Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Another thing at issue here is the double standard that a friend pointed out to me as we were watching Chua's Colbert Interview:

When a wealthy, married, Ivy-educated mother calls her daughter garbage, threatens to burn her toys, and denies her use of the bathroom because she won't practice piano, she starts a national debate on parenting, gets invited onto talk shows, and is called "dedicated" and a "tiger mom."

When a single, high school dropout, welfare-recipient mother screams at her daughter, calls her garbage, threatens to burn her toys, and denies her use of the bathroom because she won't stop crying at Walmart, she is met with disapproving stares from passers-by, is called a failure as a parent, and quite possibly receives a visit from Child Protective Services.

I think the key here is that the motivation is different.  One may argue that the former is doing it for the sake of her child, while the latter is just plain abusing her.  Of course I disapprove of both, but the key difference doesn't exactly make it a double standard.  But yes, I think it is a good idea to think about the difference between the passive parent and the overbearing one - a balance is idea here, but is the overbearing parent more cruel than the one who doesn't care what their kid does?

[milhouse24]

She just wants her children to pay for her retirement

[Free Palestine]

Another thing at issue here is the double standard that a friend pointed out to me as we were watching Chua's Colbert Interview:

When a wealthy, married, Ivy-educated mother calls her daughter garbage, threatens to burn her toys, and denies her use of the bathroom because she won't practice piano, she starts a national debate on parenting, gets invited onto talk shows, and is called "dedicated" and a "tiger mom."

When a single, high school dropout, welfare-recipient mother screams at her daughter, calls her garbage, threatens to burn her toys, and denies her use of the bathroom because she won't stop crying at Walmart, she is met with disapproving stares from passers-by, is called a failure as a parent, and quite possibly receives a visit from Child Protective Services.

I think the key here is that the motivation is different.  One may argue that the former is doing it for the sake of her child, while the latter is just plain abusing her.  Of course I disapprove of both, but the key difference doesn't exactly make it a double standard.  But yes, I think it is a good idea to think about the difference between the passive parent and the overbearing one - a balance is idea here, but is the overbearing parent more cruel than the one who doesn't care what their kid does?

They're still doing the same thing.  It screws up the child in the exact same way, regardless of intent.

[John Dibble]

Here's an article from someone who was raised by a "Tiger Mother" and their opinion:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/opinion/29iht-edyu29.html

The most important bit in my opinion:

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[Хahar 🤔]

To me, what would be interesting is a comparison of Asian achievement across different populations of Asian-Americans.  For a school like Xahar's, where everyone's Asian, there is presumably a wide variation in possible outcomes, and wider, I think, than just a simple linear variation-to-population correlation would suggest.  Research indicates that race/ethnicity are some of the leading factors in determining the members of one's social network (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001), so Asian-Americans in such schools would have a large variety of potential friends to choose from, and therefore would find it easier to fall in with the "bad crowd", should they so desire.  In a school like mine, where Asians were comparatively rare, Asians were "forced" to spend time with other Asians, making being able to join the "bad crowd" (predominantly African-American and white) much less likely.  In a school like FallenMorgan's, where apparently Asians did not exist (or else he wouldn't be saying such ridiculous statements as all people who would be raised by such parents would turn out screwed up), any lone Asian would be "forced" to make friends with the ethnicities around them, so the prediction would be for more variation once more.

Late response, but this is very perceptive. The "bad crowd", as it were, is at my school just as Asian as all the other crowds (albeit notably lacking in Indians).

[Mexino Vote]

Amy Chua's heart is in the correct place. Although some of her thinking....is odd to say the least.

[Platypus]

I went to an academically exceptional school with a high East Asian percentage, and also a significant number of South Asians.

I will never, ever, ever be a 'Chinese mother' (well, obviously, but you know my meaning) after seeing some of those kids. Yes, they can do well in maths, but the argument that they're happier because of it is absolutely false - not only were many who had parents as strict as Amy Chua claims to be about a decade behind their peers socially, but they are also incompetent in other crucial areas, from relationships to fitness to job retention.

Not every East Asian was like this, of course. And not all kids who were 'off' were East Asian. But there was a trend.

Coincidentally, the most well-rounded kids, based on ethnicity, were the Sri Lankans. There parents largely focused on involvement, not homework. Almost all of the Sri Lankans at school were on at least two sports teams, many were heavily involved in the debating or Environmental or Manga clubs, and they also had very high success rates academically. And of all the groups at my school, the Sri Lankans did the best at uni and now have the best jobs - both Tamil and Sinhalese. In my experience, the blend was best met by parents who were kind, caring and firm only in that their kids did something beyond their academics, even if it was heading into the bush to look at Snakes. I think that's the secret to successful kids - getting them to experience everything in the world, not just textbooks and the piano (although those don't hurt, as part of their education )

[Platypus]

I should also note that I'm a lazy middle-class white kid who still hasn't finished his degree, and my parents did take me camping, make my play sports, encourage me to take part in plays and ensure I read the newspaper back to front on Sundays.

[Gustaf]

Here's an article from someone who was raised by a "Tiger Mother" and their opinion:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/opinion/29iht-edyu29.html

The most important bit in my opinion:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, a freelance writer published in the New York Times obviously turned out to be a socially inept, insecure and scarred individual. Her desperate sense of inadequacy really shines through the text.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Here's an article from someone who was raised by a "Tiger Mother" and their opinion:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/opinion/29iht-edyu29.html

The most important bit in my opinion:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, a freelance writer published in the New York Times obviously turned out to be a socially inept, insecure and scarred individual. Her desperate sense of inadequacy really shines through the text.

Many people who are highly successful in their careers are also insecure and anxious. The emotional scars inflicted by Chua's parenting style may be covered up, but deep down they are still there. And there are other costs: a mother like Chua could very well kill a child's love of music, reading, and academics by force-feeding them to her. Imagine cringing every time you heard the work of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, or Handel. Imagine viewing reading as a chore. When you get down to it, Amy Chua's parenting style really isn't that different from Joe Jackson's, and despite the heights of success that his son Michael achieved, nobody would ever claim that Michael Jackson was a happy, well-adjusted individual.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I´m bumping this in anticipation of a response to my earlier posts... (I´m optimistic I know)

[Gustaf]

Here's an article from someone who was raised by a "Tiger Mother" and their opinion:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/opinion/29iht-edyu29.html

The most important bit in my opinion:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, a freelance writer published in the New York Times obviously turned out to be a socially inept, insecure and scarred individual. Her desperate sense of inadequacy really shines through the text.

Many people who are highly successful in their careers are also insecure and anxious. The emotional scars inflicted by Chua's parenting style may be covered up, but deep down they are still there. And there are other costs: a mother like Chua could very well kill a child's love of music, reading, and academics by force-feeding them to her. Imagine cringing every time you heard the work of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, or Handel. Imagine viewing reading as a chore. When you get down to it, Amy Chua's parenting style really isn't that different from Joe Jackson's, and despite the heights of success that his son Michael achieved, nobody would ever claim that Michael Jackson was a happy, well-adjusted individual.

All those Western kids sure do love their classical music, that's true.

-------------------

Anyway, if I interpret the liberal argument here correctly, you're basically all saying that it would be much better for these kids to grow up in the white middle-class. I'm sure they would agree, but I think you might be missing the point.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Here's an article from someone who was raised by a "Tiger Mother" and their opinion:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/opinion/29iht-edyu29.html

The most important bit in my opinion:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, a freelance writer published in the New York Times obviously turned out to be a socially inept, insecure and scarred individual. Her desperate sense of inadequacy really shines through the text.

Many people who are highly successful in their careers are also insecure and anxious. The emotional scars inflicted by Chua's parenting style may be covered up, but deep down they are still there. And there are other costs: a mother like Chua could very well kill a child's love of music, reading, and academics by force-feeding them to her. Imagine cringing every time you heard the work of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, or Handel. Imagine viewing reading as a chore. When you get down to it, Amy Chua's parenting style really isn't that different from Joe Jackson's, and despite the heights of success that his son Michael achieved, nobody would ever claim that Michael Jackson was a happy, well-adjusted individual.

All those Western kids sure do love their classical music, that's true.

-------------------

Anyway, if I interpret the liberal argument here correctly, you're basically all saying that it would be much better for these kids to grow up in the white middle-class. I'm sure they would agree, but I think you might be missing the point.

To be sure, the "white middle class" method of parenting has its drawbacks, but there is a happy medium to be achieved. There are white parents who drive their children every bit as hard as Chua does. I found her disdain for theater to be somewhat ironic, given that she employs many of the same tactics that stage parents do to drive their children.

Furthermore, Chua's style of parenting is increasingly viewed as obsolete in China itself! A recent bestseller in China, A Good Mother Is Better than a Good Teacher, advises parents to listen to their children, not yell at them, and basically to not be a tiger mother. The emphasis on academics and rote memorization in East Asian culture is a holdover from a time when success on a single test, the Confucian Civil Service Exam, would determine one's fortunes for their entire life. This was obviously an improvement over the system that existed before, but no modern society really works that way, not even China.

[Gustaf]

Here's an article from someone who was raised by a "Tiger Mother" and their opinion:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/opinion/29iht-edyu29.html

The most important bit in my opinion:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, a freelance writer published in the New York Times obviously turned out to be a socially inept, insecure and scarred individual. Her desperate sense of inadequacy really shines through the text.

Many people who are highly successful in their careers are also insecure and anxious. The emotional scars inflicted by Chua's parenting style may be covered up, but deep down they are still there. And there are other costs: a mother like Chua could very well kill a child's love of music, reading, and academics by force-feeding them to her. Imagine cringing every time you heard the work of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, or Handel. Imagine viewing reading as a chore. When you get down to it, Amy Chua's parenting style really isn't that different from Joe Jackson's, and despite the heights of success that his son Michael achieved, nobody would ever claim that Michael Jackson was a happy, well-adjusted individual.

All those Western kids sure do love their classical music, that's true.

-------------------

Anyway, if I interpret the liberal argument here correctly, you're basically all saying that it would be much better for these kids to grow up in the white middle-class. I'm sure they would agree, but I think you might be missing the point.

To be sure, the "white middle class" method of parenting has its drawbacks, but there is a happy medium to be achieved. There are white parents who drive their children every bit as hard as Chua does. I found her disdain for theater to be somewhat ironic, given that she employs many of the same tactics that stage parents do to drive their children.

Furthermore, Chua's style of parenting is increasingly viewed as obsolete in China itself! A recent bestseller in China, A Good Mother Is Better than a Good Teacher, advises parents to listen to their children, not yell at them, and basically to not be a tiger mother. The emphasis on academics and rote memorization in East Asian culture is a holdover from a time when success on a single test, the Confucian Civil Service Exam, would determine one's fortunes for their entire life. This was obviously an improvement over the system that existed before, but no modern society really works that way, not even China.

You misunderstand me. I didn't say grow up with white middle-class upbringing. I said be white middle-class.

The argument seems to be that it is much better to flunk school and then find a job through your parents' contacts. Or fool around with amateur theatre while daddy brings home the bacon. I'm sure Asian kids would agree that this would be vastly more comfortable, but it isn't really an option for them.

And the liberal "do whatever you want and we will pay for it" style of parenting is also falling out of favour in the West. Hopefully we will get to a reasonable middle-ground. I'm all for that. After all, I'm not the one saying Chinese mothers are evil monsters and all Chinese people are socially handicapped robots.

[ilikeverin]

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But "intelligence" is such a vague and meaningless concept that seems to me that ´studying´ is a useless exercise which may actually do more harm than good (see below).

Well, a lot of things are "vague and meaningless" if you really take the time to understand what we know and what we don't know about them.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't study them.

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Oh poor naive Verin, unaware that first thing which happens to new ´knowledge´(the inverted commas are to indicate that this knowledge doesn´t have to be true. See the history of psycharity) is that it will be abused.
[/quote]

Sure, sure, but isn't it better to "know thy enemy", so to speak?  I mean, someone's going to do the studies, no matter how hard you try to resist them happening.  Better to have twin studies now than to have, I don't know, rogue scientists stealing babies and raising them in crazy ways in the future.  (I mean, some crazy comparative zoologists randomly ran off with monkeys and tried to raise them as humans in the 50s )

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I doubt you'll find many cognitive scientists who would be happy to see their research used for such purposes.

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Define "crime".
[/quote]

That's different from study to study, but many that look at "crime" usually are looking at convictions for violent crimes (a term which is loose and weird, I know!  That's governments' faults, not psychologists').  Centerwall and Robinette (1989) looked at dishonorable discharges from the military.  Some give the parents of the study participants checklists (or give the participants themselves checklists) which are like "how often does [child] manifest the following traits: ...".  Those are obviously rather more weak, and I don't like them very much.

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Well, yeah.  That was kind of the point.  The moral of the story I was trying to spin was that there isn't all that much we can do directly to reduce it, as "grown ups"/"parents".  We just have to hope.

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The opinions of politicians have to do with politics and folk notions of cause and will have never anything to do with science, however we define it. I will note though that the above seems to me the bleeding obvious. Like cognitive science for that matter it is full of "insights" that were not to me very insightful. In fact, it was mostly stuff I remembered reading in Goffman and the likes. Yeah, I have no idea why I mentioned that.
[/quote]

Suffice it to say, reaction to this article in this thread and in the wider world shows that the ideas of cognitive science, at least here, are not "bleeding obvious" to most people.

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In the world in which most people live, "Science" is more of culture or cultural association than a discipline. The issue is not really one of better research, it is of marketing. Perhaps of the ´science´ brand (which isn´t doing too well in the United States right now). Popular notions of these sort things remain a strange mix of Folk Freudianism, Television Psychology (which is related to one historically), pop Foucauldianism, "True Self" proponents, Self-Help, NLP and various other intellectual disaparate and often opposed ideas. To suggest that the public would just awake to a supposedly rational idea completely misunderstands the nature of the public (it is also the reason why the New Atheists ala Dawkins and the detestable Sam Harris will never escape their intellectual ghettos escape for the purposes of trolling).

Not that more public respect for science (whatever that is exactly) is necessarily a good thing. One only has to be reminded on the certainities of 19th Century science to understand this.
[/quote]

I don't think we disagree on this at all.  The public conception of psychology is staggeringly out-of-date and out of touch with the discipline as it is today.  Even if you detest us, you should know what you're detesting, and I compliment you for doing that   But it's not like my comments here are intended for "the public", really; they're intended for readers of this forum, who I hope are at least a little more knowledgeable than the general member of "the public" (and who might be convinced to my point of view).

What I do think cognitive scientists can help the public on is if we engage on certain, small issues at a time.  Hence bringing up "Baby Einstein" and such time wasters.  While we will be unlikely to persuade the general public that parents aren't all that important to development of personality, I hope we'd be able to convince parents that there's no evidence whatsoever supporting the evidence of doing "brain stimulating activities" with kids before an age that most everyone would probably find at least a little rational... say, with kids younger than 1 or 2.

As an example of such a phenomenon that has already born fruit, check out anything from Elizabeth Loftus and allies in the early 1990s concerning "repressed memories"/"recovered memories".  Loftus, and other memory researchers, launched a counteroffensive to the ridiculous charlatans who claimed to be able to help young women "recover" memories of horrible abuse at the hands of their parents, which has been largely successful.  How often do you hear about "repressed memories" these days?  Very, very rarely, I'd say, thanks to Loftus's (and others') extensive studies of how false memories can be formed and retained, which cast much of the testimony of those with "repressed memories" into doubt.

I mean, it hasn't been entirely successful.  When Hillary Clinton talked about being shot at on the way down to Bosnia, it was probably an honest mistake, a false memory, rather than a TOTAL LIE OMGZ.  At the very least, she should've been given the benefit of the doubt.  Instead, the media completely freaked out and questioned her integrity, and everyone said it was impossible she just misremembered.  But, eh

[ilikeverin]

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How the hell can you distinguish between "home" and "unique" enviornments. It´s completely arbitrary.

No.  Studies of heritability/"home environment"/"unique environment" are generally the result of three different types of study:

• The twin study: Compare identical twins reared apart versus identical twins raised together.  Identical twins reared apart share 100% of their genes, 0% of their shared environment, and 0% of their unique environment.  Identical twins reared together share 100% of their shared environment, but are otherwise the same.
• The "other" twin study: Compare identical twins raised together versus fraternal twins raised together.  The identical twins share 100% of their genes, 100% of their shared environment, and 0% of their unique environment.  Fraternal twins have the last two but not the first one; they share 50% of their genes.
• The adoption study: Compare adopted siblings raised together to biological siblings raised together.  Adoptees only share their shared environment; biological siblings, obviously, share 50% of their genetics.

Finding out what proportion of the variance in traits is the result of what factor is a matter of statistics.  That's why the definitions are fuzzy; the proportion of variance for each one is calculated based off regression coefficients.  Think of it this way: "heritability" reflects the similarity that exists to a greater extent for identical twins than fraternal ones and between biological siblings than adopted ones; "shared environment" reflects the similarity that exists to a greater extent for identical twins reared together than identical twins reared apart; and "unique environment" is all the other variation between people.

I know it's confusing, and weird, and I'm probably not doing a good job of explaining it, but, yeah.

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Which is completely unmeasurable.
[/quote]

(See also: correlations above.  "Environment" is just 1-"heritability".)

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That only shows how much intellectual waste there is in American academica.

I should add here as a final remark: Dividing up and listing people regardless of purpose strikes me as fundamentally wrong when done by "experts" of any type. The profileration of labels in the field of American psycharity is incredibly damaging socially to kids and society (Do you want me to go on a rant against this?) to take one obvious example. This is, in effect, my essential problem with all IQ reearch an alot of what passes for psychological research especially in America. Not to mention that the form that forms these takes are profoundly cultural and as intellectually coherent as the ´folk psychology´I listed above but with university research monies (Don´t get started on the "science of happiness" bulcaca) and often with powerful special interests behind it. One only has to study history or for that matter, look around you to understand that. (I get really emotional and angry about this far more than I should be).
[/quote]

We all have our own ways of labeling people.  Some are just more systematic about it than others

I'm not the person to have the debate on psychopathology with, though; clinical psych isn't my area of expertise at all.  Child development just happens to be a particular interest for me.  And I only used IQ as an example.

[Gustaf]

So, I actually read the damn book, on an impulse. It was interesting and as someone pointed out here, a lot more nuanced than the articles makes it seem. And of course, then, a lot, lot more nuanced than the posters on here.

And it certainly doesn't seem as if the kids got their characters ruined or whatever.

As an aside to Al, it also notes that there are many wildly different styles of parenting in the West and even goes so far as to imply that the working-class is more like the Chinese when it comes to raising children. So there you go.

[opebo]

it... even goes so far as to imply that the working-class is more like the Chinese when it comes to raising children. So there you go.

Well that's odd and kind of refutes the claim since working class children usually 'fail'.

[Gustaf]

it... even goes so far as to imply that the working-class is more like the Chinese when it comes to raising children. So there you go.

Well that's odd and kind of refutes the claim since working class children usually 'fail'.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to challenge your classist worldview.

Back when meritocracy was introduced a lot of working class people worked their way up. I know the thought is unsettling to you, but in Thailand I guess you won't have to confront it as much, since the upstarts get slaughtered in the streets by the established elite there.