Children and terrorists are not to be negotiated with

[pktechgirlbackup]

So if poor/working class parents practice "natural growth" and middle class parents practice "concerted cultivation", what do Chinese mothers practice? I'm going to go with "forcing the motherfucking flower to bloom." Excerpt, about a woman's daughter's failure to play a fairly difficult piano piece at age 7:

Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic....

I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.

This apparently isn't a parody, but I'm not convinced it's not a deliberate exaggeration to drum up publicity for her book, especially since her parents were Philipino by nationality, she was born in the US, and she married a white (Jewish?) man. The attempt worked, I'm on the library waiting list for it now. I'm withhold comment on her actual parenting style until then, but I do want to comment on this:

, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear, but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.

By contrast, I don't think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents. My husband, Jed, actually has the opposite view. "Children don't choose their parents," he once said to me. "They don't even choose to be born. It's parents who foist life on their kids, so it's the parents' responsibility to provide for them. Kids don't owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids." This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.

Her husband could be quoting me, because I've said the exact same thing several times. And yes, it is a bum deal for the parents, which is why I fully support a wide variety of birth control methods. But that's not actually a counterargument to "this was a result of your choice, not theirs." There's a special level of hell for someone who makes herself miserable to make you miserable and then expects you to pay her back for it later on. Yes, good parenting involves a certain amount of things that incidentally make your children miserable, and they will in turn make you miserable for that, but there is something sinister about measuring your success as a parent by how miserable you made them, and then translating that back into them owing you. If you don't like the deal- and I'm not particularly fond of it myself- don't have kids.

Comments

[scythe-of-time.livejournal.com]

Sigh... That very article was brought up in Nolan's toddler class on Monday, amidst a "parent ed" discussion on overscheduling and time management. All of the mothers seemed concerned that the Chinese mother was mean due to her pushing the kid towards academic success rather than wanting the kid to have his/her own choices and, the ultimate goal, to be happy. We then discussed how to balance swimming lessons with art lessons with cooking classes at the YCMA (really! this was a recommendation!) with that ever elusive "me time."

Of course the whole time I was thinking, Omfg, this is all so middle class... I'm middle class now, holy shit, which totally detracts from the point of your post, but made me think of you. :)

There is no real ending to this comment.

[pktechgirl.livejournal.com]

Honestly, assuming an elementary school student with minimal homework and that you mean 1x/week swim lessons and not swim team, that schedule seems light to me. I mean, it's what, three hours a week,? Even accounting for transport, prep, and cool down periods, it's six hours, tops, since none of those activities require additional time at home. The only reason I think a high schooler couldn't do it is that by that point most people have either dropped an activity or are into it enough to spend more than an hour a week on it.