Allophile

Links for the sources in what is becoming the 'Tiger Parent' Debate...


My wife heard part of this interview on the radio yesterday:
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/11/132833376/tiger-mothers-raising-children-the-chinese-way


She told me about it, the topic intrigued me, and so I found the original source of what has become a very popular and controversial topic:
an essay, by Amy Chua, in this past weekend's Wall Street Journal:
"Chinese Mothers Are Superior" (you must remember the tongue-in-cheek nature of this title)
Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?
 
In today's Wall Street Journal,
the author responds to readers; thousands of comments were left on the original article's website...
 
Think what you will, this is very thought-provoking.
I see the results of these differing models of parenting every day in the classroom--
it's been a decade, now, that I've been teaching...

I can't help but think, too, of my own upbringing--one Asian parent, one non-Asian parent.
 
Self-esteem can be over-rated.
But so is strictness-for-strictness'-sake.
 
Here's a review from Britain, from yesterday's Guardian.

...and from today's CNN website: http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/01/13/chinese.mom.superior/index.html?hpt=C2

(Loosely related to this topic--Asian parenting, and more specifically Asian MOTHERing--
here's a joke I once heard:
   "What's the first thing a Korean mother does when she finds out she's going to have a baby?"
                   ..."She buys a piano." )

In all seriousness, though--
   look at the permissive, mediocrity-praising nature of much of modern Western parenting--what is it producing?!
   At the same time--the ulcer-inducing competition that is the reality of much of East Asian adolescence--do we really want to copy that here?

Balance, please.
Less can be more--but less of what? and what 'more' do we need less of?