The morning after my seven-year-old daughter's sleepover and a few hours before my nine-year-old son's play date, and just in the middle of quieting my daughter's kvetchting about her impending piano lesson, I happened upon "Why Chinese Mother's Are Superior," Amy Chua's controversial Wall Street Journal article that's created a firestorm in the blogosphere.
Chua, a second-generation Chinese American, mother of two and Yale law professor, argues that Chinese moms churn out whip-smart kids precisely because they don't allow childhood frivolity like sleepovers or play dates, along with just about everything else that is social, fun or distracting, including TV, video games, sleepaway camp and auditioning for the school play. They also insist that their children master the violin or piano -- but only those two instruments -- be the top student in every subject with the exception of gym or drama, and receive no grade below an A.
So, is my cranky, post-sleepover daughter, now curled on the couch watching "iCarly" and whining about piano practice, in need of a Chinese-mom makeover? Perhaps cracking down and creating a strict, Chinese-mom discipline style where prodigies are cultivated at all costs is precisely how Chua would advise I take my "lazy" daughter from "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" to a Mozart concerto. But then again, I'm not a Chinese mom; I'm a Jewish mom.
Somehow throughout the millennia, whether we were living in the desert, the shtetl, the ghetto or the Upper West Side, Jewish moms have also turned out successful progeny, despite all the kvetching.
Perhaps that's why there are so many Jewish lawyers. Jewish kids debate at home. They speak back to their elders. They argue while practicing their powers of persuasion on their exhausted parents. And we moms, well, we at least subliminally encourage it -- after all, we love a good argument almost as much as we love kibbitzing. And after centuries of persecution and existing on the fringes of nearly every society from Egypt to Eastern Europe, either fighting for entry or thriving in spite of it, Jews are hardwired for resistance -- which perhaps explains my two strong-willed children.
Chua claims that heaping shame and ridicule on her children drives them to success. In her world, insults motivate. Praise only comes with perfection. Weak discipline creates mediocrity.
"You are garbage!" she once screamed at her daughter.
Western parents, Chua says, worry endlessly about their children's psyches, while Chinese moms simply demand a tougher resilience. Obsessing about damaging your child's self-esteem is a Western parenting weakness in Chua's style of Chinese motherhood.
Chua says that Chinese moms don't mince words when it comes to their children's appearance either. They can say, "Hey fatty -- lose some weight."
The Jewish mom would more likely kvell over her daughter than insult her, no matter how fat she had become.
"You are too gorgeous, but maybe you want me to get you a gym membership," a Jewish mom would say.
The f-word would never enter the conversation. While Chua describes Chinese moms in almost pathological terms, the Jewish-mom style is decidedly more passive aggressive.
"Why don't we go study for your spelling test now?" I say to my son.
"Can you please get your math review sheets? Let's make sure you get 100 percent on your quiz!" I say in my best bubbly, you-can-do-it voice.
We frame demands in pleasant questions. Really what we mean is, "Go study now, and I want you to get straight As and a National Merit Scholarship that gets you into Harvard." We just message it differently.
Does this style always work? Absolutely not. Do we coddle our children? Definitely. Do we ascribe to more lax, permissive parenting that's wrapped in Jewish-mom guilt? Without a doubt. But we are a culture of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" and Jewish bubbes who probably manufactured the term "mama's boys." After all, it takes a little coddling to turn our men into menshes.
Sleepaway camp, verboten in Chua's world, is another area in which the cultures differ. Jews love sleepaway camp. They are a rite of passage (an obscenely expensive one these days) for many American Jewish kids. Jewish parents view sleepaway camp as a place for their children to develop independence, grow emotionally, make lifelong friends, get away from the grind of school, learn a smorgasbord of completely non-relevant life skills like how to shoot an arrow, ride a zip line, capsize a canoe, create cheesy Color War songs, and just have crazy fun.
"You won't even recognize your children when they come home. They mature so much. We really focus on creating strong self-esteem," a camp director promised on my sleepaway camp tour to Maine last summer.
Yes, Jewish moms tour the camps a year in advance to make sure it's the perfect fit for their kvetchy camper. We also check the bathrooms for cleanliness and the camp menu for good food options and interrogate the counselors to see if they seem warm, engaged and enthusiastic.
Should Jewish moms become more like Chinese moms? Maybe. As long as we can hold on to the playdates, sleepovers, open debating and sleepaway camp.
Follow Wendy Sachs on Twitter: www.twitter.com/wsachs
Betty Jamie Chung, Ph.D.: Life Lessons from My Tiger Mother: A Reflection on Chinese Child Rearing
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior - WSJ.com
Thoughts From the Daughter of a Chinese Mother - Ta-Nehisi Coates ...
Letter from China: Chinese Daughters and Amy Chua : The New Yorker
Now, if I had to choose between the two stereotypes, the Chinese Mom, or the Jewish Mom, I guess I would go for the latter because of the amazing results they have produced in terms of Nobel Peace Prizes, political and financial clout, artistic acclaim, and so on.
And, no one is calling the matzo-eating kids "robots".
www.thegoodchinesemother.wordpress.com
Eh, no, Baptist mothers from the South are the best.
Well, I don't know: What about Italian-American mothers?
African-American mothers: Do any mothers love their children more?
You know what: It might be best if we gave up this ethnic stereotyping connected to parenting and simply acknowledged that every culture produces good and bad kids, studious kids and slackers, musical prodigies, great athletes, and more.
I'm tired of hearing about Jewish and Asian kids supposedly being raised in a superior way. There are great parents in every ethnic group. It would be healthy to leave it at that.
What a grand way to sell a book, imply your mother is inferior.
The world is a richer place for having so many talented smart kids of such moms and we need many, many more.
And I'm not even Jewish. :)
'Chinese moms' on the other hand have produced not nearly as many. It is particularly striking that no citizen of China has ever won a science Nobel, though a handful of overseas ethnic Chinese have done so.
Why is Ms. Chua, who is born in America not studying and recommending the ways of the Jewish mom for the benefit of her kids and ours? I suggest she start with a good recipe for making chicken soup which she should first excel at.
You have any idea how many Japanese Nobel winners are out there? and do you know over 50% of them are from the last 10 years?
Chinese has created one of the oldest and most complex cultures in the world. But for many reasons (WWII, civil war, culture revolutions, etc. )we haven't really got the chance to study the modern science until the beginning of 1980s. Held your comments to 10 ~20 years and we'll see.
Give it a few generations . . . .
Clay Boggess
http://www.bigeventfundraising.com
A culture of accepting failure as the norm is what has infected America in the last few decades.
Americans are OBSESSED with "winners" and with being "#1". Where have you been?
In fact, Americans are so obsessed with the "winners" that they've developed a culture that actually has complete contempt for the "losers"---which is increasingly defined as anyone who doesn't finish "first".
This obsession with "The Winner" has produced a "Winner Take ALL" economic system, where the top 1% of our country holds almost 34% of our wealth. It's hammered the middle class and the working poor and has meant less opportunity for everyone.
Most people work very hard. And most people give it a full try. And if every single child in America did EXACTLY what they're told to do: Study constantly, work as hard as possible, someone would STILL have to finish at the bottom of the class and we would STILL need people to wait on tables, change sheets, drive trucks, clean floors and haul heavy objects.
Or do you think we can all be "#1" and live in the big suburban houses going to high-paying, ruling class jobs?
I love your perspective and something about the kvetching feels like a comfort zone. I think the controversy unleashed by Chua did precisely what the publisher wanted - it created a best-seller, unusual in the parenting genre. But I think it points to a deeper need among American parents: We are looking for formulas as well as balance, success for our children in a rapidly changing, globalized world, and wondering what are those model Chinese (or Indian or Jewish or whatever it is in your neighborhood) kids doing that mine aren't? It's starting from a competitive perspective, but I think stems from a deeper place, wanting our children to thrive while the rules - in everything - seem to be changing.
I took up this topic after spending some time in China and seeing the diligence of their child-rearing in 2002, with 9/11 fresh in my mind (spurring a re-think of America's relationships w/ the world), wondering "what can American parents do to raise children to succeed/be ok/thrive in a changing world?" I believe it's a combination of some of the discipline Chua advocates, but much more: qualities like flexibility, responsibility, curiosity, generosity, genuine friendships w/ diverse people, etc. that will help raise successful global citizens. Turns out employers prefer this too. For more, see www.growingupglobal.net. Thanks for your post!
He may or may not finish first in his class. He may or may not go to Harvard. He may or may not play Carnegie Hall, perform heart surgery, or invent the next revolutionary technology.
But even if he DID do any of the above, he might not be happy. He could be---believe it or not---extremely miserable to the point of depression and suicide. I've seen more disfunctionality and mental illness in the homes of the highly successful than in the lower middle class. Really, I have.
We hope our son will always know he's loved and supported, and we hope he has a happy and balanced life. We'll love him fully regardless of his class rank, his SAT scores or his musical accomplishments. I wish more parents would do the same.