A Superior Chinese Mother Writes Back

Amy Chua & her two daughters Sophia and Lulu.

A Superior Chinese Mother Writes Back
There has been much uproar over a Wall Street Journal article by Amy Chua, a Yale professor cum author who shares her parenting methods and ideals in an article with an excerpt from her new book ”Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother “.

WJS article: Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior
Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?
Here is the link to her article http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html
(Please cut and paste link on to your browser)

I haven’t read her book as I doubt it will be available so quickly in Malaysia but from her article and from various other articles about parenting that has sprung up on blogsphere since her controversial article appeared yesterday, here is my response.


Dear Ms. Chua,

I have no doubt that you are well-respected in your field (Yale Professor of Law, nice house in Connecticut, acclaimed author) and that you’ve successfully brought up two shiny, highly-accomplished daughters using your slightly boot-camp Chinese method of parenting even though you have a gwei-lo American-writer husband (whom you say disagree with your parenting methods but he surely must be good at letting you wear the pants).

As a Chinese mother myself( doesn’t matter where you live- the Chinese diaspora has spread far and wide), and having been brought up by someone whom I thought was The DRAGON Chinese mother of all, I now think perhaps, she was quite harmless after all compared to you. Though your detractors have slammed you for your shocking methods of motivating your children, your style is, however, still food for thought(?), and may perhaps be effective for your two girls, and I did laugh at some of your anecdotes though some light-weights who have never come across Chinese people might even see you as brutal, callous, even abusive?

But I guess more than ever, in today’s increasingly competitive world, it is important to teach one's child the tenets of tenacity, resilience and to ‘never say die’!

It however, doesn’t not truly represent how Chinese mothers the world over bring their children up.

If what you quantified as qualities of a Chinese( or Asian) mother is to be believed, then I have failed miserably as a Chinese mother.

Here’s why:

1. Yes, I know it’s bad to praise mediocrity sometimes, but I sometimes resort to it. Because I have three children and the middle one tends to occasionally have some sort of complex, I sometimes, go out of my way to make her feel extra special- is that wrong?
( But in all seriousness, as an educator, I think we need to be more 'Chinese' and whip our generation of lackadaisical students into shape, to get them out of their iphone/pad/touch zombie-states into writing proper paragraphs, using the correct spelling and punctuating properly and not use sms-speak! That should always be a given.)

2. I took both my girls out of KUMON, the Japanese rote-learning method of doing Maths, after 6 months because I couldn’t be bothered to 'time' their super-mundane Math exercises and I don’t like rote and repetitive-learning myself. ( You have to always time the worksheets and once I had to write down “24 hours” for the time in which little I completed one of her addition worksheets. She was about 4. So I gave up)

3. I have enrolled them in numerous DRAMA workshops,where I have paid good money for, and they have been in plays and performances. Hours and hours of practice and 3 minutes of Little I playing the white rabbit was one of my proudest Mummy moments-(as the Alice the LEAD role had gone to the Drama facilitator’s DAUGHTER) and yeah, the other daughter was dancer no. 4 cum singer no. 2 and bloody good at it, sounding quite like Lea Salonga, if I may add.)

4. I do pay for their piano lessons, and though I chant ‘practice makes perfect’ like a million times, it falls on deaf ears, so I am happy if they practise for 20 minutes, sometimes, on the day the piano teacher is about to arrive!

5. I do emphasise that sports is important- like swimming and track and field and gymnastics. Oh dear! I praise my little girl for being a whiz at cartwheels and even for being able to do the hoopla hoop on her neck! She is amazingly good.

6. They get to have playdates and sleepovers!( I will one day tell you about a sleepover birthday party I hosted!) But I am not hot on computer games myself so they can only drool at other kids' Nintendos and XBoxes.

8.They do a lot of dance lessons, are excellent at them, and love them!

8. They don’t watch a lot of TV at all, but when they do, I even let them watch Glee!

Are there only 8 reasons?

Well, like everyone else who thinks Mother China is heading for world domination- I do make them take Mandarin lessons. Just in case. If that fails, they can always take their business to India and speak English there. They can say now “Gong Xi Fa Cai and Xia Xia” without sounding like an ABC and I do feel a little cheated paying the tutor by the hour but I blame myself for I only recently starting to speak Hokkien to them- they can understand me and the eldest tries to speak it but we are as banana as you can get, no matter which part of the world we may live in.

They DO, however, own stacks of workbooks, but I can’t say I have the time or the inclination to sit down with them to complete ALL the pages. So they sit pretty and gather a bit of dust.

So, an A- grade is bad. ( yeah, I do remember those days, when I was too afraid to show my Chinese mother my report card for any subjects below 90%. She wouldn’t BEAT me (not like some “Beat- Beat trigger happy” Chinese families I know), but the look of sheer disappointment that she gave me was enough to make me cower, in shame. But like you, I know she only wanted me to aim for the best and be the best, so I tried. I always did my best in what I loved to do- reading, writing, creating poetry, even completing a Masters in English Literature because kooky me loves literature. So do I blame my mother for not being Tiger enough? Perhaps not. But I still sometimes recoil from the sound of her sighing disappointment when I told her I was quitting private banking after 3 years for TEACHING. No, no, no Chinese mother in her right mind would like that.

Once, when I was about 8, I actually got into a playground fight. I wasn’t in it to begin with, but seeing two other girls head butting each other seemed like a cool thing, so I joined in, then word got around, from school mates to mums to ‘bas sekolah’ drivers to my CHINESE mother’s ears and boy, did I get into trouble!
I wasn’t even asked how I landed in the ‘fight’ that wasn’t even mine in the first place. I wasn’t given any chances to explain myself- for you know that, in Chinese household, the child is not allowed to speak because Confucius kind of said so. Anyway, I had to kneel for an hour against a wall and asked to repent for my silly behaviour. Then I was sent to bed. Without my dinner.

I learnt never to mess with my Chinese mother.

31 years later, now a mum of 3 myself, and a career mother to boot, I vowed not to be a Chinese mother myself. I vowed to be the coolest, hippest mum who would be able to tell that Justin Bieber isn’t a girl.

But stereotypes are there for a reason. And sometimes, no matter how concrete that vow to yourself is, it ain’t gonna change the fact that you DO become your mother. And in many ways, I have.

The Chinese mother methods/styles/ways of saying you can do better, the smacking, the sharp telling-offs, the 'do your Singapore Maths', the standing in the corner, the eat your broccoli bit, the don't leave any rice on your plate threat...

But above and beyond that, there is plenty of love, cuddles, bonding, scrapbooking together, uncountable precious, family holidays, plenty of treats & themed birthday parties, even a baby pedicure or two, a little TV down-time and lots of lovely quiet chats and family prayers and the sheer hard work pulling it all together.

Sleepovers? Yes, till they reach the magical age of 12. Then, I know for a fact that ‘sleepovers’ is just teenspeak for ‘dangerous binge drinking sessions’ so no way, Jose.

No Facebook, and no iphones, yet too.

I am sure there is that little bit of a Chinese mother in all of us!

But remember, not all of us are as privileged to be Chinese Yale law professors with daughters who play solo recitals at Carnegie Hall. For me, I’ll be plenty happy if my three children grow up to be well-balanced, confident, happy individuals and will thrive as tough-cookie global citizens! I don’t know how that might work out. No. 2 already told me that if she doesn’t ‘make it’ as an architect, she will become an actress.

Thanks for your time.

Now, I’m off to google-stalk a certain Hollywood actor that I am currently fancying- oh, am so indiscreet, and am such a bad influence to my own children. So, sue me.

Sincerely,
R

PS. You'll be pleased to know that I love my hip and sexy sixty-something Chinese mother to bits, for along the way, she has mellowed so much, she even watches American Idol, thinks Zac Efron is 'cute' plus she feeds my kids sweet treats!