Why American Mothers are Superior

http://www.thejuliagroup.com/blog/?p=1033

by credo • 16 years ago

118 65 16 years ago

It reads like we're having a child-off between exceptionally gifted Chinese children, and exceptionally gifted American children. What about normal children?

I'd love to see these anecdotes turned into evidence.

rbranson• 16 years ago

I was going to say! Most parents would be overjoyed if just one of their children or even grandchildren turned out like this.

cookiecaper• 16 years ago

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/22/17-gifted-childre...

docgnome• 16 years ago

Heh. That reminds me of the scene from Pride and Prejudice where they discuss how "accomplished" is applied too liberally to young ladies.

katovatzschyn• 16 years ago

> I'd love to see these anecdotes turned into evidence.

Give it 20 years.

bioh42_2• 16 years ago

I'd love to see these anecdotes turned into evidence

That's not going to happen. This is a pissing contest between Olympic level pissers.

Me, I'd like to see these two families in a wrestling match - just the mothers and daughters obviously, the fathers don't seem to have much of a competitive streak.

deniscales• 16 years ago

The American mom and daughter would win. She's a world class Judoka and her daughter won an Olympic Judo bronze medal and is going into MMA. Probably need a more neutral event then wrestling :)

cj• 16 years ago

You missed the point. There is no anecdotal evidence in this article.

She is trying to say that the difference between her kids and the chinese children are that her kids turned out to be "gifted" without pressure from her to succeed. Chinese children are "gifted" as a result of strict and never-satisfied parents. She's saying that if her children turned out to be just average, it sounds like she would be perfectly fine with that, as long as her kids were happy.

The main point of the article is that american kids are given more freedom to explore their true interests and aren't formed into the model ivy-league applicant.

angdis• 16 years ago

I'm convinced the original article by the Chinese mother was some kind of satire. I simply can't believe a reasonably intelligent person (a Yale prof!) can write that with a straight face-- the bit about not letting kids participate in school plays takes the cake.

ghshephard• 16 years ago

Three things to note:

  o Amy Chua did not come up with the Title of the WSJ article.

  o The WSJ went out of their way to string the most controversial elements.  
    Think of it as LinkBaiting..  They certainly got a lot of attention.  

  o The actual book is much more nuanced, and, to some degree, 
   comes to different conclusions than the article about the true 
   nature of parenthood.

I've spent quite a bit of time reading the reviews, and snips from the book, and have come to the conclusion that the WSJ editors, indeed, did a great job of writing a satirical review of that style of parenting. The high level of conversation certainly demonstrates that they accomplished their mission.

See Jeff Yang's Great Review of the "True Story" behind the "Chinese Mother" essay at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/13/...

kenjackson• 16 years ago

Yes, this rebuttal article is horrible. Somone with a PhD, presumably a researcher, should have read the source material (Amy's book).

Herring2• 16 years ago

Of course it's trolling, but people respond seriously because (apparently) this style of parenting is common.

gaoshan4• 16 years ago

>because (apparently) this style of parenting is common.

It is not common. Every Chinese mother I know (that would be quite a few) found the Amy Chua article to be repulsive. Just like the American moms did, except that they knew people would equate them with Chua's ideas so it makes them even angrier. My own wife (a Chinese mom) and her friends and relatives have been circulating the Chua article and talking about it and the consensus is a universal "WTF is wrong with this woman?!"

Then you read that the Wall Street Journal article was, at least to a certain extent, not representative of the actual tone of the book and you realize that this piece, so disliked by real Chinese mothers is an exaggeration of the whole phenomenon.

People like the mom in this linked article are responding to an exaggeration of a caricature (and should be aware of this, though, from their own defensive and annoyed tone I suspect are not) and it strikes a chord because people are too sensitive to perceived criticism of things that matter deeply to their psyches... like the job they do raising their kids.

So the WSJ takes an extreme point of view, exaggerates it to fit a caricature of a certain racial stereotype, people get annoyed at this mostly made up thing and start reacting angrily and the WSJ and those involved in the book make money off of the whole mess. Shameful.

angrycoder• 16 years ago

The had the woman who wrote the book on NPR today, it actually sounds like a very honest and interesting book. It is funny that what people are responding to with so much furvor is the Murdoch cliff's notes version of the story.

rue• 16 years ago

"YHBT. HTH, HAND"

bhousel3• 16 years ago

Also worth reading is The Last Psychiatrist's response to the Chinese mothers article: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/01/why_chinese_mothers_a...

dkl• 16 years ago

I really love this guy's writing. He cuts through the layers of BS so well and exposes something closer to root causes better than anyone I've ever seen.

bhousel3• 16 years ago

I agree.. I would submit more of The Last Psychiatrist to HN, but lately it's been auto killed by the new submission filter.

The Last Psychiatrist reminds me a lot of Gary Brecher's War Nerd blog. Both offer a raw cut-through-the-BS point of view.

tomjen32• 16 years ago

Its pretty damn good, but the author is a she.

wglb• 16 years ago

Disagree. Seems to be a self-appointed authority playing parlor tricks: "I can tell you are resisting".

Being a parent and having raised a couple of kids myself, the motive is not just for college, but to launch you better in life. Not all my siblings went to college, and those that didn't are what I would call well launched.

I am not surprised this blog is auto-killed.

bhousel3• 16 years ago

Haha, you don't have to agree! It's important to read that blog with a critical eye, even more so as it's laced with such strong opinion.

I'm also not surprised that it's auto-killed.

mindblink• 16 years ago

I don't really agree with her response. Her critique that the singular goal of this parenting style is to get kids into a good college. To me, it seems like Chua's approach is to prepare her kids to have the skills (focus/discipline) to be successful in life. The blog's critique seems to be missing the point. The post could argue why Chua doesn't instead prepare her kids for blue collar skills, which would be the bigger issue of why blue collar skills are no longer valued in America any more, the way they are in Europe (but is rapidly changing).

zasz2• 16 years ago

The Last Psychiatrist is a hard-drinking, womanizing man.

chsonnu• 16 years ago

Her daughter Ronda Rousey is a 2008 Olympic bronze medalist in Judo, and is on her way to becoming the next 145 lbs female MMA champion.

derwiki• 16 years ago

More anecdotal "evidence" that doesn't seem to add any weight to the rebuttal, except "well this way worked for me."

aresant• 16 years ago

I am amused that yesterday a top HN story was about the demise of internet advertising and the associated HN comments trend towards agreeing that ads are not effective:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2098301 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2101163

Then today the top story is poking fun of "advertising words" which is an intellectualized kick in the face to the techniques that marketers use to draw you in.

And yet meanwhile we're all discussing for the 5th time the WSJ linkbait article on "Chinese Mothers" that exists for the sole purpose of promoting Amy Chao's book the "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" from which WSJ's original article was copy and pasted.

She arrived at #6 on Amazon's top sellers today.

krschultz• 16 years ago

Lots of articles have linkbait titles and promote books. Few resonate on here. That article resonated on here becuase a lot of people on the site are intimatedly familar with pros & cons of the style of mothership described in the book.

I don't really see what point you are trying to make.

axod• 16 years ago

The point is "I never click ads! They're terrible only idiots click them!"... "Ooh an advert for a book <click>"

c0riander• 16 years ago

*Chua

grav1tas• 16 years ago

I found it sort of silly in both articles that they make a universal qualification, but then follow up their reasoning based on more or less anecdotal, personal evidence. Whether you're Chinese or American, it doesn't make you superior at all. What makes you superior is the direction and tone you take with your children based on who they are and who you are. Where this jingoistic element came in, I'm not really sure. Call me naive, but I think that China and America are both really big places that probably have many different cultures and families that take different approaches to raising children.

These labels don't advance the conversation much for me.

gwern• 16 years ago

You would think an actual statistician with a thesis in psychometrics would be able to do better than that, yeah. It's fine to talk about anecdotes and her experience as an employer and what not, but without the facts, it's like a dinner with only dessert.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

She countered anecdote with anecdote, I think that's fair. In fact, it could even be a jibe on the part of a clever statistician at the original work.

cafard• 16 years ago

Here's a proposal, and it may come from having just glanced at The Last Psychiatrist blog: this year, the HN Lenten penance will be "no postings about education." Nothing about American schools awful; nothing about American schools actually not awful; nothing about college admissions; nothing about Hd or Sd or M*T. No Michelle Rhee, no Gates Foundation.

Will it be good for your soul? Dunno, consult your local cleric. Will it be good for your mind? YMMV. It may not make you thinner, but it will make HN thinner.

blasdel• 16 years ago

Topic bans can be a godsend, especially on a site like this one with short-lived threads where it's even easier to repeat the same tiresome 'discussion' over and over.

In another community I frequented for years, the set of mostly-verboten topics grew to include stuff like cat declawing, ownership of TVs or SUVs, atheism, male circumcision, Israel / Palestine, and fiat currency.

wslh• 16 years ago

I am waiting for the Jewish Mother article :-)

prakashk• 16 years ago

Not sure if this the kind of "Jewish Mother" article you are looking for, but here it is - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870333350457608... -- written by a mother who happens to be Jewish.

lazyant• 16 years ago

My job is to make my kids happy in the long term and I don't think playing piano perfectly or having As in math holds any correlation with it (unless that's what they like). I'd cut my left hand without a thought if that will guarantee that my kids will lead average happy lives.

dusklight• 16 years ago

The title of the article is "Why American Mothers are Superior" but the body of the article primarily talks about the writer's own parenting, and from her description we can clearly tell that she is far from representative of the typical American mother. I am definitely not going to endorse the Chinese model, I think it has huge problems, but I think there are many 28-year-old unemployed History majors out there right now wishing that the status quo on American parenting had been a little bit different when it could have helped them. There are a lot of fat kids in theatre school, a lot of mediocre musicians, a lot of aspiring fashion designers who would maybe benefit from a little less love and a little more splash of reality.

wintyfresh• 16 years ago

I'm writing this from Hong Kong, where I run a scholarship for young entrepreneurs in mainland China. A few thoughts:

-To understand the mentality of a Chinese parent, you need to know a few things. First, the obvious one child policy, and the expectation that this one child will support their children but also their parents and grandparents (no social security, minuscule pensions and a non-existent safety net). This puts an enormous pressure on the individual to have a stable and high wage job. Lots of people on these boards are in startups (or would like to be), but few Chinese nationals are willing to take that route due to the immense risks involved. They're gambling not only their personal wealth but also the survival of their family.

-School is brutal, particularly college admissions. Each student at the end of high school takes something called the gaokao. Imagine the SAT on steroids (2 days long) that you only take one and almost wholly determines what "tier" of college you get admitted into. You can take it once a year, and if you fail, you have a second chance one year later (the intervening year is usually spent studying 14+ hrs a day). You pour a gazillion college-bound kids into this crucible of death, with only a scant few slots at the other end. Even for the student goes abroad to study, they've been indoctrinated with the cutthroat and "success at all costs" mentality necessary to get ahead in China. It's a numbers game, and the numbers are stacked to make your life hell.

What does this have to do with obsessive parents? Take these last two facts and mix in some historical perspective. Many of these parents either lived through or are sufficiently proximate to the turmoil of the 1960's and 1970's to know how brutal life can be for those that do not get ahead. It's not the American poverty of temp labor and living in a trailer park; it's the poverty of starving to death. It's the poverty of not having shelter from the cold, of having zero access to medical care. While this is less true of today's China, the fear of this poverty survives, even for those in relative affluence (think of your grandparents that lived through the depression and still are obsessively thrifty).

I can understand why these parents are monomaniacal in ensuring (or trying to ensure) a better life for their kids. With grueling competition, a one-child policy, scant social safety nets and a vivid memory of how brutal China can be, it makes sense.

richcollins• 16 years ago

None of that speaks to her criticism of the practice of focusing on rote learning over creativity. I think you can make a good argument that a creative thinker is less likely to fall behind in the real world than someone that only takes the prescribed approach to solving problems.

enry_straker• 16 years ago

It provides context. Dr.Chua's article was not just about rote learning vs creativity. For instance, how far do you think rote learning can go in music?

I would suspect that children need a balanced mix of both: discipline to learn the basics in whichever field they want to get into, coupled with freedom to explore their own interests. I suspect that today's american school culture stresses creativity to the point of ignoring the fundamentals. The good thing is that there are self-correcting mechanisms built into the american system as opposed to the chinese system where the children and the parents too, rarely get much of a say.

stalkerguy• 16 years ago

Silly.

stretchwithme• 16 years ago

Following your passion HAS to be better than following Mommy's socially-determined passion. The latter is, most likely, not even right for the mom, let alone the child.

But say we all became masters of the piano or violin. How could any of them make a living at it with such an oversupply?

I also wonder if the mothers of those who brought China its Cultural Revolution were of this superior variety.

maxklein• 16 years ago

You know, if you take a highly intelligent, well educated woman from the upper middle class and marry her with a highly educated, intelligent man from the upper middle class of the most developed country in the world, it would take a bit of effort for the children to be failures. As in, they actually have to go out of their way to fail at life.

I'd much prefer seeing the two systems applied to two disadvantaged children, and see what works better.

stcredzero• 16 years ago

Making the kids play violin, of being an A student, all the discipline, all of this? Why is she working her kids so hard? You know the answer: college.

She is raising future college students.

I would say to all of those who are encouraging their kids to play violin merely for college application ammunition: People are only in college for 5 years. Much better to raise your children to be good people.

Would you rather raise your kid to have an active lifelong connection to unconscious being, art, and the eternal, or would you rather raise them so that they can put away their violin and have something to mention in passing at cocktail parties for the rest of their lives?

This choice of short term/long term focus applies to many aspects of education. It is the difference between merely raising a high status, suitably socialized drone versus a human being of substance.

As to which Amy Chua has chosen, only she can know. Having listened to her on interviews, I would say she claims the latter. I suspect that many who try to emulate such true success are unknowlingly choosing the former.

Many startups make the same choice!

kapilkaisare• 16 years ago

This is not necessarily a defense, but...

Until very recently in India, being anything other than a doctor, engineer or MBA meant earning salaries so poor that you'd end up depending on your children for financial support when you retired. This in turn drove you to spend as much money as you could on your children's education because it was an investment in your own future, while also serving as a badge of pride when your kids came home with straight As. So, you'd find folks who instead of trying to build a meager pension, would instead pool all their resources into a college education for their children. Indeed, many old Indian movies use the image of a son who abandons his parents in search of a glitzy life in the city to portray his villainy.

These professions were not natural callings but the only option out of an existence of drudgery. Things are changing now, with the advent of the BPO industry, and the subsequent higher earning power which can then fund other circles of vocations. Consequently you see several guys opting for the arts or other paths less followed.

to• 16 years ago

90% of the mothers in our country are superior. superior in buying hardcore preprocessed food.

superuser22• 16 years ago

I have a 3.95. I could've earned that .05 back by letting academics consume my life, but I didn't. I was a terrible trumpet player (and hated the trumpet) until I left band for choir in middle school, and I could have been a lot better at it if I weren't busy teaching myself to program, rather than practicing.

I have earned Cs on tests that fell during tech week (crunch time for school theater the week before opening night, with build crew and rehearsals lasting until 10pm).

What I propose (and what she proposes) is that there's nothing wrong with that. Sacrificing my instrument and moving to choir taught me what is it enjoy making music. Those tests I bombed aren't pretty, but in the performances the following weekend, I worked closely with a group of talented people under incredible constraints and unpredictable circumstances to pull off a smooth show, and it was both the greatest thrill and the greatest lesson in teamwork I'd ever experienced.

I've no doubt that sufficient emotional and physical pain applied by a parent could coerce any child to earn a 4.0 and to master an instrument, but that kind of empty, forced skill is not something we should aspire to. Let people do what they love. Even if it weren't for programming and respectable grades, I could make a living with an IATSE card. They pay and the hours would be terrible, but at least I would like what I do.

wallflower• 16 years ago

You know, I know a really smart guy who went to a top school and now works for D.E. Shaw. He really lit up when I talked to him briefly at a wedding and asked if he was still getting to play his musical instrument. It turns out he had done so - did music for a friend's low ambition, high excitement show. And that really seemed to be more meaningful than the C++ code foo he did for D.E. Shaw.

You will never regret jamming with friends. A test is just a blip.

superuser22• 16 years ago

Yep. The thing for me was that trumpet was not anywhere near "jamming with friends" the way choir is - I didn't like anyone in band, and after 45 minutes of playing I'm winded and my brain is deprived of oxygen, whereas 45 minutes of singing leave me feeling great. I don't think parents should let their kids do nothing, but I do think kids should be allowed to experiment, and choose for themselves what they stick with.

mbubb• 16 years ago

Anecdotal... Two parents with high IQs and academic professions have highly-achieving children (although the only accomplishment I was actually impressed with was the bronze medal in the Olympics...).

And the vaguely racist assumption that Asian students know their facts but have no imagination:

<<<<<<<< When I ask the latter questions such as, “If you were going to redesign programming language X, what would you do?”

They will tell me what X does in great detail but not answer the question. American students are more likely to jump in with ideas about how to change X, replete with statements like “X sucks because…” >>>>>>>>>

I went to school with the child of one of the original UNIX developers. He submitted a word processed paper in grade school (late 70's). I can remember him reading GEB in the back of Chemistry class. He has gone on to do wonderful things - and I never saw evidence of the 'Chinese Mom' upbringing... He always seemed to be a very balanced, healthy human being - doing what he wanted to do.

Richard Feynman didn't have a Chinese mother either...

So we all have these anecdotes - what Chua is talking about is something different. It is not merely anecdotal - it is why there is high unemployment and at the same time tech companies in NYC starving for engineers.

Thee is a link for me in the 'Chinese mom' argument (not Chua's per se but the tiger parenting her daughter pushes against) and Gladwell's Outlier's argument.

Even if you are a genius it takes "10,000 hours" of hard work. Some people are internally motivated enough to do it at a young age. Others need a 'Chinese mom' to turn the TV off and go through the piano piece one more time...

Why American Mothers are Superior

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