"Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" lol

One of the biggest dangers of an extremely strict parenting style, from my experience, is the development of an "underground" part of the child's life—thus separating a "light world" which the parent directs and a "dark world" in which the child can actually do what he/she desires but which would otherwise be disapproved.

In some cases, the child may feel that his/her sense of accomplishment only truly has a chance to manifest in this underground part of his/her life.

^ That's exactly what happened to me. I'm not even supposed to be on this site right now.

^^ That's pretty much a matter of opinion. Which is why this thread has gotten so long. Discussion!

That's why I said personal experience. :P

There was one notable episode in high school where I went around the schoolyard picking up every still-usable but discarded pencil I could find. My mom just got rid of them when she found out what I was doing. My acne made her nervous about my getting my hands so dirty, and she also didn't like how I spent my time doing "little things".

In retrospect, I've noticed that I could have done several things with the pretty large number of pencils I ended up collecting:

• I could have donated them to a charity.
• I could have used them to point out how much stuff gets wasted. Anti-waste, cost-saving, and green.
• I could have kept them for myself (which was my original idea, before I thought of the above), and never had to buy any more pencils.

The key point, though, is that I felt like I was creating something. It's like, I was building my own empire, one pencil at a time.

@Kino: She may very well have been exaggerating - but if that's the case, she clearly exaggerated to make a point, and that point was that it's good to be harsh. What's more, if she exaggerated, she did so believing that everyone would be okay with it even then, which is kind of insulting.

At least Chua (so far) was lucky, as this kind of parenting has the potential to get very ugly on both ends. For example (I highly recommend you set your volume low before playing it):

edited 29th Jan '11 9:07:39 PM by TotemicHero

I was actually thinking the parents in that video were being reasonably until they disconnected the computer...and after that...

^ Holy shit.

However, I should observe two things about that video:

• That happens after a bunch of expectations have been put in place, on the part of child and on the part of parents, about each other's behaviors and reactions to each other's behaviors.
• Those expectations are likely to be broken in times of stress—such as when he had to get up early the next day. Such times of stress are very likely to be flash points.

I don't know what time it is, but I'm pretty sure that that kid should have thought about his own timing first. I've had lots of experience to realize that scheduling recreational activities that require multi-person participation when you're constrained by your parents disapproving of said activity, and even I have run into problems during the about ten times I've had D&D sessions scheduled with people over the internet.

At least thank goodness I don't play any MMORP Gs. I've been tempted quite a few times to join one (albeit usually one of the free junky ones like Adventure Quest or Asda Story), but this video has reminded me why it's a bad idea.

About "just a game": I'll start a new thread about that.

Off-Topic: Yeah, playing an MMO requires careful management of time. It does come with social obligations (as I well know, seeing as I play World Of Warcraft myself), so that has to be kept in mind when planning ahead. Clearly no one in that video had.

On-Topic: Stress is one of those weird things. Different people react in different ways to it.

Ultimately, while it would be nice to forgive and forget, the fact is that a person's behavior when they are stressed is still part of their behavior, and as such a reflection of part of their personality. You can be the nicest guy on the planet in good times, but if you blow up when the argenfargle hits the fan...

Perhaps Chua is a better person than most and would not lose it when stressed. Perhaps her children are the type that naturally thrive under such pressure. That's good for them, but most people - parents and children - don't have those kinds of personalities. And since I think her parenting methods lend themselves to creating more stress, they really aren't for most people.

Not to mention that personalities influence behavior, and behavior influences personalities, and it's all a gigantic cluster**** of dependencies.

BTW, I started this thread about that phrase.

@Ultrayellow: re hitler, the principle is still a same - just because something has bad consequences, does not negate any good effects that same thing has. Second, if Chua's daughter didn't want the press to report that she resented her mother, then doing the interview at all indicates there is insufficient resentment for her to do a negative interview. If she had such negative feelings about her upbringing, then she wouldn't have done the interview at all. Either way, "maybe she didn't want to tell the press she resents her mom" is insufficient grounds to be making any sort of claim that "oh, her kids probably hate her for raising them like that". Perhaps it was not you who made this claim, but there *are* 9 pages of thread, and I can't exactly be expected to keep track of who said what, quiaff?

@Other Handle: It is true that I was raised on what you call "Sane Asian Parenting" model. Hence why I said that Chua's implementation leaves much to be desired. My main contention is simply that she is overly restrictive as to which activities and behaviors are useful - for example, team sports should be encouraged due to their development of teamwork, interpersonal, and social skills; playdates should also be encouraged due to their improvements on socialization skills; "violin or piano" is too restrictive for musical instruments, IMO the list should be expanded to "any musical instrument in which it is possible to rise to prominence". So Viola, sure; Triangle...not so much.

I can, however, get behind the justifications for and the basic principles behind the way Chua raises her kids. For example, I absolutely agree with the notion of getting them into extracurriculars that will be useful, even if they may not find it as fun. I will do my best to discourage them from venues like Theater or Sociology (at least, Soc as a major) and into things like Information Systems or building battlebots, simply because there are far more opps for Asian engineers than Asian actors, and far more use for robotics designers than sociologists. I also absolutely agree with overriding your child's decisions if your experience can see a better path for them - as long as you explain the rationale. It's also vital to override their decision to quit something just because it's getting hard - this goes hand in hand with not accepting subpar performance when you know they can do better. I am also a fan of the "assuming strength, not fragility, in the child"; the ability to take criticism is an underrated skill. Again, this comes with the prereq that the child must know what it is they did wrong before the criticism begins, but once you do that it ought to be perfectly fine. Kids need to learn boundaries anyway, might as well get them started on that.

Chua does come off as arrogant at times, but it is important to remember that she is writing a book and so some parts are necessarily embellished. It is also important to consider that maybe she has a reason to be arrogant - after all, even though in the book she was eventually "humbled" by her younger daughter, the overarching systems she has seems to have been proven. You don't need to be so restrictive, but you do need to keep an eye out and intervene in your child's life for, as the Tau would say, the Greater Good.

^ If by "humbled" you mean "was convinced to demand a ridiculous amount of perfection in tennis instead of piano/violin", yes.

Well, I can't blame you for losing track of this thread.

No, actually, you missed my point. There was no good effect from Hitler's rebuilding the economy. He never really rebuilt it. What he did cause was an spike, followed by an even deeper economic nosedive.

No, her daughter doesn't hate her. But tell me, do you think she's speaking at that press conference with no influence from her mother? Why do you think they're having a press conference in the first place? Why do you think her prepared statement is her heartfelt opinion? But as a matter of fact, it's quite possible she likes her mother. I'm just saying you shouldn't take her words to a reporter at face value.

Look, either Chua's children will rebel against her, or their social skills won't develop normally. There's no other option. I'm not saying those are necessarily bad things, just that they will happen.

I'm not really in the mood for a debate with you. If I were you, I'd try to debate with a mod your first time. I had my first OTC debate with Bobby...I think it was a religious debate. Anyways, what I'm trying to say here is, I'm not the ideal first opponent. I try, but I won't be able to remain totally objective and unbiased. I'm not going to lose my temper, or something silly like that, but an argument between us (from what I've seen about you and the reasoning behind your position) will eventually lead to my criticizing you personally. I don't want to do that.

Plus, I'm tired and want to go to bed.

edited 30th Jan '11 1:00:40 AM by Ultrayellow

At the end of the day, the parents are the ones with the right to decide how much this kid can even use the computer, so I don't have much sympathy.

Don't cry about a video game, especially World Of Warcraft. I mean cmon.

It all depends how in depth one plays the games. Personally I am starting to realise I would rather loose a foot than keep grinding items in something I don't care about and that is basically all that raiding actually is for most people.

Yeah, I don't know how people spend so much time grinding for shit when they could be playing something else with variety, or god forbid, going outside.

That's why I've never been big on that aspect of Fantasy MMO's, the biggest one I got into was the first Everquest. I played it for years but never got to lvl 60, I just liked spending time leveling characters to their mid 40's and then starting with a clean slate, while making friends everywhere and grouping with random strangers.

The only other MMO I got really engaged in was Planetside, because there was no grinding, just the endless war of taking bases, instead of setting an endgame goal, if I felt that during a play session my side successfully overran a continent, I felt great that I succeeded in my objective and that my play time was worthwhile, instead of just building up to "finishing." Even if that meant within 12 hours we would probably lose that continent and have to take it back again later, that just made me feel like I was a pivotal factor in its capture.

I wish I had played planetside, it looked like a fun game.

I am looking forward to the "old republic" MMO however. But we are getting a little off topic here.

edited 30th Jan '11 2:39:45 AM by JosefBugman

This debate reminds me of back in the day when we were kids and we'd all talk about how this and this wouldn't fuckin fly with our respective parents; I remember the Asian kids giving me the look we gave white kids. Goddamn hilarious now that I look back.

^ Perhaps I should link that Russell Peters video again.

@PRC: I get what you're saying, but I have two points to say: First, while Chua's reasoning may be valid to a point, a Well-Intentioned Extremist is still an extremist, and should not be defended. Few people here would support being completely uninvolved in your child's life and letting short-sighted young children make all their own decisions. You actually do agree with us (with me, at least) - but you seem to want to argue in defense of Chua because she applied her parenting style to all Chinese parents, when in fact your parents are only superficially like her. When it comes to such intensely personal things as parenting, I frankly don't care if your "principles" are "right", I care what you do to your kid on a day-to-day basis. Take the principle of "assuming strength, not fragility". One parent might use that to criticize their child when they do something wrong and make them into a better person. Another parent might use it to beat up their child because they can "take it". Would you then say that the second parent's "principles" were right, just their execution needed work?

Second, you and Chua both seem to believe "Western" parents raise losers. Good for you that your mother made you lose weight and bring up your grades, but don't assume that's unique to Asians and a select few white people that have chosen to follow the Asian way. "Western" parenting has produced entrepenuers, innovators, businessmen, and scientists, and plenty of happy, well-adjusted middle class people with stable jobs. That's basically my issue with Chua - that she believes she's being oh-so-daring and revolutionary by "introducing" the skills of good parenting to the ignorant Western masses.

Well, for what it's worth, we don't yet know what the current crop of children will be like. We only know of what children raised in the 80s and before are like.

Well, I sort of know what the current crop of kids are like, because I go to school with them, and whether or not they have 5.0 GPA's and play the violin/piano, they are not all losers.

Oh yeah, that's another thing that really pisses me off about Chua - her ridiculously narrow definition of "loser." While "everyone's special in their own way" might be a bit of an overstatement, it's far better than saying "People who do the things I do are special, and everyone else is just a loser who thinks they're special."

What about crowning underachievers like myself who got bad grades for neglecting homework, but got A's and A+'s on all of their tests and scored uber on SAT's and the ASVAB? This made me a C student, Chua would think I'm such a loser, even if high school me was smarter than her kids. :P

Barkey, people like you make me so mad in school - sleeping in class, never doing homework, goofing off in class group work, but acing all their tests. It's just not fair.

I like to think it all balances out, your kind have responsibility and dilligence as an advantage, mine compensate for extreme laziness with intelligence.(Not to say you aren't intelligent, I just whoop ass at testing for some reason, but have no discipline when it comes to boring shit.)

I really did sleep through almost all of high school, I don't know how I do so well on tests. Though I think the problem is that I go all ADD on anything I think is boring and uninteresting, and homework doesn't teach me anything really new, I stay awake and participate a fuckton for lectures.

To this day I love lectures, as long as we have a good instructor who I can ask all my crazy little "What if" questions about scenarios and such, I especially love challenging instructors by trying to find questions they can't answer. :P

I still don't do homework.

edited 30th Jan '11 10:35:49 AM by Barkey

Those people were the reason I stopped trying at anything academic by the time I hit uni. I had no chance of reaching to get a first, so I stuck with getting a 2:1.