I’d never heard of this until yesterday, when CBS Sunday Morning profiled it. The mother said in the story something to the effect of, “This is not a handbook on how to raise children, instead, it’s telling how not to do it.” And it’s her memoir, so take it as you will.
So kids are threatened with overly harsh reprisals for minor infractions of the rules?
Say hello to reality, kids! Yup, it sucks.
Sorry, yelling at your four-year-old child for not putting enough effort into a hand-drawn birthday card is not any traditional child rearing I’ve ever heard of. There is a big difference between letting kids run wild and making them feel as if they failed when they bring back an A-.
It’s not about breaking the rules. It’s about failing to accomplish something. It’s the difference between punishing a kid for whispering in class and punishing a kid for missing a word on the spelling quiz. This is generally fairly rare in American child-rearing today: we tend to perceive behavior as being under one’s control but accomplishment as more a matter of talent or skill. Punishing a child who tried and failed seems draconian.
There is an argument to be made that accomplishment is also more under our control than we generally assume, and that it’s ok to punish a child who tried and failed because clearly they didn’t try hard enough, even if they thought they were. Generally, today, we think it’s more harmful to incorrectly punish a child who really was trying their hardest than to let a child get away with giving only 90%. But that has not been the case in all times and places.
I think kids ought to be raised with at least an understanding of what “overly harsh reprisals” means that someone is overreacting to a minor situation, rather than reacting properly to a ZOMG CRISIS!!!
I haven’t read the book, but I’ve gotten an ass-full of media coverage of it. I take the author at her word that she intended this as a “how not to” book, but it is still alarming to hear that quote from one of her daughters about “her totally boring life” as a kid.
Uh, if you’re being driven to gnaw on piano keys out of frustration while a domineering mother threatens to take your doll house to the Salvation Army, that’s not a normal or boring childhood. God help us all if they think that’s a reasonable way to raise THEIR kids.
I dunno, both my husband (as WASPy as they come) and I feel like if our kid brings back an A- anytime before high school (and probably in high school, depending on the high school) someone will have failed, whether it’s the kid or us as parents. We’re smart enough, and American schools are just not difficult enough, that she should be doing that. (Now, I can think of exceptions – learning disability or principled stance – where I would be okay with grades less than an A, but they would be rare exceptions.)
But the hand-drawn birthday card is a little weird, I agree.
Ravenman, my mom was almost exactly like what Chua describes, down to the fighting at keyboards. It wasn’t, actually, a particularly interesting childhood, especially compared to a lot of stories I’ve read on these very boards. Now, it was punctuated by drama, I will totally concede, and neither my sister nor I intends to raise our children in exactly that way, but the amount of time spent in screaming fights and over-the-top threats pales in comparison to the, you know, normal cookie-baking and biking around the neighborhood and shopping and family trips and all the other normal boring things families do.
Do you think your kids are equally talented in all areas? Are they not allowed to have an off day?
I worked really hard to not go the “so, only an A-” route for my kids - and they turned out, fine, in fact better than fine. Saying how fine would be bragging. Even better, they left home and went away to college and did not rebel against schoolwork.
I’ve been doing research for over 35 years and if you never fail, never get an A- or a B, you haven’t reached far enough. Do you a kid to come away from home being trained that the grade is more important than learning, and that he or she should never take a class outside of their comfort zone for fear of not getting an A? Anyone expecting to be employed for 30 - 40 years after school had better expect to be forced out of their comfort zone and to have to do something new which they will fail at to start (or at least not be perfect.)
My oldest kid acted when she was little, and acting means that if you get one job out of 16 auditions you are doing really, really well. That was really good training.
You realize this isn’t a new problem?
The rules include, “You will do everything better than everyone else.”
Agreed.
My eldest is only in Grade 2 (and another two little ones on their way) and I would love to have time and patience for what you are saying here. It will be struggle as I’m a 1st generation immigrant and worry about inevitable conflict that leads parents like me to be stricter than normal. However, it is really great to hear from people that manage and it’s kind of motivation for me.
It does take time, from reading to your kid (which I’m sure you are doing now) to being there as a resource during homework time to being there for activities that your kid actually likes. But the real secret, if I can pontificate for a second, is to follow where your kid leads. Kid #1 loved research, got herself connected to a world famous expert in college, and that led to what she is doing now. Kid #2 got into an honors program where she would do research, but it was not what she wanted. She wanted to spend a year in Germany as part of a school program. She did it, and it changed her life. Now I like research, and admit that I was a bit disappointed at the time that she didn’t, but not any more. She made the right decision for herself.
95% of what your kids will do comes from their innate ability. All we can do as parents is not screw them up too badly.
Well, I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at, here. If my kid turns out to be dyslexic, I won’t require A’s in reading, no. But yes, in the absence of an actual disability I do expect my kid to be reasonably good at reading comprehension and mathematics, and IIRC that’s all that’s required to turn out good work up until high school in all subjects.
Oh, okay, one bad test score would be okay. (Sorry, I think I misinterpreted your post as referring to report card scores rather than individual test scores.) But a report card score of an A-? That’s not a bad day. Unless there’s an actual reason she’s having a bad semester, I don’t think that’s acceptable.
As for reaching, I think what I’m saying here is that I don’t expect her schools to cause her to reach far enough to get grades lower than an A until she’s at least in high school, and probably college. Once she goes to college I do hope she gets the occasional B. I do think that my parents’ focus was too much on grades, to my detriment.
Now, I could be wrong about this. I would love to believe her schools will be better than that. My grade schools were not, but some of my high school classes were – I got a B on my first Brit Lit paper in high school, and was devastated, and then I learned how to write from that teacher. I am extremely grateful for that B.
I did music and math when I was a kid. Won the occasional competition, but lost far more. I got to see that there were scads and scads of kids who were far better than I was in a lot of things, and, hey, I actually enjoyed learning from them! So, yeah, I get that.
And I know more than one authentically American woman who wants to spit when encountering various forms of thoroughly Chinese bullshit.
Doesn’t work as well that way around, does it? Heck, if someone wrote a memoir about growing up in an American family in China, would it really make sense for random Americans to look down their noses at them and say “What the hell do you know about America, anyway?” Of course not.
Being Chinese-American doesn’t make your experiences any less “authentic” or meaningful than anyone else’s. If you aren’t into memoirs, that’s fine. They are a little navel-gazy. But to trash someone’s memoir because you don’t think their cultural identity is valid is uncalled for.
[Sean Connery]Weelll . . . so we meet again, Trebeck . . . .[/SC]
If they touted their tome as an authority on “The Rootin’ Tootin’ Rip-Snortin’ Way of Raising An Authentically American Child, Yee-Haw!” and it had very little resemblence to how Americans in America actually raise their kids, then I think it works perfectly well that way around, actually.
I wouldn’t expect a Chinese person to understand the Chinese-American experience. The problem with “homeland” Asians is that they somehow expect Asian Americans to retain some kind of “pure” culture from the motherland. How would they? They’re living in a different country and a different culture. What’s crap about feeling conflicted between your parents’ culture vs the culture that surrounds you?
That’s not to say I don’t think Amy Tan’s full of shit. But my disdain for her is because she oversimplifies the Asian-American experience, and tries to lay claim to an “authentic” Chinese culture she knows nothing about and consequently misrepresents.
I’m not saying the experience is crap, it’s the genre I find schlocky. And, well, the militant young Chinese-American college students–some of the most privileged young people in life, in their own way–who feel they have to climb the victimization bandwagon by, I dunno, being oppressed by the Man for not having a section in their high school history book about how Chinese coolies worked on the western railroads. Them I find annoying, too.
Well, you probably express it better than I do, but that’s pretty much what I was trying to get at.
Ehr… we’re not in the Pit. Right.
A is not the default value. A is, or should be, extraordinary. You’re used to grade inflation, you’re going to drive your kids (if they’re any smart) to choose the easy class they can get a high grade on with little work over the hard one in which they would actually learn, and you’re disregarding things like the effects of things such as math teachers who, upon being questioned about the logic behind a specific demo, respond “logic, what logic? There is no logic to math! Just learn it!”
Now excuse me, I need to go raid the medicine box for some tums.
On the general topic of parenting and grades: my (jeepers, authentically Chinese!) wife and I have frequently discussed our expectations for our daughter, and I think we agree: we’ll be perfectly happy with her making a B or a C if, being closely involved with her schoolwork, we know for sure that represents her best effort. For us, it’s not about meeting an arbitrary standard and memorizing some random subjects, but rather about acquiring the tools of self discipline and concentration. We’re pretty sure if she can do that, she should be able to make A’s and get into whatever school she wants. But at the end of the day, if she decides she doesn’t want to go to Stanford or wherever, so what? As her daddy I’d far rather that she be a happy housewife or artist rather than a miserable lawyer or stockbroker.
Not disputing your statement, but just to add another perspective: most Chinese parents or grandparents I know, whose American born kids speak little or no Chinese, would just have a laugh or roll their eyes about it. But for the (very few) Koreans I’ve encountered, that seems to be very, very far from the case. One time, I had a (college-age) South Korean friend whom I introduced to another acquaintence, who happened to be an American-born Korean but who spoke very little of the language. I noticed the first friend seemed to feel a little weird about it at the time, and asked her afterward if she was annoyed that the second friend couldn’t talk to her in Korean. Her response: “no, I’m not annoyed at her, but I’m very angry at her parents.” 
Bwuh?
The problem is that it is really hard to tell if you are seeing “best effort”. This is where I think the divide is: a student gets a B on their paper. They absolutely, no question, worked hard on it, but that doesn’t mean they worked as hard as they could: there were certainly times when they lost focus, or procrastinated for a half hour before they went back to work. You think there’s a 50% chance that this truly was their best effort, and a 50% chance that this represented about 85% of their best effort. So do you come down on them, risking causing helpless frustration but possibly inspiring true greatness, or do you cut them some slack, risking indulging their laziness but possibly giving them an understanding that what matters is trying their best?
As a teacher, I’ll tell you that my life is that choice over and over and over again. And it’s never easy.