Posted on 01/10/2011 4:21:49 PM PST by nickcarraway
Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?
A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.
I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
However, there are other aspects I would never recommend & in fact disadvantage their kids in this society.
Wow. The woman is proud that she denied her daughters PLAY DATES?
It sounds like those children had no childhood whatsoever.
Well, they can certainly wash and iron better than anybody. Outside of that, I’m skeptical.
Years ago we were acquainted with a Chinese couple who owned a restaurant. They didn’t believe in sitters for their two kids so they were always at work with Mom and Dad. When the two became too unruly Mom took them to the backyard and tied them to the clothesline pole.
Wow, somebody is going to not have many visitors in the old folks home.
I agree that most Western parents are too lenient and too obsessed with being "friends" with their kids. But...
Not everyone can get an "A" or be #1 in every subject. And sports are important for building character.
Cause they drown the daughters in the river at birth?
We didn’t have play dates that our mothers set up for us. We went down the street to our friend’s house and asked if they could come out and play. Or we went around the neighborhood finding as many kids as we could to play baseball in the vacant lot. Play dates...sheesh.
Yeah. Most telling is the breakdown a lot of these kids (and lots of kids of every ethnic and cultural background pushed onto a med school track) have when they are forced into chemistry & organic chemistry classes in college, which have -real curves-. So not everyone can get an A. In fact, almost no one is going to get an A. Lots of them completely fall apart and have a hard time figuring out it is what they really want to be. Almost worse off are some of the people who do well and only have that breakdown when they’re out of their residency and realized they wanted to be a reporter or a chef or a businessman.
LOL
I am a Mom to three beautiful children. All of them have different gifts. I would never DEMAND that they get straight A’s. I would never demand that they never have friends or socialize. I would never expect them to be perfect. I’m not so why would I expect them to be. One item not mentioned is the stress caused to many children by overbearing parents. I remember in college a junior student (Asian) jumping from a window killing himself. Why? He got a “B” in a science class. Demanding that your kids do the best that THEY can is better than demanding that they live out some sort of fantasy childhood. Just a thought.
“...people who do well and only have that breakdown...”
I had a school mate in high school. Tall, dark, and handsome, Pres. of the Honor Society, Football Captain, siiigh!! With same last initial we often sat near each other—he was better in math, I was better in English, so we helped each other. Later hear he flunked out of Rennsalear(sp?) Polytech, oh well. Wish I knew how he actually turned out.
I believe in strict parenting, but what this describes is simple cruelty.
Actualizatuion of ones potential is WORK!
Chinese and Jewish parents know this.
They know that work is part of life, and thus expect their offspring to work.
Works for them.
The test scores, and the number of Nobel Prizes tell the tale.
PS Moslim Nobel winners are, as Twain said of another group, “almighty scarce, Sir - they are almighty scarce”.
Almost all the local Korean families have been visited by social services. They seem to be enamored with beating young kids with sticks to make a point about grades.
So what do these “Chinese mothers” do when their child is developmentally disabled? Kill them?!
*See Buck V. Bell for more
Why not be more accurate and say “the way our grandfathers and grandmothers did it”?
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