Article: "Why Chinese mothers are superior." - Page 23

On January 09 2011 09:07 sikyon wrote:
Chinese people looooooove anecdotal evidence. They LOVE to tell stories. The trick is to basically ask for citations. I ask for citations to anecdotes all the time, statistical evidence. It's really hard to make your point against someone who keeps asking for statistics and citations when you try to plow them with anecdotes, and then looks smug and basically shrugs their shoulders in an "I don't really care what you have to say" way when they ask you for citations.

Anyhow all my mom's "parenting" did for me... was not much. I didn't learn french, I cheated on tests, I got out as fast as I could. I stopped playing the piano, I didn't do homework and I lied all the time.

But I do see where they are comming from. If I wasn't inherently very smart anyways (and liked thinking and learning) I would have ended up as a mediocre person. Asian parents are often trying to push medicore people into being exceptional - the cracks and leaks start to show when they are asked to innovate, come up with new ideas, and work creatively (as it has shown in many of my classmates in university).

Self-esteem is also exceptionally important to a society. Compare the cultures of entreprenuralism in Europe and North america. In the US if you start a buisness and fail, that's a notch in your hat. It's not about how many times or how hard you fail, it's about how well you can get back up. And people respect that, and this sort of culture is what makes buisness so succesful in North America. In Europe, going bankrupt is like a death knell.

When people try to push themselves hard and make themselves the best I laugh. If you want to get ahead in life, don't try to make yourself the best. Unless you are a true genius (in which case you'll succeed regardless), 1 person cannot produce as much as 2 people or 5 people of medicore quality can. But a person who can harness the strengths of a group of people makes themselves exponentially more valuable. If you want your kid to be successful, you should be drilling them in how to manipulate people, not into being a tool for someone else to use.

On January 10 2011 21:54 HanSoo wrote:
This article, while it contains some inaccuracies I think deserves way more credit than most people are giving it.

I think the ideal parenting technique is somewhere in the middle. American parents are generally not strict enough and there are a lot of terrible results because of it. Except for specific genetic conditions, children should not be overweight. Any fat kid is the result of an abusive parent that should not be allowed to have any more kids. I think this physical conditioning should be part of the well-rounded curriculum every parent should teach their child.

This would include:

- Formal Education (Math, Science, English)
- Foreign Language (Every child should be taught 1 foreign language while growing up)
- Music (Any respectable instrument will do, but start early)
- Interpersonal skills (Teach them leadership and communication skills)
- Health (Eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly)
- Finance (Most parents don't teach their children ANYTHING about money because they don't know how to manage it themselves)

Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.

On January 10 2011 21:02 domovoi wrote:

Academic success has a very strong correlation with career success. Please stop spreading the borderline racist lie that Asian parenting is only good at creating mindless automotons. The smartest Asians succeed at engineering, medicine, and other "hard science" careers. Those are exactly the kind of careers that require innovation and creativity.

On January 10 2011 21:54 HanSoo wrote:
This article, while it contains some inaccuracies I think deserves way more credit than most people are giving it.

As an adult now I only wished my parents were this stereotypically strict. Children don't want to work and will for the most part take the easy route. Many of these children grow up into lazy entitled adults that are like cancer to the world. I wished I would have been forced to play piano for hours on end instead of playing video games. If they forced me to do this as a child I would be completely pissed and probably hate them. As my maturity grew however I'd love them for it and be eternally grateful.

I think the ideal parenting technique is somewhere in the middle. American parents are generally not strict enough and there are a lot of terrible results because of it. Except for specific genetic conditions, children should not be overweight. Any fat kid is the result of an abusive parent that should not be allowed to have any more kids. I think this physical conditioning should be part of the well-rounded curriculum every parent should teach their child.

This would include:

- Formal Education (Math, Science, English)
- Foreign Language (Every child should be taught 1 foreign language while growing up)
- Music (Any respectable instrument will do, but start early)
- Interpersonal skills (Teach them leadership and communication skills)
- Health (Eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly)
- Finance (Most parents don't teach their children ANYTHING about money because they don't know how to manage it themselves)

A child that has all of the above skills will become a well-rounded, successful adult. I think the "you're fine just the way you are" mentality breeds mediocrity and stifles innovation.

Anything is more fun if you're really good at it. I'm sure most kids wouldn't find chess "fun" but take a look at Judit Polgár. She was raised by parents with the number 1 priority to make her a chess prodigy. She is now unarguably the best female chess player in the world. Sacrificing a bit of "childhood" to ensure you enjoy the rest of your life seems desirable.

On January 11 2011 00:31 Setev wrote:


Besides, creativity, innovative potential and EQ are far more important than pure academic knowledge from rote learning. Granted, getting As are very important, but you don't have to get straight As in college, only in grade school/high school so that you can get into the best universities.

On January 09 2011 08:42 aeoliant wrote:
don't do it asian mothers! as soon as i escaped my house i did everything i couldnt do

On January 10 2011 15:57 domovoi wrote:

Nowhere in the article does she describe abuse. At worst, she didn't let her child drink water and go to the bathroom for a small amount of time until she was willing to play the song. She's yelling and making threats, which I'm pretty sure every Asian kid can relate to. In fact, in the face of such obstinacy as described in the article, it's hard to imagine an Asian parent not engaging in similar fashion.

On January 11 2011 01:00 yellowmoe wrote:
Based on these posts saying that this the asian mother's way of teaching is horrible either have western culture deeply embedded in them, or they are still kids being pushed by their parents who don't realize the model's benefits yet.

This method is not crap, but just different to the one used in the west. I guess since this teaching model is based on Confucianism, those who are not brought up under this philosophy of life might not see the benefits to this teaching model.

On January 11 2011 02:28 Krigwin wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse

Yelling and making threats counts very much as abuse, especially depending on the age of the child in question. Being emotionally unavailable or distant is abuse. Training a child to fear the lash and creating a rigid atmosphere of control is abuse. I'll go even a step further and argue that excessive negative reinforcement (which apparently is all this woman understands) is abuse. Basically, if you understand anything about reinforcement theory and social engineering, you can see that what this woman is doing (grooming a human being into a robotic, unfeeling slave) is incredibly callous, myopic, and ultimately ineffective.

Children need a lot of things to develop normally, and the one thing they don't need is a cruel, indifferent dictator and taskmaster in the house that only understands results and routinely degrades the worth of the child. You see the possible benefits of this method of parenting - ie, a child that learns the value of a good work ethic and that hard work can overcome anything, but you don't see the all-too-common drawbacks, a child that doesn't learn this lesson and instead learns things you don't want (and I certainly don't want) any child to ever learn, such as learned helplessness, a diminished locus of control, and worst of all, unnatural dependence on the parent as a slavemaster authority figure, which ultimately stunts the child from ever developing into an adult.

As many posters have beautifully phrased it, this woman, as a Chinese mother who married a white man and lives an American lifestyle, sees only the superficialities of the Chinese version of parenting (strict, ends-oriented parenting and an emphasis on academic achievement and work ethic) and has given a good old-fashioned amateur try at it, but because she doesn't understand the underlying concepts and is a poor parent at best, has only managed to replicate something ostensibly similar to the intended results. Her tactics are child abuse. The amount and degree of neuroses induced may be gargantuan. This is not parenting.

On January 11 2011 03:17 justle wrote:
So she's a Chinese mother, she wrote an article about how Chinese mothers are superior? It hardly seems like you could approach the subject matter objectively. Being a strict parent or scolding your kids often doesn't guarantee good kids, the kids also have propensity for guilt and insecurity. Just LOVE your kids.

On January 11 2011 03:10 Sufficiency wrote:


You have a valid point, but to be perfectly honest, a graduate of Harvard and a Professor of Law at Yale knows how to write an article that does not constitute a confession of crime.

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners.

I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do.

Emotional abuse (also called psychological abuse or mental abuse) can include humiliating the victim privately or publicly, controlling what the victim can and cannot do, withholding information from the victim, deliberately doing something to make the victim feel diminished or embarrassed, isolating the victim from friends and family, implicitly blackmailing the victim by harming others when the victim expresses independence or happiness, or denying the victim access to money or other basic resources and necessities.

Emotional/verbal abuse is defined as any behavior that threatens, intimidates, undermines the victim’s self-worth or self-esteem, or controls the victim’s freedom.[41] This can include threatening the victim with injury or harm, telling the victim that they will be killed if they ever leave the relationship, and public humiliation. Constant criticism, name-calling, and making statements that damage the victim’s self-esteem are also common forms of emotional abuse. Often perpetrators will use children to engage in emotional abuse by teaching them to harshly criticize the victim as well.[42] Emotional abuse includes conflicting actions or statements which are designed to confuse and create insecurity in the victim. These behaviors also lead the victim to question themselves, causing them to believe that they are making up the abuse or that the abuse is their fault.[40]

On January 11 2011 01:07 DND_Enkil wrote:


This is going overboard imo, you can still impart a strong character on a child who dislikes the science-subjects. Well, Health and Finance should be included without a doubt, but i consider that so basic that it is hardly worth mentioning.