I recently read an online article from the Wall Street Journal at a friend’s urging titled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.” Thinking the title was in jest, I read it with an open mind. I read how the author thought it was okay to call her child garbage when treated disrespectfully and how Western mothers spend too much time worrying about their children’s individuality. By the time I finished reading the article I admit that I was super defensive and against my better judgment, a little racist. Thanks Amy Chua. Remember when I said that women compete over everything, even the way we parent? A woman saying, “Chinese mothers are superior to Western mothers” is sort of the antagonistic equivalent of an American man saying “My dad can beat up your dad.” Why is it that these things bring out the monster in me, or as Sarah Palin puts it, the mama grizzly? Why can’t I just walk away and ignore widespread statements like that? (The obvious answer being, because then I’d have nothing to write about.) Is it because anytime anyone claims to be “superior” I automatically delve into my hidden arsenal of nuclear defense and question all of their standards of superiority? I claim to be so sick of it but I can’t seem to resist a good competition. I’m feeling a bit like Michael Corleone. “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
I read the article and then re-read it slowly to make sure I wasn’t being too defensive. Surely, she didn’t really mean that Chinese mothers are superior to Western mothers, did she? When I realized that yes, that’s what she meant, I was ready for a good old fashioned throw down. Because if you’re going to make such a challenge, girl you better bring it. Back it up with more than just your children can play the violin and do math. I was hot under the collar, but I have to admit that some of Chua’s points were valid. Like when she suggested that Western mothers care too much about developing their children’s self esteem, not realizing that self esteem is earned by hard work which is its own reward. I get that. I agree to some point. I also think she made a good point about not letting your child give up an instrument or a project just because he or she doesn’t enjoy the required practice it takes to master it. She used her daughter’s piano lessons as an example, citing that hours upon hours of grueling, insufferable practice yielded a result of perfection. True. Anyone can be good at something if they are forced to practice relentlessly. No argument from me. And anyone not taught any other way of life can live comfortably in prison if they’ve never breathed free man’s air. But do they love that prison? Are they enjoying all that life has to offer and truly attaining happiness? According to Chua, who cares? Attaining happiness is not important. Success and perfection will lead to happiness. In Chua’s culture, the children live to serve the parents, not the other way around as in modern Western culture. The two are so vastly different.
Which leads me to this, when two cultures have two completely different benchmarks of success, who is to say which is superior or inferior? If your measure of success is that Junior is a generous person who spends Friday nights feeding the homeless and he grows up to do those things, then your son is a success. If you measure success by how much money you make or by how well you can spell, then your son is a success if he can do those things. You don’t even have to be of different cultures to have different standards of success. My mother thinks my son will be a success if he grows up to be a missionary. I think a Pulitzer Prize winning author sounds more like it. Chances are he will be neither of those things and I will have to love and accept him just the same.
My first reaction to this article was to fire off a snide little comment, once again as if anyone cared what I had to say. I said something to the extent of if I wanted to raise a bunch of robots then I would adapt this method of parenting. If I were raised by a communist mother I too would mock individuality. I would shove my expectations and wants down the throat of my son and strip him of his personality and force him to join the competitive (and I misspelled competitive) army of grey uniformed foot soldiers. It was a pretty stupid response. In fact I can’t believe I’m repeating it now except that I told you before, these are my true confessions. Then I followed that up with apologizing for my misspelling of the word competitive and said, “If I were Chinese I would’ve spelled that right.”
While I disagree that Chinese women are better mothers, I don’t think we Westerners have it all figured out either. We’re not better, we’re not worse. Can’t we all just be on each other’s sides and say that what makes a good mother is if she is doing the best she can with what she has to work with? That’s what makes our world so great, different cultures with different methods of raising children who grow up to be diverse and interesting adults. It’s the beauty of the human race. Why do we as parents look to our children to validate our way of life? That’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid. Kids have enough pressure in this world without having to worry about making their parents look good. Besides, all children, even Chinese ones, blame their parents for all of their problems once they are grown which is why psychiatry is such a booming business.
My blog is meant to be funny most of the time, but sometimes, I get so knocked over by the need for some people to always out-do the next guy that I forget that I’m supposed to be leading by example and not entering the boxing ring. Yesterday my pastor talked about leaving a legacy with your life, to use it for good. That’s how I want to raise my son. I may never be a published author, or a contributing writer to the WSJ online, but I have a son that I simply adore. He has all the possibilities of doing great things with his life. He is a success in my eyes already. He is special if for no other reason than because he’s mine. I don’t think that makes me inferior or necessarily Western. Most cultures want their children to feel strongly connected to their family legacy. I married an Italian so I know this firsthand. I want my son to recognize his place in our family and to let it instill confidence in him. I want him to know it’s not necessarily what he does with his life but who he is that matters. He is a very specific piece of the puzzle in a very important place on our time line. He will say someday, I am Carrie’s son. I want him to be proud when he says that. I don’t want him to respect me because I’ve beaten it into him or because I’ve scared him into it. I want to earn his respect by being a person of character based on the decisions I make on a daily basis.
Of course I think it’s important to teach discipline to your children. But I don’t think my son is my project. He is a human being. He will have to navigate his own desires when the time is right, and I will have to make sure that he doesn’t give up too easily and think that it’s okay to walk away from hard work. I would love for him to play the piano and he’s so musically gifted already that it seems inevitable. But I have to accept the fact that he might hate it. If he does, I’d like to think that I could back off enough to see what other talents he could be developing. Does that make me inferior? Maybe. What I’ve concluded is this; there is much to be learned from all cultures. What I should've said in response to this article is that I respectfully disagree and leave it at that. Life isn’t a competition. It is not a dog fight. The term dog-eat-dog applies to dogs, not humans. I write all of this with no intended disrespect to the Chinese culture. I fired off those stereotypes, again, because I am defensive to a challenge. I have Asian and Asian-American friends that I love, and also have friends who’ve adopted Chinese children. I have great respect for all mothers, in any culture, who are out there trying. And I will try my best to teach my son better and try to leave the boxing gloves on the shelf. That is, until some other mom says she’s better than me.
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