On January 8th, 2011, an article titled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” appeared on the Wall Street Journal website and entered the internet world. Written by Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, the article expounds on the idea that there are two kinds of parents, the “Chinese” parenting method and (quite awfully) any other approach to parenting, and that there is nothing that can beat a “Chinese” parent. Rock may crush scissors, and scissors may cut paper, but NOTHING beats a Chinese parent.*

Why the mess in the world would she write this (for the Wall Street Journal, no less)?! Because she can back it up, apparently. In short, she believes that her Chinese parenting method leads to more successful children. Of course, this delves into the subjective territory of the definition of a parenting “success”. So what traits does a “successfully” parented child display? In Chua’s mind, the traits of successful “Chinese” children go something like this: blind obedience, constant meeting of ridiculously strict academic standards (“ALWAYS MAKE STRAIGHT A’S AND YOU MUST BE SCHOOL NUMBER ONE AND GO TO YALE OR ELSE”), to feel guilty for being called names like “garbage” by a parent, and many, many more stupid things.

Well y’know what?

SCREW YOU, AMY CHUA. YOUR IDEAS ARE TERRIBLE AND THEY MAKE ME RAGE.

COMMENCE RAGE IN THE FORM OF A BULLETED LIST.

Things that are wrong with Amy Chua’s reasoning:

Chua creates a false dichotomy by setting up things so that every child either succeeds by meeting all of her expectations under fucked up “Chinese” parenting or fails. Basically, Chua turns life into a pass/fail class with ridiculous passing standards to make her point. A good point is also made in fact that not everyone can always be #1, or even #2 or #3. There are not enough high schools in America for us to send all Chinese teens to different high schools for them to be valedictorians. This basically means Chua’s “superior” parenting method sets up an unfair ratio of almost-certain failure to possible success, effectively making many children impossible failures. Oh, and you can’t ever beat “Chinese” parenting with “Western” parenting because, y’know, life just doesn’t work that way.

Chua believes that “what Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it.” What kind of crap is this? Many things can be fun without being perfected to ridiculous standards. And in Chua’s world, to be “good at” means to excel above everyone else.

Chua creates an is-ought gap when she observes that the “Western” method of allowing a young child to learn piano at a slower pace is wrong and ought to be replaced with the Chinese method of coercion. There is very little connection between “little child taking a long time to learn something that is not extremely important” and “little child should be coerced into learning quickly against his/her own will”. A discrepancy in causal attribution across the different “cultures” of parenting styles does not necessarily mean that the “Western” method is unalterably incorrect.

It seems to me that Chua wouldn’t be past waterboarding a young child in order to “coerce” him/her to practice piano/violin since the pain and terror generated is only temporary, right? And of course, somehow Chua’s cost-benefit analysis totally says that the “The Little White Donkey” on piano is worth the anguish and torment of “no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years” and being called “lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic”.

Chua makes a halfhearted attempt at deciphering the (faulty) reasoning behind why “Chinese” parenting unconditionally assumes that “Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything”; she chalks it up to something along the lines of Confucian filial piety and parental sacrifice. Perhaps if she dug a bit deeper, she would also find the Confucian writings on the ethic of reciprocity and mutual respect that goes HAND-IN-FRICKING-HAND with said filial piety. Y’know, Amy, coercion isn’t a reactant I’d use in a reaction to yield “mutual respect” and “positive reciprocity”. Her inclusion of her (Western *GASP*) husband’s response that “children don’t choose their parents” is dismissed offhandedly as the opinion of the non-”Chinese”, who are obviously nothing but terrible parents.

Y’know, Amy, coercion isn’t a reactant I’d use in a reaction to yield “mutual respect” and “positive reciprocity”. Chua also proposes a straw man argument by implying that any non-”Chinese” parenting method CANNOT measure up to (or exceed) the “Chinese” expectations.

Chua assumes there is no breaking point in “Chinese” children and that no matter what kind of shit you decide to pull on your children, they will always be okay with it and assume it was “out of love”. Because, you know, “worthless”, “a disgrace”, “stupid”, and “garbage” are all just terms of endearment to make your kid try harder. And your kid knows that. Right?

“I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me,” boasts Chua. Why is this supposed to be okay? This seems to teach “it’s okay to call people names when they are not doing what you want.” Also, with my experience with “Chinese” parenting, Sophia probably did something like ask “why must I do this? I don’t understand” and refuse to stay happy with the answer of “because I am always right and you are always wrong”. Yep. Garbage she is! Chua even goes onto say that “Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, ‘Hey fatty—lose some weight.’” What the HELL? ALL mothers can say that to their daughters. Most don’t because it’s hurtful and shallow and flat out hurtful. I know more than one “Chinese” girl who does not like it and feels hurt when her mother calls her fat (which happens frequently). ETHIC OF RECIPROCITY, YOU. Try not to let your pick-and-choose Confucian ethics hit you on your way out. No breaking point? You sure, Amy Chua?! Ever heard of Esmie Tseng? Poor girl snapped. Way to go, “Chinese” parenting.

Chua hates individualism. There is no such thing in little children. There is no breaking point for when the children will crumble to your coercing (her word!) things out of them to conform.

Chua forgets to mention that aggressive corporal punishment bordering and sometimes crossing into physical abuse has traditionally been generally very well tolerated in her “Chinese” parenting method. Guess the Wall Street Journal probably wouldn’t have been too happy if she started endorsing THAT indispensable part of making children obedient as well.

The “Chinese” parenting method does not give any points for success in personal interests aside from piano/violin/math/science and places no importance on being well-adjusted.

“Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud,” Chua admits. So basically, “Chinese” Parenting Rule Number 1 is “don’t question me or my motives ever because I am always right and you owe me your life.” (I went through most of life thinking it was “don’t talk about ‘Chinese’ parenting” which I thought was also the same as Rule Number 2—”don’t talk about ‘Chinese’ parenting’.)



“打是愛，罵是疼。”

Hitting is love, cursing is doting/fondness.



There’s actually a Chinese saying that I was raised to. Being taught that physical violence and loud escalation of conflict are loving displays of well-adjusted problem solving behavior… I’m glad I learned better. This was seriously one of the rationalizations I was taught for being raised under a relatively “Chinese” roof.

So yes, I was raised relatively “Chinese” and I turned out alright. Am I happy with it? Relatively, I’d say. While I do not exactly agree a lot of the things I was put through, I have to say it was better than being locked in a room with windows or lights and being fed bread crumbs and expired condensed soup for 19 years. More realistically, I’d say my upbringing was better than that of many people I know. However, just because the resiliency of the human soul can overcome some pretty big mess-ups in parenting does not mean that the mess-ups should be collected together and endorsed as be-all and end-all paths to success.

This one’s for all the angry “Chinese”-raised kids out there. We can be right sometimes, right? Nah, probably not. I find tongue-in-cheek humor in the fact that Chua’s article is an excellent example of the classic “Asian mom” distorted reality that we all talk so much about. Or maybe the other angry Asian bloggers are onto something with their first impression that it may be a piece of Swiftian satire.

-b.

Bonus: My reasoning for why “Chinese” parents try to force violin and piano on their children: the violin and piano are two of the most attention-grabbing instruments. The piano is often a solo performance instrument and the violin offers the child a chance to be forced to aim for the coveted concertmaster seat (“YOU MUST BE NUMBER ONE VIOLIN IN CLASS OR ELSE!”). This attention-grabbing quality means the “Chinese” parent is given more opportunities to pass/fail the child. Plus, it fits perfectly with the “start coercing early” step of the parenting method, since the earlier you coerce a kid into practicing, the quicker he’ll get better than his peers, who may be too busy building things with legos or eating Play-Doh.

Bonus 2: I used the international rules on quotation marks this time!

Bonus 3: See? Western parenting is NOT in any way full of failures.

*In Soviet Russia, “Chinese” parent beats you!