Are Chinese Mothers Superior?

[Puppycow]

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior
By AMY CHUA

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• 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.

I'm speechless.

There's also an online poll:

Which style of parenting is best for children?
Permissive Western parenting
Demanding Eastern parenting

No "planet X" option I'm afraid.

 

[Damien Evans]

Yeah, she's an insane control freak.

 

[piojunbabia]

a very subjective opinion. She thinks Chinese are the only one who does that.

 

[AnnoyingPony]

I know a girl who has parents like that. They are constantly mad at her for not measuring up to their ridiculously high standards and frequently tell her that they wish she had never been born. The girl is barely allowed to do ANYTHING. She's not happy at all, and she really dreads being at home because her parents are just that mean.

 

[rjh01]

Many Chinese have only one child. So the budget, both financial and time, goes all to that one child, who must not be allowed to fail. In other societies most couples have two or more children. That means that a parent can spend much less time on each child. On the other hand the children can spend time with each other.

I wonder how many Chinese children do not get an A for most results? Do they give them out as standard? The article almost implies that. Otherwise most chinese children would go home to screaming parents whenever they take results home.

Can Chinese people work as a team? If not they would be worthless in any skilled workforce.

 

[MG1962]

Yeah and if the Chinese are so smart how come they never invented a way to eat custard?

 

[Puppycow]

a very subjective opinion. She thinks Chinese are the only one who does that.

To be fair, she does say this in her essay:

I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.

 

[drkitten]

I'm speechless.

There's also an online poll:

No "planet X" option I'm afraid.

Well, Ms. Chua is right -- parental involvement is one of the best predictors of success in school.

Speaking as a college professor, however,.... I'm willing to bet that Ms. Chua is going to be in for a serious shock when Sophia and Louisa crash and burn at whatever top-tier college they've been sent to. I have to deal with these overinvolved "helicopter parents" a lot, and it's rarely a pleasant experience for them, for their children, or for me. (Or for the Dean, because I have a tendency to tell them, "well, if you don't like it, talk to the Dean and see if he's willing to intervene.")

There's a blurry line between involvement and overinvolvement. I'm perfectly happy with the idea that Ms. Chua will not praise her children for bringing home a B. I'm less so with the idea that she won't "allow" her daughter to play the flute or the drums.

 

[drkitten]

Many Chinese have only one child. So the budget, both financial and time, goes all to that one child, who must not be allowed to fail. In other societies most couples have two or more children. That means that a parent can spend much less time on each child. On the other hand the children can spend time with each other.

Erm,... by "Chinese" here read "Chinese-American." Ms. Chua lives in New Haven, CT.

 

[blutoski]

Erm,... by "Chinese" here read "Chinese-American." Ms. Chua lives in New Haven, CT.

Yeah, and this is not a new discussion. I remember reading a New Yorker article in the 1980s about this stereotype parenting, and at the time it was called a "Jewish Mother."

I don't think it's useful to use ethnicity as the basis for stereotypes, as there's too much variation within communities.

Parental involvement seems to be a bell curve with a few overinvolved parents and a few underinvolved parents and most somewhere inbetween. It's probable that different ethnicities would have their means slightly higher or lower, but overall the bulk of involvement is probably very similar.

 

[drkitten]

Parental involvement seems to be a bell curve with a few overinvolved parents and a few underinvolved parents and most somewhere inbetween. It's probable that different ethnicities would have their means slightly higher or lower, but overall the bulk of involvement is probably very similar.

I wish that were the case. One of the big problems facing the black community, in particular, is that the degree of parental involvement is so much less. Just as a really crude measure of parental involvement,... is the father there at all? Nationally, 67% of black children are in single-parent families; 40% of Latino children are, compared with 24% of "white" and 16 percent of Asian.

As another measure of parental involvement, 83% of white students in K-8 have parents who attend class events; 69% of black students (at 68% of Hispanic).

One key difference appears to be not only in the amount, but also in the style of involvement : "African-American parents believed strongly in home and school-based involvement and attempted to intervene inside their children's schools. While social class within the African-American community seemed to influence this pattern, African Americans were far more likely to seek school-based involvement than Chinese-American parents. Chinese-American parents, on the other hand, were extremely active in home-based involvement."

What Ms. Chua is talking about is therefore extremely typical of the Chinese-American approach to education -- her children are learning violin and piano (at home), but not allowed to participate in school-based activities like plays. Or, for that matter, "community"-based activities like sleepovers.

 

[Mark6]

Speaking as a college professor, however,.... I'm willing to bet that Ms. Chua is going to be in for a serious shock when Sophia and Louisa crash and burn at whatever top-tier college they've been sent to.

Or when they put down that damn violin and never, ever play it again.

The part which shocked me most was about "not allowing to select their own extracurricular activities" -- or "to play anything other than violin" (which is a subset of first). HOW THE HELL DOES SHE KNOW what exactly her children will be good at??

Growing up in Russia I had same situation with chess. If you are a Russian boy, especially a SMART Russian boy, it is unthinkable not to be good at chess. Now, I did not hate playing chess, in fact I rather liked it. But now I understand the only reason I liked it was because there were no other intellectually challenging games around. I enjoyed more devising chess with my own rules than to play traditional game. I had not played chess in more than 20 years and do not miss it at all. To significant distress of my father. (I don't think my mother ever cared.)

I do not see children raised like Dr. Chua's children ever becoming innovators like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. How would they ever think out of the box if their entire life is in the box?

 

[drkitten]

I do not see children raised like Dr. Chua's children ever becoming innovators like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. How would they ever think out of the box if their entire life is in the box?

I don't think Ms. (Dr.?) Chua wants her children to be like Gates or Jobs; the proverb "the nail [or stake] that sticks up gets hammered down" is Japanese, not Chinese, but still relevant. I think what Chua wants is her children to grow up to be high-end engineers working for Gates or Jobs, holding down comfortable jobs with comfortable and stable salaries. Innovation is risky, disruptive, and there's far too great a chance that her 30 year-old daughter will end up sleeping with her husband in the basement because her great plan for being the Internet's largest supplier of tuna fish sandwiches didn't pan out.

That's part of the cultural differences as well. If you ask a robotic game theorist whether he would rather have $1000 or a one-in-a-thousand shot at winning $1,000,000, he'd shrug and say "whatever." Most humans, though, would have a strong preference one way or another (and you can see it at work in Deal or No Deal).

I haven't run the studies, but I'd be willing to bet that more Chinese-Americans than Anglo-Americans would take the grand up front than the lottery ticket.

And I'll go double-or-nothing -- being an Anglo-American and therefore a gambling fool -- that Dr. Chua would take the grand.

 

[blutoski]

I wish that were the case. One of the big problems facing the black community, in particular, is that the degree of parental involvement is so much less. Just as a really crude measure of parental involvement,... is the father there at all? Nationally, 67% of black children are in single-parent families; 40% of Latino children are, compared with 24% of "white" and 16 percent of Asian.

As another measure of parental involvement, 83% of white students in K-8 have parents who attend class events; 69% of black students (at 68% of Hispanic).

One key difference appears to be not only in the amount, but also in the style of involvement : "African-American parents believed strongly in home and school-based involvement and attempted to intervene inside their children's schools. While social class within the African-American community seemed to influence this pattern, African Americans were far more likely to seek school-based involvement than Chinese-American parents. Chinese-American parents, on the other hand, were extremely active in home-based involvement."

What Ms. Chua is talking about is therefore extremely typical of the Chinese-American approach to education -- her children are learning violin and piano (at home), but not allowed to participate in school-based activities like plays. Or, for that matter, "community"-based activities like sleepovers.

My guess is that you're probably talking about the US?

Here in Canada, it's not very predictive. Black students are perhaps even statistical overachievers here (mostly from Commonwealth colonies which have an entirely familiar approach to parental involvement in education). 30 years ago, I would have said that First Nations had a lower parental involvement education, but here in 2010, it's not really significant anymore.

Again: there will always be outliers, and if you're concentrating in the tails, you'll find some cultures better represented, but this is an incorrect way to identify cultural traits.

My research was fitness for cross-cultural adoption, and I'm aware that the stereotypes are out there. Families from different ethnicities can be scored on different scales such as independence/enmeshment and flexibility/rigidity, and plotted into a circumplex coordinate system. What we find is that there's statistical significance and outliers meet the stereotypes, but not a lot of clinical significance. That's all I'm describing.

 

[Darat]

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior
By AMY CHUA



I'm speechless.

There's also an online poll:

No "planet X" option I'm afraid.

Obviously being a liar was not on her "not allowed" list.

 

[blutoski]

I don't think Ms. (Dr.?) Chua wants her children to be like Gates or Jobs; the proverb "the nail [or stake] that sticks up gets hammered down" is Japanese, not Chinese, but still relevant. I think what Chua wants is her children to grow up to be high-end engineers working for Gates or Jobs, holding down comfortable jobs with comfortable and stable salaries. Innovation is risky, disruptive, and there's far too great a chance that her 30 year-old daughter will end up sleeping with her husband in the basement because her great plan for being the Internet's largest supplier of tuna fish sandwiches didn't pan out.

I think I'd like to see this confirmed with some sort of survey. My impression here in Vancouver is the opposite: that Chinese are quite comfortable with entrepreneurship.

That's part of the cultural differences as well. If you ask a robotic game theorist whether he would rather have $1000 or a one-in-a-thousand shot at winning $1,000,000, he'd shrug and say "whatever." Most humans, though, would have a strong preference one way or another (and you can see it at work in Deal or No Deal).

I haven't run the studies, but I'd be willing to bet that more Chinese-Americans than Anglo-Americans would take the grand up front than the lottery ticket.

And I'll go double-or-nothing -- being an Anglo-American and therefore a gambling fool -- that Dr. Chua would take the grand.

I'm not even sure there's a long-term plan. My impression is that these parents are driving their kids to achieve in specific ways, because that's their value system.

I did years and years of tutoring for highschool and undergraduate math and natural sciences. I observed that the prevailing helicopter parent's "goal" was pretty shaky. Get As in specific subjects so the kid is competitive for admissions to a good university, and subsequently, to be competitive for admissions to a profession like medicine or dentistry or commerce. Basically, they want to show off their kid the doctor or maybe an MBA running a multibillion dollar venture capital fund from headquarters in Hong Kong. I think they'd find an engineer daughter to be a total disappointment.



ETA: sorry, that was rambling. My point is that the parental goals seem to be personal, and that the kid is a mechanism for living vicariously and a personal/family asset to show off in the community.

The stereotype is demonstrated in Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club as she describes an anecdote about Waverly Jong's childhood as a chess champion.

 

[drkitten]

My guess is that you're probably talking about the US?

Of course. As was the article in the OP, so that's not surprising.

Here in Canada, it's not very predictive. Black students are perhaps even statistical overachievers here (mostly from Commonwealth colonies which have an entirely familiar approach to parental involvement in education). 30 years ago, I would have said that First Nations had a lower parental involvement education, but here in 2010, it's not really significant anymore.

Shrug. There's greater cultural homogeneity in Canada, especially if you just look at the English-speaking bits of it. (Well, if 90% is a "bit.") Canada has done a better job of embracing diversity than the United States in recent years, which has had the odd effect of allowing everyone to be more similar, because there's not as much ferocious guarding of "our" culture and keeping "them" out.

 

[Skwinty]

Ms Chua sounds like a chinese Mother Superior.

 

[drkitten]

I think I'd like to see this confirmed with some sort of survey. My impression here in Vancouver is the opposite: that Chinese are quite comfortable with entrepreneurship.

How the hell do you expect a survey to determine what Dr. Chua wants of her children?

 

[Mark6]

I observed that the prevailing helicopter parent's "goal" was pretty shaky. Get As in specific subjects so the kid is competitive for admissions to a good university, and subsequently, to be competitive for admissions to a profession like medicine or dentistry or commerce. Basically, they want to show off their kid the doctor or maybe an MBA running a multibillion dollar venture capital fund from headquarters in Hong Kong. I think they'd find an engineer daughter to be a total disappointment.

"My son the doctor" mindset.

I understand where it comes from, but I always found it repellent. All of the West, and increasing Southeast Asia too, are long past the time where young people from non-priviledged background had a choice between medical school (if they worked like crazy) and life of manual labor. If your child likes snakes, he can be a herpetologist and actually enjoy what he is doing, instead of being a doctor who hates his job!

As a herpetologist he will make less money, but will be happier.