is one I stand by. My daughters find the trouble I'm getting in for it incredibly funny. My kids were maybe seven and four and my husband had forgotten my birthday so at the last minute we went to this mediocre Italian restaurant and he said “O.K., girls you both have a little surprise for mommy.” And my daughter Lulu pulls out a card, but the card was just a piece of paper folded crookedly in half with a big smiley face and it said Happy Birthday Mom. And I looked at it and I gave it back and I said “This isn't good enough. I want something that you put a little bit more time into.” So I rejected her birthday card. People can't believe I rejected this handmade card. But she knew as well as I did that it took her about two seconds to do it. That's the story that's coming off as the most outrageous, which in our family is like a standing joke.

What are the chief differences between the western style of parenting and the Chinese style of parenting?

I think the biggest difference is that I've noticed Western parents seem much more concerned about their children's psyches, their self-esteem, whereas tough immigrant parents assume strength rather than fragility in their children and therefore behave completely differently. I know some of the examples seem very harsh—I've had a lot of emails about that—but I think it goes without saying that love and understanding have to come first, without that it's nothing.

At its best I think it's not about achievement, but about trying to help your child be the best they can be and it's usually more than they think. It's saying “I believe in you so much that I know you can be excellent, and I'm going to sacrifice everything and be in the trenches with you and I don't care if you hate me while you're a kid and I'm just not going to let you give up.” That's, I think, a positive message.

What does that kind of parenting look like?

It's much less deferring to the child's wishes. The westerners want to respect their child's individuality and to pursue their passion and to provide positive reinforcement. The Chinese are much more comfortable overriding their children's preferences. I talk about the virtuous circle: most things are not fun until you're good at them and to get good at them, you have to work extremely hard, and kids on their own will not want to work hard at something. My husband adores his parents but he wishes someone had forced him to learn a musical instrument.

Another thing is total respect for parents. I was raised never talking back to my parents. I once won a second prize in a history concert. My parents came to the ceremony. Somebody else had won the prize for best all-around student. Afterwards my father said to me, “Never, ever disgrace me like that again.” When I tell my western friends they are aghast. But I adore my father. It didn't knock my self-esteem at all. To this day my father is my greatest source of strength. Words said in one cultural context may not mean the same thing as words said in another cultural context.

Having said that, there are a lot of moments I'm not proud of. This book is making fun of myself.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
if you try to control the creatures in your world take away their free will and make them serve you, then you're an evil god.

---

Quote:

---

I know how to get a child to play the piano.

Put them in a room. Or a house. With a piano. And lots of free time.

"I'm bored."

"that's nice, but I see that complaining to me about your boredom is a you've found to waste time, so I'll leave, and you'll find something to do."

Kids just naturally play the piano, read, learn stuff, figure hints out, and create things. The only thing that stops them from doing so is someone using up their time with stupid stuff or instilling them with fear preventing them from acting.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I remember you and CTS talking about moving to a less teacher or even teacher-less learning environment a while back,

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
... but still it's very offensive.

---

Quote:

---

As for music, and learning - tell me, which of you would have liked to tell Dizzy Gillespie he was playing that thing wrong, ehe ?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
You ever feel sometimes that you're living in that world, without the special glasses ?
Sure as hell I know I do.

---