Raising children isn’t easy. I tried myself some odd twenty-five years. No major catastrophes happened. But admittedly most of the time it was just trial and error.
Now we’ve got grandchildren and I resumed my efforts. Mainly because as grandparents we can be carefree. The parents are in charge and responsible, but ‘oma’ and ‘opa’ are in a win-win situation: it is rewarding and it is great fun . I manage to stick to my motto: granddad is for fun and joy.
But lately I wonder whether I did and do fail my offspring. Especially since I hear the alarming sound of the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” all the time since last January.
The book, that is Amy Chua, preaches only tough, strict even merciless discipline is the panacea for achievements. Amy and her book are the talk of the educational town on both sides of the Atlantic now. And apparently also in South-East Asia . This article in the JP seemingly confirms “Chinese mothers are superior”.
The new gospel for education tells the parent takes and keeps control of the life of the child. In the author’s opinion one shows one’s love for one’s children by pushing them. You should make them reach for the stars. Therefore Amy advocates constant and extreme pressure on children to achieve excellence in their studies. She herself didn’t give her daughters any space for leisure till they performed according to her very high expectations. Not nurture nor nature, but Asian Tiger Mothers are the only way to success.
This in a nutshell is a Tiger Mother’s recipe:
Never ever allow your child to
• attend a sleepover
• 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.
So Chua and to a lesser degree the author of the JP article, Aimee Davis, tell me I’ve been and still am on the wrong track with my happy-go-lucky style.
Her book seems to be the ultimate goodbye to Benjamin Spock and his permissiveness. Goodbye also to my way of dealing with children. I’m so very old fashioned. I try to negotiate and facilitate to make my ( grand) children take their own decisions as soon as possible. I reassure, praise and confirm them in their discoveries. And I hope they will rebel by the time they become teenagers, by the time they are on their way to their unique identity. You know all that kind of soft nonsense. The nonsense I love and believe in.
Now my daughters in law are Asian 
. Even with persistent rumours about Chinese forefathers . So I think I should take very good notice of this very trendy “philosophy” by the Chinese-American lady. Moreover maybe, just maybe, she may have a point. She does challenge my comfortable notions. Maybe she is right that I shouldn’t pamper my darlings too much. Probably is not good for the child to comply with every childish whim and wish. Perhaps too much freedom is an invitation to indolence and laziness. Too much spoiling may turn the kids into insufferable arrogant brads.
Nevertheless I”m not alone in my educational folly. Her own husband Jed, is with me. According to his wife he said: “Children don’t choose their parents. … They don’t even choose to be born. It’s parents who foist life on their kids, so it’s the parents’ responsibility to provide for them. Kids don’t owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids.”.
All in all I think, if I was a believer, I should thank God on both bare knees my mother wasn’t a Tiger Mother. I should thank Him on my bare knees I wasn’t born as one of Amy’s children. And I should especially thank Him for not being Amy’s husband .
it sounds like my mother. =_=
@ calvin: Unwillingly
I have to admit, she obviously made the right choices 
.
In my family it was my father who is very strict to children.
My mother has always been more understanding, maybe you can call he soft.
But that was when the children grew up and live separately from them.
Sorry the last sentence should :
But that was before the children grew up and live separately from them.
@ Harry: Amy Chua’s book is a smashing commercial success. There obviously is a huge demand for books that deal with upbringing the hard way. So perhaps you should write “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Father”
.
In my opinion parents like these are themselves competitive. They can no longer compete themselves so they compete through their kids. What a nightmare to grow up in duch a household.
on the lighter side…
http://chasemeladies.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html
Oh no, even a tiger lets its children have a playdate and give up violin.
Extreme pressure creates unhappy children who struggle all their way to meet their parents’ expectation. Over intervention from parents can lessen a child’s self-confidence. All those do not sound like a good recipe for success to me.
@ pjbali: You are probably right; at one point she writes children are the extension of the parent (!). I can imagine she’s one of the people who project their own extreme ambitions in their children. On the other hand the author seemingly had already her own ambitions come true herself – she’s a law professor at Yale.
(PS: I also thank Him on my bare knees I wasn’t Arthur Waugh’s child
)
@ Aprianti: You speak my mind
. It indeed doesn’t seem to be avery good recipe. From the polemics after the book had been published appeared that this style of upbringing produced several suicide cases.
( By the way: do Sumatran tiger cups sometimes play violins?
.)
Aw, this is the never ending misunderstanding between the East and West parenting style.
I read Amy Chua’s book within hours. I can relate to many of her parenting style (ex: stiff discipline, it’s me who knows the best for my kids, daily piano practice is a must) but, growing up abroad, I’m also contaminated by the Western view (ex: play dates, sleepovers, democracy).
I don’t think one style is better than the other. Asian countries like Japan, Korea, China are equally developed and underdeveloped in many ways, just like the Western world. I know I might sound boring but I opt for the middle way
.
@ santi d: I just have to think of Joseph and I know you are 100% right
. Dedicated parenting is the best for children. The middle way usually is the safest way to success indeed 
.
The fun of Amy Chua’s book is it is an example of very American commercialism: radical exaggeration of a pretty common and simple but provoking idea, told in a very personal way to get it stand out in the market and to facilitate a promotional campaign. But that’s also it’s weakness – it’s , in my opinion, not fit for generalization, not up to criticism and it definitely is not an exemplary recipe. Not a good one that is.
I agree. Amy Chua’s memoir is satirical, black comedy, exaggerating here and there and she uses lots of stereotypes (the claim of the western way vs chinese way) which stirs debates everywhere. Reading the opinions and reviews is another fun though heheh
In my opinion Amy Chua’s way of bringing up children may have detrimental consequences as far as their future development is concerned. Everyone knows that children don’t like doing anything under pressure and such an approach can only ignite anger toward their parents.
[...] to be in growing demand in Indonesia these days. It took me a while to think. I am nowhere near the Tiger Mother who sets a high standard of achievement for the children, but I am more of a Laissez Faire Mom who [...]
@ Julie Kinnear: I also think we shoudl give sufficient breathing space to our children. So Amy’s methods definitely are not what we ( my wife and I) practiced – and we don’t regret it.