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Rebuttal: Why "Lazy" Western Mothers Are Better
By
Jaya Saxena
Published Jan 15, 2011
Modified Jan 18, 2011
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By
Jaya Saxena
Published Jan 15, 2011
Modified Jan 18, 2011
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In the wake of the controversy surrounding Amy Chua's book excerpt that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week, there's been a heated debate over the merits and faults of both the strict parenting style of many immigrants and the touchy-feely stereotype of Western parenting. Here to argue in favor of letting your kids participate in school plays is Ayelet Waldman, a self-described "Jewish mother" who doesn't exactly strike us as the "Jewish mother" of guilt and Yiddish woe we initially pictured. She does, however, thank Chua for her book: "It seems to take a Chinese mother to force my Western kids to read the paper."
Waldman says her children have always been allowed to sleep over at friends' houses, participate in extracurricular activities and use the Internet. However, she insists she is no pushover when it comes to parenting; when her eldest daughter came home with five As and two non-As on her report card she expressed clear disappointment. However, instead of sitting down and doing endless practice tests, she says, "I fobbed that task off on a tutor, something I can afford to do because my children reside in the same privileged world as Ms. Chua's." She also turns Chua's refrain of expecting strength out of children on its head, recalling how her dyslexic daughter forced herself to read without her parents' pushing her to:
In her book, Ms. Chua tells a story of coercion that resulted in a certain kind of success with one of her daughters. Let me tell another kind of story. My Rosie is mildly dyslexic. By the time she was diagnosed, in second grade, she was lagging far behind her classmates. For years I forced her to spell words in the bathtub with foam letters, to do worksheets, to memorize phonemes and take practice tests. My hectoring succeeded only in making her miserable. Eventually, and totally out of character, she had even stopped loving school. She suffered from near-constant stomachaches and broke down in tears almost every day. At last we heard about a special intensive reading program that required students to spend four hours every day in a small room with an instructor, being drilled in letters, sight words and phonics. It sounded awful, but Rosie insisted on doing it. She loved books and stories. She wanted to read.
Every day when we picked her up, her face would be red with tears, her eyes hollow and exhausted. Every day we asked her if she wanted to quit. We begged her to quit. Neither her father nor I could stand the sight of her misery, her despair, the pain, psychic and physical, she seemed far too young to bear. But every day she refused. Every morning she rose stoically from her bed, collected her stuffies and snacks and the other talismans that she needed to make it through the hours, and trudged off, her little shoulders bent under a weight I longed to lift. Rosie has an incantation she murmurs when she's scared, when she's stuck at the top of a high jungle gym or about to present a current events report to her class. "Overcome your fears," she whispers to herself. I don't know where she learned it. Maybe from one of those television shows I shouldn't let her watch.
At the end of a grim and brutal month, Rosie learned to read. Not because we forced her to drill and practice and repeat, not because we dragged her kicking and screaming, or denied her food, or kept her from the using the bathroom, but because she forced herself.
Wouldn't that be nice if every child could be relied on to pressure themselves into success? The piece has only 151 comments right now (not the 2,500 Chua's piece ended up getting). On one side some commenters argue, "Fact are facts: Chinese moms are getting results and American moms are not," and "Her opinions certainly show a level of self absorption that may only be found in this 'Western' society. Doing things that are easiest for me don't always reflect what's best for my children." Others say, "Unconditional love is the best choice." Realistically, one commenter wrote, "Let’s focus on our own kids and our own method, read these articles for fun only (but remember they don’t represent any particular ethnic culture), and don’t emotionally fall into the marketing traps of the authors and WSJ." But Waldman's book isn't even on Amazon's top 100!
Meanwhile, if you thought Chinese mothers were bad, here's an argument why Chinese girlfriends are superior. And while it may be great to be a Chinese girlfriend—you can apparently get away with calling your boyfriend a "pig head" while making him carry your purse—it sounds like a nightmare for the boyfriend. For example, in a fight a "Chinese girlfriend is able to make it known to her boyfriend that he has done something to upset her, but she does not make him lose face by explaining exactly what it is he has done wrong. That he understands he was wrong is enough. Then, she gives him the chance to hōng 哄 her, or coax her into forgiving him. This way, she gives him the fun of a challenge, confidence in his coaxing abilities, and the pleasure of a successful re-wooing." Of course, this piece was actually a parody of Chua's original WSJ essay, so please nobody send out the PC police.
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amy chua
ayelet waldman
chinese girlfriend
chinese mother
jewish mother
western mother
Jaya Saxena
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