So very much not a tiger mother
So, the mommy blogosphere has been roiling this week over this somewhat unbelievable Wall Street Journal article, which apparently is excerpted from a book called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. You should go read it; I'll wait.
(Shorter Amy Chua: I'm a better mother than you because I'm meaner to my kids.)
There are thoughtful responses I really like here and here. The first is especially powerful because the blogger was herself raised in much the same vein advocated by Chua.
Now, Professor Chua (she teaches at Yale) is publicizing her new book, and as publicity her WSJ article is clearly doing its job: there are 5000+ comments on the online version as of this writing, many thoughtful, many incoherent with outrage, many laudatory (some, no doubt, from spambots -- I haven't, it should go without saying, actually read all of them). What I haven't noticed anyone saying is that the piece seems disingenuous. Maybe it's just me -- but that's what I think.
Amy Chua teaches, as I said, at Yale. She's got a PhD; this is not a stupid or ignorant person. She lives in Connecticut; she is married to a Jewish guy. She cannot possibly genuinely believe that "Western parents" are all uniformly as lazy, overindulgent, obsessed with their (our) children's self-esteem, etc., as she portrays them in this piece. And I don't think she can possibly genuinely believe, against all logic, that it's possible for every child -- provided s/he gets the right kind of parenting, the right kind of "motivation" (which includes being called "lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic" for wanting to take a break from piano practice when it isn't going well) --- can be at the top of his/her class in every subject. I mean, come on: unless every kid in the class is getting 100% on everything, which would suggest to me that something is somewhat amiss in that class, sometimes someone is going to be ... not at the top. Duh.
So I think Professor Chua is being disingenuous. I believe that she really had the knock-down drag-out fight with her younger daughter that she describes in the article; I believe that on that occasion, with that child, the result was positive (for a certain value of "positive" that I'm not at all convinced vaudrait la peine). But I don't believe that it would work on every kid, or even most kids. Chua may roll her eyes at the idea that "Everyone is special in their special own way" -- but it's true that everyone's different, and what motivates one person won't necessarily motivate another (and what makes one kid fight back will make another kid dissolve into hysterical tears). The problem with the "tiger mother" paradigm, as articulated here, is at bottom identical to the problem with Babywise (with which it also has other similarities, such as strong encouragement to be really horrible to your kids): it's based on the idea that kids begin as formless, characterless lumps of clay, ready to be moulded by their parents into perfectly behaved, respectful, academically excellent, successful people (or whatever it is their parents happen to want). And you know what? Parenting just doesn't work like that. People don't work like that. Kids have personalities -- in utero, even. They are bouncing-off-the-[uterine]-walls or they are laid back. They're touchy-feely or touch-me-not. They're restless or calm. They're clever with their hands or clever with their feet or clever at math or musical or clever at art. They're graceful or klutzy. And so on. You can encourage or discourage different traits, you can work with or against your kid's temperament, but you can't pretend that every kid's the same. You just can't. And although -- to take a relevant example -- musical talent will get you nowhere if you don't practice, there's a pretty firm limit to how good a musician you can become, no matter how much you practice, if you have a tin ear and no sense of rhythm. Not every child can excel at everything. Not everyone considers the same few things most worthwhile.
There are a lot of other things in Chua's piece that I find bizarre. For example: given the enormous and wonderful variety of musical instruments that exist in the world, why limit your kids to the violin and piano? What's wrong with the cello, the clarinet, the oboe, the guitar, the flute, the poor unloved viola? (I understand what's wrong with the drums. But the world needs percussionists, too!) And WTF is with the hating on school plays? You can learn a lot from being in a play. Also, as much as I loathe the term "playdate", banning playdates and sleepovers for one's kids strikes me as truly repellent (and counterproductive) behaviour.
It's true that lots of parents don't expect enough from their kids. I keep hearing parents complaining about their kids' homework, in a way that clearly indicates they're doing way more of the homework than the kids are; those parents are not doing their kids any favours. Kids do need to learn stick-to-itiveness, but they don't need to be tortured by years of doing things they hate; I wouldn't have let SP quit ballet three weeks into the semester, but when she announced after the year-end recital that she wanted to do something else the following year, we went with it -- she'd asked to take ballet, she'd stuck it out for a year, good enough. Because another thing kids need to learn is that they can make decisions, and some will be good and some will be not so good, and sometimes there's fallout to deal with, and that's okay -- this too can be survived. You don't learn that when your "tiger mother" decides everything for you, and holds you to those decisions come hell or high water.
There's also the question of how you measure success. I was a driven, high-achieving teenager; now I'm a mild-mannered middle manager. I'm not, as Admiral Croft says of Sir Walter Elliot, ever going to set the Thames on fire, I'm never going to make a three-figure salary or live in a fancy house, but I have a wonderful husband and child, I work at a job I enjoy, I have enough to eat and books to read and clothes to wear, I have a good relationship with my mom, I have wonderful friends and great colleagues, I live in an interesting city -- I have a good life. Am I "the best" at everything (or anything)? Nope. Am I (mostly) happy anyway? Yep. And that's what I want for my kid.
(Shorter Amy Chua: I'm a better mother than you because I'm meaner to my kids.)
There are thoughtful responses I really like here and here. The first is especially powerful because the blogger was herself raised in much the same vein advocated by Chua.
Now, Professor Chua (she teaches at Yale) is publicizing her new book, and as publicity her WSJ article is clearly doing its job: there are 5000+ comments on the online version as of this writing, many thoughtful, many incoherent with outrage, many laudatory (some, no doubt, from spambots -- I haven't, it should go without saying, actually read all of them). What I haven't noticed anyone saying is that the piece seems disingenuous. Maybe it's just me -- but that's what I think.
Amy Chua teaches, as I said, at Yale. She's got a PhD; this is not a stupid or ignorant person. She lives in Connecticut; she is married to a Jewish guy. She cannot possibly genuinely believe that "Western parents" are all uniformly as lazy, overindulgent, obsessed with their (our) children's self-esteem, etc., as she portrays them in this piece. And I don't think she can possibly genuinely believe, against all logic, that it's possible for every child -- provided s/he gets the right kind of parenting, the right kind of "motivation" (which includes being called "lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic" for wanting to take a break from piano practice when it isn't going well) --- can be at the top of his/her class in every subject. I mean, come on: unless every kid in the class is getting 100% on everything, which would suggest to me that something is somewhat amiss in that class, sometimes someone is going to be ... not at the top. Duh.
So I think Professor Chua is being disingenuous. I believe that she really had the knock-down drag-out fight with her younger daughter that she describes in the article; I believe that on that occasion, with that child, the result was positive (for a certain value of "positive" that I'm not at all convinced vaudrait la peine). But I don't believe that it would work on every kid, or even most kids. Chua may roll her eyes at the idea that "Everyone is special in their special own way" -- but it's true that everyone's different, and what motivates one person won't necessarily motivate another (and what makes one kid fight back will make another kid dissolve into hysterical tears). The problem with the "tiger mother" paradigm, as articulated here, is at bottom identical to the problem with Babywise (with which it also has other similarities, such as strong encouragement to be really horrible to your kids): it's based on the idea that kids begin as formless, characterless lumps of clay, ready to be moulded by their parents into perfectly behaved, respectful, academically excellent, successful people (or whatever it is their parents happen to want). And you know what? Parenting just doesn't work like that. People don't work like that. Kids have personalities -- in utero, even. They are bouncing-off-the-[uterine]-walls or they are laid back. They're touchy-feely or touch-me-not. They're restless or calm. They're clever with their hands or clever with their feet or clever at math or musical or clever at art. They're graceful or klutzy. And so on. You can encourage or discourage different traits, you can work with or against your kid's temperament, but you can't pretend that every kid's the same. You just can't. And although -- to take a relevant example -- musical talent will get you nowhere if you don't practice, there's a pretty firm limit to how good a musician you can become, no matter how much you practice, if you have a tin ear and no sense of rhythm. Not every child can excel at everything. Not everyone considers the same few things most worthwhile.
There are a lot of other things in Chua's piece that I find bizarre. For example: given the enormous and wonderful variety of musical instruments that exist in the world, why limit your kids to the violin and piano? What's wrong with the cello, the clarinet, the oboe, the guitar, the flute, the poor unloved viola? (I understand what's wrong with the drums. But the world needs percussionists, too!) And WTF is with the hating on school plays? You can learn a lot from being in a play. Also, as much as I loathe the term "playdate", banning playdates and sleepovers for one's kids strikes me as truly repellent (and counterproductive) behaviour.
It's true that lots of parents don't expect enough from their kids. I keep hearing parents complaining about their kids' homework, in a way that clearly indicates they're doing way more of the homework than the kids are; those parents are not doing their kids any favours. Kids do need to learn stick-to-itiveness, but they don't need to be tortured by years of doing things they hate; I wouldn't have let SP quit ballet three weeks into the semester, but when she announced after the year-end recital that she wanted to do something else the following year, we went with it -- she'd asked to take ballet, she'd stuck it out for a year, good enough. Because another thing kids need to learn is that they can make decisions, and some will be good and some will be not so good, and sometimes there's fallout to deal with, and that's okay -- this too can be survived. You don't learn that when your "tiger mother" decides everything for you, and holds you to those decisions come hell or high water.
There's also the question of how you measure success. I was a driven, high-achieving teenager; now I'm a mild-mannered middle manager. I'm not, as Admiral Croft says of Sir Walter Elliot, ever going to set the Thames on fire, I'm never going to make a three-figure salary or live in a fancy house, but I have a wonderful husband and child, I work at a job I enjoy, I have enough to eat and books to read and clothes to wear, I have a good relationship with my mom, I have wonderful friends and great colleagues, I live in an interesting city -- I have a good life. Am I "the best" at everything (or anything)? Nope. Am I (mostly) happy anyway? Yep. And that's what I want for my kid.