Everyone's been asking me to weigh in on this new book "Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother" by Yale law professor, Amy Chau. If you haven't heard the buzz, you can read the original short article she wrote for the Wall Street Journal claiming traditional "Chinese Parenting" is superior to "Western Parenting" that started all the subsequent media frenzy.
Amy claims that "traditional Chinese parenting" is why Asian kids actually live up their stereotype of being musical prodigies who excel in math and sciences, who win all the awards and take all the top positions. In Amy's words, this parenting method results in producing children that are "successful".
What Amy fails to report, is the number of students who commit suicide when they receive a grade less than a A+, leaving notes behind to apologize for disgracing the family with their poor performance. Anxiety, depression, isolation and fear are too heavy a price to pay for this measurement of "life success".
We have three decades of research on parenting styles and the type described by Amy would be classified as "Autocratic". We know definitively the best life outcomes from a psychological wellness, resiliency, and life satisfaction perspective are achieved through "Democratic" parenting practices. If Ms Chau is wagging her finger at Western Parenting its because she does have a valid point that we seem resistant to hearing: culturally speaking, this generation of parents is predominately raising children in the "Permissive" style of parenting.
Permissive parenting creates equally as severe outcomes for children as neglectful parenting. So while I certainly don't endorse the extreme methods Amy Chau espouses, I think we needed the wake up call as a nation to realize we have gone just as far to the opposite end of the continuum from Amy, and realize that our current parenting practices are actually just as extreme and warped.
If you want to learn how to be a democratic parent, sign up for my upcoming Parenting Bootcamp weekend Feb 12 and 13, 2011. Believe me - its not intuitive, and yet its easy to learn and apply immediately.
This doesn't change the validity of your points, but I think you and your readers will be interested to know that the article in the Wall Street Journal was a misrepresentation of Amy Chua's book, which is apparently not a parenting manual but more a memoir of being raised by, and then becoming, a "Chinese mother". There's a more nuanced article about the book here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/13/apop011311.DTL
It seems like it will be an interesting insight into a particular parenting philosophy - and how that philosophy breaks down in our more democratic society. I'm planning to read it.
Posted by: Amy Brown | January 22, 2011 at 11:33 AM