The Tiger Mother Wastes Her Breath

[n2doc]

By KJ Dell'Antonia

"As every American knows, we have serious child-rearing problems in this country." It probably won't surprise you to learn that those are the words of Tiger Mother Amy Chua. It may surprise you even less to hear that in an op-ed for USA Today, "Tiger Mom: Here's how to reshape U.S. education," Chua has resumed her argument that Americans are too soft on our kids—but this time, she's grossly overshot her target. Is Chua really so ensconced in her Yale bubble that she can't see that the problems of her kids and their immediate peers are scarcely the problems facing the nation?

A poor showing on international student assessment tests. Too much time watching TV. High rates of substance abuse and teen pregnancy. Lack of self-discipline and focus. To Chua, those are all problems of similar magnitude, and all with apparently a single cause: poor parenting. She's ready with a solution: Combine Eastern and Western styles into a melting pot of methodology with "more structure when our children are little (and will still listen to us), followed by increasing self-direction in their teenage years."

That's decent parenting advice—for the middle-class parent with the kind of worries Chua is familiar with. And it allows Chua to defend herself and her parenting by demonstrating that in China, she's considered a laudable example of someone who's embraced just enough free-wheeling Western standards. But as a solution to the struggles of the U.S. education system, or even to the problems facing many of our nation's teens, Chua's argument isn't just innocuous. It's offensive, and it's the kind of pernicious rhetoric that feeds our national obsession with the idea that individual parents are solely responsible for the well-being and success of their children. It's true that America has a "child-rearing problem," but it's not in the lax standards of Chua's neighbors. It's in our national determination that if an individual parent doesn't have everything it takes to successfully rear a child, we would rather see that child fail than provide anything but a bare minimum of help.

Chua's daughters' cohort are doing fine. Those test scores Chua repeatedly cites are deceptive. China, for example, essentially hand-picks the kids who are measured, while the United States' lower ranking reflects our entire country, warty schools and all—as do Chua's stats on TV watching, substance abuse, and teen pregnancy. Do we really think poor parenting in New Haven is skewing those results? No way.

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http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/tiger-mother-wastes-her-breath

[patrice]

1. K&R

[rfranklin]

2. The same m.o. as Michele Rhee, fudge the statistics...

to support an ideology that is lacking in actual results.

[NewJeffCT]

3. As I said at the time

The Tiger Mom employed a Chinese nanny to help raise her children. Since I am married to a Chinese woman and also live in Connecticut, we've looked into a Chinese nanny in the past as well. It's not cheap - $1,300 to $1,500 per month, plus food & expenses. However, how many families can afford to spend that much - it could be $20,000/year or more with expenses? A decent daycare facility is cheaper. They were also able to afford years of piano & violin lessons. For two kids, that is two to four hours of lessons per week. Maybe $100 to $200 per week, or $5,000 to $10,000 per year for lessons. Then, you have the expense of buying the piano & the violins as well, which are not cheap instruments.

She had a ton of advantages that 90-95% of America could not afford.

[SheilaT]

7. Interesting. I've been wondering

how Tiger Mom could have a full time demanding job and still spend 16 hours a day, it seemed, monitoring her kids while they practiced piano and violin.

[NewJeffCT]

9. I had read a local article on her a while back

when the story first broke, which is how I knew about the nanny. It's also pretty common for Chinese grandparents to come over from China and live with their children to help raise the grandchildren for an extended period of time (my mother-in-law came over from China for a year to help us out) And, I know grandparents from India do similar, as we have several Indian families near where I live as well.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. The problem is that parents are not smart about raising their kids.

And they don't have the time to do it right when they both think that money will resolve everyone's problem. Money is important, but understanding your kid is more important. You need to balance out keeping up with his peer group, with making sure he or she doesn't fall behind due to some learning disability which your tigering will only make worse.

[patrice]

6. 1+ a gazillion! They take the advice of churches and churches ARE businesses. nt

[patrice]

5. Love this line:

It's true that America has a "child-rearing problem," but it's not in the lax standards of Chua's neighbors. It's in our national determination that if an individual parent doesn't have everything it takes to successfully rear a child, we would rather see that child fail than provide anything but a bare minimum of help.

Says it all right there, even if it is a case of bad parenting/lax standards, that child/those children are NOT the parents' property to screw up however they wish. SOMEONE has to tell the parents, "You're hurting this child" and the ones you'd assume should be responsible, churches, aren't appropriate for this task because they're SELLING something else, so it MUST fall to the schools and schools/TEACHERS need to be empowered to stand up for authentic STANDARDS.

[NewJeffCT]

8. That is the attitude of many Americans

and, it's why poverty in the US is much higher than it is in western Europe, Japan & Canada. (and, interestingly, if you take out students below the poverty line, the international test scores are outstanding for the US. The problem is, our poverty rate is higher (sometimes much higher) than other OECD countries, which drags our scores down to average or below average. Shouldn't we then try our best to eliminate poverty, and it would follow that those schools would then improve?)

[DonCoquixote]

10. on the contrary

many in China HATE chua because she claimed to speak for all Chinese, at a time when many Chinese are actually dumping the old fascist ideas.