By Teri Ong
In the week from January 8 to January 15, the Wall Street Journal got more responses than ever before for a single article, to an article about (of all things!) – parenting! The Wall Street Journal is not exactly Family Circle or The Journal of Pediatric Medicine. What caused such a great outpouring of emotional opinion?
The article published in the weekend edition (Jan. 8-9, 2011, section C, p. 1) was “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” by Amy Chua, an excerpt from her new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. She came down squarely on the side of rigor in the life of children. Her theory, and the theory she says is prevalent in Asia, is that children are born strong and not only bear up well with a rigorous study schedule and severe limitations on self-gratifying childishness, they actually thrive. Why do they thrive? Because a person does not really become happy and fulfilled until he or she is accomplished in some area, and excellence demands pain and sacrifice.
Ms. Chua has two daughters that she has raised in a traditional “Chinese” fashion. They are never allowed to go to sleepovers or playdates, be in school plays, watch TV or play computer games, get anything less than an “A” in any subject other than P.E., and they must excel at playing the violin or the piano. Their days are full of school, homework, and practicing. If her children come up short in some area, they may be subjected to blunt critique and even name-calling by their mother. Their mother will then find even more rigorous drill and practice exercises to get them up to speed.
All of this is decidedly counter-cultural in America. In America we teach children that they know best what is good for them from the time that they can throw a big enough hissy-fit to get their own way in everything from whether or not to wear shoes or eat their strained spinach. American parents seem to think they are there to facilitate the instant gratification of their off-spring so they can consider each other “friends” throughout a lifetime of conviviality.
Does taking a test make them feel bad? We’ll lobby the state school board to have tests banned from classrooms. Does not being picked for a sports team make them feel bad? We’ll make a rule that everybody that wants to be on the team gets to play the same amount whether they have skill or not. Does losing a game in the above sport cause pain? We won’t keep score so that everyone is a “winner.”
But if everyone is a winner, everyone is equally a loser. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in his autobiography My Grandfather’s Son, observed that it was incredibly difficult for him to get a job as a lawyer after passing the bar exam since he had gone through law school during the height of affirmative action programs. Those doing the hiring in law firms at that time assumed members of minority groups had gotten into law school on the basis of quotas and NOT on the basis of merit. As a result, out in the real world after graduation, minorities had a difficult time proving they had merit. That problem would have been minimized if everyone had been allowed to compete on the same basis from the very beginning.
Ms. Chua writes:
“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 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 children to get straight A’s. 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…” (C1, col. 5)
She assigns the differences to three factors: 1) Western parents are anxious about their child’s self-esteem while Chinese parents believe esteem comes after achievement. 2) Chinese parents believe that their children owe them everything. 3) Chinese parents believe that they know best what is good for their children. From our position in the west, we might make a couple more observations: 1) Chinese parents in China are only allowed to have one child on which to obsess, so they have to make it count. And 2) not every Chinese person slaving away in a sweat shop has been made to excel in all areas academic, let alone practice violin or piano until he or she could perform in Carnegie Hall.
I addressed some of the same parenting issues and more in my own book Lies Christian Parents Teach, and I agree generally with Ms. Chua’s assertions about what is wrong with American parenting. We do tend toward wussiness. We give our children whatever we can to prevent disturbances of the peace on the home front, from candy bars to x-boxes. Some children are just better at screaming louder to get their way, but their way isn’t usually what will turn them into the best adults. And when they turn out to be mediocre in every respect, we still want them to feel good about themselves because, deep down, we know it is our fault that they only attained mediocrity.
In general we buy into the bumper-sticker philosophy that “it shouldn’t hurt to be a child.” I am sure that the purveyors of this particular sticker only meant it to raise awareness of violence and physical abuse perpetrated on the young and innocent members of society. But when broadly applied as a philosophy of parenting, the notion of never “hurting” a child has caused a great deal of hurt in the adult world those same children must inhabit later in life.
No rational person wants his child to “get hurt.” But at the same time, rational people know that certain hurts are inevitable. It is inevitable that a child will fall down when first learning to stand and walk. It is inevitable that some of the falls will be into hard or pointy things. But children don’t learn to walk if they are “protected” from practicing. Good parents take split lips and skinned knees as an indispensable part of growing up. So, too, do we understand that the pain of immunizations against childhood sicknesses, and inflictions of agony in dental treatments and orthodontia are righteous inflictions of pain. We would be remiss if we didn’t cause a little pain and suffering in certain areas.
Why then are we so reluctant to recognize that “foolishness is bound in the heart of a child” and that it takes reasoned and judicious use of discipline to drive out that foolishness? Long before a child can reason abstractly, he is able to learn that certain actions produce a minimally painful result. Yes, I have spanked errant children. Yes, sometimes I have had to tell one of my seven children something he or she did not want to hear. They were as pained to hear it as I was to say it. One time I had to tell a daughter that something she did (I don’t remember what) was very foolish. She accused me of calling her a fool and invoked Christ’s injunction about calling someone a fool. I then had to remind her that Solomon said foolishness was bound in her heart and that it was my job to get it out. There is a difference between being a fool and doing something foolish. The Apostle Paul had to tell a churchful of Galatians that they had done something foolish. A little pain on the backside or to the psyche from time to time can prevent a lifetime of pain from poor decisions resulting from an immature, self-absorbed, foolish perspective on life.
The next Saturday the Wall Street Journal published a response to Ms. Chua by Ayelet Waldman, “In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom.” Her defense of a more relaxed and permissive parenting style was not really a polar opposite from Ms. Chua’s position. She acknowledged that if put into similar scenarios, both mothers would try very hard to work things out in the best interests of their children, though particular actions in particular situations might look quite different. (January 15-16, Sec. C, p. 1, col. 5) One parent is not caring and the other careless; one is not selfless and the other selfish. Both mothers care deeply and express the selfless love that all good mothers have for their children. It is their expressions of love and care that differ.
My analysis of the debate is that the difference is not so much Eastern vs. Western as it is Type A vs. Type B. There are “driven” parents in every society who are dedicated to having their children achieve a particular type of excellence, just as there are others who are more relaxed about their hopes and expectations. I believe, from my perspective as a teacher, that, societally, our problem is not so much that more Type A’s should become B’s, or B’s become A’s; more parents should take time to carefully analyze what is best for their children to give them a purposeful existence as adults. The choice of activities and pursuits should go far beyond what is fun in the present moment.
How many children are destined for performance careers? Maybe spending thousands of dollars and thousands of hours a year on high level music lessons, dance classes, gymnastics, figure skating etc., etc., isn’t very productive in the long run. How many children are destined to be competitive equestrians or dog breeders? Maybe we don’t need all the pets and ponies distracting us from more important things. How many children get good enough at high level organized sports that their involvement will provide a pay-back rather than just a pay-out? Maybe the whole family doesn’t need to adjust their weekly schedule to accommodate work-outs, practices, games, and out-of-town tourneys, not to mention all the “booster” time raising funds. Perhaps family walks in the park would be a more edifying way to stay fit.
There are many varied and legitimate ways to develop mind and body. There is no single “right” way to raise children. But in developing mind and body, many parents lose sight of developing soul and spirit. The most important thing we can do for our children is to help them know God. Our primary goal, remember, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. It is easy to go from being “driven” to being “driven crazy” when we are pursuing the passing fancies of the world rather than God’s eternal glory.
In discussing these ideas with my seventeen-year-old son, he paid me a great compliment. He said, “Mom, I think you are an AB positive!”
“Thanks, Son! I needed that.”
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References:
Thomas, Clarence. My Grandfather’s Son. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.
Ong, Teri. Lies Christian Parents Teach. Greeley, Colorado: Chambers College Press, 2008.
