14

This page has moved to a new address.

Tiger Moms and other curiosities

----------------------------------------------- Blogger Template Style Name: 897 Designer: Douglas Bowman URL: www.stopdesign.com Date: 28 Feb 2004 ----------------------------------------------- */ body { background:#ccc; margin:0; padding:10px 0 14px; font:x-small Verdana,Sans-serif; text-align:center; color:#000; font-size/* */:/**/small; font-size: /**/small; } /* Page Structure ----------------------------------------------- */ @media all { #wrap { position:relative; top:4px; left:4px; background:#999; width:744px; margin:0 auto; text-align:left; } } @media handheld { #wrap { width:90%; } } #wrap2 { position:relative; top:-4px; left:-4px; background:#fff; padding:10px; } #content { background:url("http://www.blogblog.com/no897/bg_content.gif") repeat-y left top; width:100%; font-size:85%; } @media all { #main { background:#245 url("http://www.blogblog.com/no897/corner_main.gif") no-repeat right top; width:460px; float:left; color:#fff; } #sidebar { background:#cdb url("http://www.blogblog.com/no897/corner_sidebar.gif") no-repeat left top; width:254px; float:right; padding:0; color:#356; } } @media handheld { #main { width:100%; float:none; } #sidebar { width:100%; float:none; } } #main2 { margin:0; padding:15px 20px; } #sidebar2 { margin:0; padding:2px 20px 10px; } /* Links ----------------------------------------------- */ a:link { color:#369; text-decoration:none; } a:visited { color:#776; text-decoration:none; } a:hover { color:#333; text-decoration:underline; } a img { border-width:0; } #main a:link, #main a.comment-link:visited { color:#9df; } #main a:visited { color:#7a9; } #main a:hover { color:#fff; } /* Header ----------------------------------------------- */ #header { background:#269 url("http://www.blogblog.com/no897/topleft.gif") no-repeat left bottom; padding:0 0 0 160px; margin:0 0 10px; color:#fff; width:100%; width/* */:/**/auto; width:auto; } #blog-title { background:url("http://www.blogblog.com/no897/bg_header.gif") no-repeat left top; margin:0; padding:40px 0 0; font:bold 275%/97px Helvetica,Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:lowercase; } #blog-title a { color:#fff; text-decoration:none; } .postpage #blog-title { padding-top:0; background-position:0 -40px; } /* Description ----------------------------------------------- */ #description { background:#8df url("http://www.blogblog.com/no897/bg_desc_top.gif") no-repeat left top; margin:0 0 10px; padding:12px 0 0; color:#fff; } #description p { background:url("http://www.blogblog.com/no897/bg_desc_bot.gif") no-repeat left bottom; margin:0; padding:0 0 12px; } #description em { /* To remove the word next to the desription, delete the following background property */ background:url("http://www.blogblog.com/no897/temp_no.gif") no-repeat left center; /* Keep everything below */ display:block; padding:0 0 0 160px; font:bold 75%/1.6em Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:uppercase; letter-spacing:.1em; min-height:12px; _height:12px; } .postpage #description em { font-size:1px; line-height:1px; color:#8df; visibility:hidden; } /* Posts ----------------------------------------------- */ .date-header { margin:0 0 .5em; font:bold 112%/1.4em Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:lowercase; color:#467; } .post { margin:0 0 2em; } .post-title { margin:0 0 .25em; font:bold 150%/1.4em Helvetica,Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; color:#fff; } #main .post-title a { text-decoration:none; color:#9df; } #main .post-title a:hover { color:#fff; } .post p, .post-body { margin:0 0 .75em; line-height:1.6em; } .post-footer { color:#467; text-transform:lowercase; } .post-footer em { font-style:normal; color:#689; } .post blockquote { margin:1em 20px; padding:5px 0; border:2px solid #356; border-width:2px 0; } .post blockquote p { margin:.5em 0; } .post img { border:5px solid #fff; } /* Comments ----------------------------------------------- */ #comments { margin:2em 0 0; border-top:2px solid #356; padding-top:1em; } #comments h4 { margin:0 0 .25em; font:bold 150%/1.4em Helvetica,Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:lowercase; color:#9ec; } #comments-block { margin:0; line-height:1.6em; } .comment-poster { margin:0 0 .25em; font:bold 112%/1.4em Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:lowercase; } .comment-body, .comment-body p { margin:0 0 .75em; } p.comment-timestamp { margin:-.25em 0 2em; } #main .comment-timestamp a { color:#689; } #main .comment-timestamp a:hover { color:#9ec; } .deleted-comment { font-style:italic; color:gray; } .paging-control-container { float: right; margin: 0px 6px 0px 0px; font-size: 80%; } .unneeded-paging-control { visibility: hidden; } /* Sidebar ----------------------------------------------- */ .sidebar-title { margin:1em 0 .25em; font:bold 150%/1.4em Helvetica,Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; color:#fff; text-transform:lowercase; } #sidebar ul { margin:0 0 1.5em; padding:0; list-style:none; } #sidebar li { margin:0; padding:0 0 .25em 20px; text-indent:-20px; line-height:1.4em; } #sidebar p { margin:0 0 .75em; line-height:1.4em; } /* Profile ----------------------------------------------- */ #profile-container { margin:0 0 1.75em; } .profile-datablock, .profile-textblock { margin:0 0 .75em; line-height:1.4em; } .profile-img { display:inline; } .profile-img img { float:left; margin:0 10px 5px 0; border:5px solid #eed; } .profile-data { font-weight:bold; } .profile-data strong { display:none; } /* Footer ----------------------------------------------- */ #footer { clear:both; padding:10px 0 0; } #footer hr { display:none; } #footer p { margin:0; padding:5px 0; } /* Misc ----------------------------------------------- */ .clear { clear:both; display:block; height:1px; margin:0; padding:0; font-size:1px; line-height:1px; } /* Feeds ----------------------------------------------- */ #blogfeeds { } #postfeeds { }

The official blog of the British Columbia Association of Community Music Schools

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Tiger Moms and other curiosities

The Elephant Mom in The Room
from the Globe and Mail.   Feb.14, 2011

Many years ago, my wife and I were driving somewhere with our three young daughters when one of them suddenly asked: “Would you rather that we were clever or that we were happy?”

I was reminded of that moment last month when I read Amy Chua’s Wall Street Journal article Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, a promotional piece for her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Her thesis is that, when compared to Americans, Chinese children tend to be successful because they have “tiger mothers,” whereas Western mothers are pussycats, or worse. Ms. Chua’s daughters were never allowed to watch television, play computer games, sleep over at a friend’s home or be in a school play. They had to spend hours every day practising the piano or violin. They were expected to be the top student in every subject except gym and drama.

Chinese mothers, Ms. Chua says, believe that children, once they get past the toddler stage, need to be told, in no uncertain terms, when they haven’t met the standards their parents expect of them. Their egos should be strong enough to take it.

But Ms. Chua, a professor at Yale Law School (as is her husband), lives in a culture in which a child’s self-esteem is considered so fragile that children’s sports teams give “most valuable player” awards to every member. So it’s not surprising that many Americans reacted with horror to her style of parenting.

One problem in assessing the Tiger Mother approach is that we can’t separate its impact from that of the genes parents pass on to their children. If you want your children to be at the top of their class, it helps if you and your partner have the brains to become professors at elite universities. No matter how hard a Tiger Mother pushes, not every student can finish first (unless, of course, we make everyone “top of the class”).


Tiger parenting aims at getting children to make the most of what abilities they have, and so seems to lean toward the “clever” side of the “clever or happy” choice. That’s also the view of Betty Ming Liu, who blogged in response to Ms. Chua’s article: “Parents like Amy Chua are the reason why Asian Americans like me are in therapy.”

Stanley Sue, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis who has studied suicide – which is particularly common among Asian-American women – believes family pressure is a significant factor.

Ms. Chua would reply that reaching a high level of achievement brings great satisfaction, and that the only way to do it is through hard work. Perhaps, but can’t children be encouraged to do things because they are intrinsically worthwhile, rather than because of fear of parental disapproval?

I agree with Ms. Chua to this extent: A reluctance to tell a child what to do can go too far. One of my daughters, who now has children of her own, tells me amazing stories about her friends’ parenting styles. One of them let her daughter drop out of three different kindergartens because she didn’t want to go to them. Another couple believes in “self-directed learning” to such an extent that, one evening, they went to bed at 11, leaving their five-year-old watching her ninth straight hour of Barbie videos.

Tiger mothering might seem to be a useful counterbalance to such permissiveness, but both extremes leave something out. Ms. Chua’s focus is on solitary activities in the home, with no encouragement of group activities or of concern for others, either in school or in the wider community. Thus, she appears to view school plays as a waste of time that could be better spent studying or practising music.

But to take part in a school play is to contribute to a community good. If talented children stay away, the quality of the production will suffer, to the detriment of the others who take part (and of those who will watch it). And all children whose parents bar them from such activities miss the opportunity to develop social skills that are just as important – and just as demanding to master – as those that monopolize Ms. Chua’s attention.

We should aim for our children to be good people, and to live ethical lives that manifest concern for others as well as for themselves. This approach to child-rearing is not unrelated to happiness: There’s abundant evidence that those who are generous and kind are more content with their lives than those who are not. But it’s also an important goal in its own right.

Tigers lead solitary lives, except for mothers with their cubs. We, by contrast, are social animals. So are elephants, and elephant mothers don’t focus only on the well-being of their own offspring. Together, they take care of all the young in their herd, running a kind of daycare centre.

If we all think only of our own interests, we’re headed for collective disaster. When it comes to raising our children, we need fewer tigers and more elephants.

Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University.

Labels: ,

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Further to Singer's comment, "Ms. Chua’s focus is on solitary activities", I once had an mom ask me to help her teen-aged daughter prepare for a Grade 8 Conservatory piano exam. Both mom and daughter were immigrants and both had very serious challenges with a new language here. The last thing the daughter should have been doing was spending the required hours and hours of solitary time practicing piano. Lots and lots of social time practicing her language skills should have been the first order of business. Thankfully they didn't follow through with the piano exam.

February 18, 2011 at 3:11 PM

 
Blogger SR said...

Interesting comment! Many of our schools have clients that would probably fit into this category as the cultures of the Pacific Rim have embraced classical music education on a much larger scale than our home grown culture of western European descent. Finding the balance between rigorous study habits and having quiet time for reflection and social events is not easy, for either children or adults. Somehow I believe though a good music education can only help one become a better person, finding the right timing for an exam is another question.

Exams should not be the prime reason to take lessons though on any instruments, exams for me should be seen as goal posts along the path to musical enlightenment, never a "final goal" in themselves.

February 20, 2011 at 8:43 PM

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home