“Western parents are some wimps and mollycoddlers, and their children spend too much time playing and being on the computer and the result of this is weakness. They can learn from the Asian "tiger mothers,"” writes a tiger mother who wrote one of the most controversial book in the United States. The tiger mother Chua's book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” has immediately become a bestseller. In the book Chua writes that Chinese children compared to American children tend to be more successful because they have “tiger mothers”, while American children have 'kitty-cat' or even worse. Amy Chua is a Chinese-American professor at Yale University and in the book she also accuses American parents to be some slackers, and she explains why 'tiger parents' - Asian parents - is so superior.
Chua’s daughters, Sophia and Louisa, has never been allowed to watch television, play video games, sleep with their friends or take part in theatrical performances at their school. Every day they had to spend hours practicing the piano or violin and it was expected of them that they should be the very best in every subject except physical education and drama.
According to Chua, Chinese mothers think that when their children have passed the toddler age, they clearly have to know what will happen if they do not live up to their parents expectations. “Chinese mothers allow themselves to make demands and to have expectations of their children in a lot larger scale than American parents” claims Chua.
In most American families parenting is a lot different than Chinese and Asian parenting. Here parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their passions, support their choices, offer positive support and a stimulating...
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...attending in a theatrical performance at school is about contributing to the community. If talented children stayed away, the whole performance's quality and therefore the other participants and the audience experience would drop. And all children whose parents prevented them from participating missed the opportunity to develop social skills that are just as important, rewarding and challenging to master as those Chua describes in her book.
To summarize tiger mothers and Americans are very different and it is hard to find similarities and maybe there are not any, because even though tiger mothers wish that their children are happy there is still this dispute that happiness will only come if you are successful. Tigers live solitary lives and if we are all to act like tigers and only think of our own interests and succes, we are heading towards a collective disaster.
Like the name of this article suggests, the writer's main purpose is to persuade the audience to make them believe that Chinese mothers are indeed superior. To support her argument she uses different methods to appeal to her audience's favor: she uses statistics of researches about Chinese mothers and Western mothers opinions, opinions that are mostly about how parents should or should not do when they are raising their children. She also uses passages of her life as a Chinese mother to support her argument. Also, she points out a few characteristics of western parents that are completely opposite to how a Chinese mother raises their children, which made her argument stronger. Nevertheless, there were some fallacies in her logic. One of her main fallacies is what we call "Hasty Generalization".
Amy Chua utilizes evidence to verify that Western parenting practice is wrong and not as effective as Chinese parenting practice. In her article, Chua comments, “Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable-even legally actionable-to Westerners, “Hey fatty-lose some weight.” By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue” (Chua 54). She also gives her observation as evidence to convince Westerners treat their kid wrongly. She adds her observation in her article “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” “I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her “beautiful and incredibly competent.” She later told me that made her feel like garbage” (Chua 54). Brooks, in opposite, does not fight against to prove Chinese parenting techniques are completely wrong. However, he just want to give evidence so that Chua and Chinese, in common, understand Western parenting practices are good in some ways. In Brooks’ article, he clears, “So I’m not against the way Chua pushes her daughters” (Brooks 59). Furthermore, David Brooks writes in his article “I wish she recognized that in some important ways the school cafeteria is more intellectually demanding than the library” (Brooks
The study conducted by Li, Costanzo and Putallaz examined the relationship between parenting styles, socialization goals and social-emotional adjustment amid Chinese and European American young adults. The article states that European American parents emphasize self-development goals in their children more so than Chinese parents as Western culture is more individualistic than collectivistic (Li, Costanzo & Putall...
“In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that ‘stressing academic success is not good for children’ or that ‘parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.’ By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be ‘the best’ students, that ‘academic achievement reflects successful parenting,’ and that if children did not excel at school then there was ‘a problem’ and parents ‘were not doing their job.’ … Chinese parents spend approximately ten times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams” (Chua 5). Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua is an engulfing novel which clearly distinguishes the difference between Western style of parenting and the Chinese style of parenting. The quote stated above shows some of the statistics that we completed to write this book. The story is a breathless and emotional memoir of Amy Chua, consisting mostly her two daughters and husband. While the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother appears to be about the battle between a parent and a child and the relationship they share, the author, Amy Chua, has actually implied that it is important for the children to start developing skills early on to benefit in the future as well as be successful in their lives.
Second-generation Chinese Americans are faced with a special challenge. Their parents have endured the struggle to come to this coun...
One type of effect the Chinese mothers’ expectations has in their relationship with their “Americanized” daughter is negative since the mothers are unable to achieve anything. An-Mei Hsu expects her daughter to listen and obey as the young ones do in Chinese culture, but instead receives a rebellious and stubborn daughter, “‘You only have to listen to me.’ And I cried, ‘But Old Mr. Chou listens to you too.’ More than thirty years later, my mother was still trying to make me listen’” (186-187). Instead of the circumstances improving, the mother is never able to achieve anything; her forcing and pushing her daughter to the Chinese culture goes to a waste. They are both similar in this sense because both are stubborn; the daughter learns to be stubborn through American culture and wants to keep herself the way she is, whereas the mother wants to remove this teaching from American culture and does not give u...
To begin with, while Western parents ' primary concern is their children 's self-esteem, Chinese parents plainly assume their children are strong. These opposite mindsets lead to different behaviors. For instance, when a child 's grades are low, Western parents will challenge the educational system. In contrast, Chinese parents will make
The American daughters, on the other hand, the other half of the inseparable pair, tell stories of how their mothers tradition, culture, and beliefs, helped them come to many realizations about themselves. These realizations are both positive and negative. Jing-Mei Woo tells the story of how her mother wanted her to be the next Shirley Temple. "My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant...You could become instantly famous.
There are big differences in how Chinese mothers act towards their children compared to Western mothers including the expression of feelings and approval, the worth of their children, and what is best for them. Amy Chua (2011) incorporates her own personal experiences of being a Chinese mother within her article and compares that to what she witnesses in America.
In “Two Kinds”, the mother is constantly demanding respect from her daughter. It reminded me of when a friend of mine said, “I’m my own Chinese mother” while she was preparing for finals week. Is it culturally understood that Chinese mothers are strict? At the end of the story, the mother, very upset, demands:
The type of parenting style used by parents may be determined by the parent’s own cultural heritage. As immigrants move to a new country, it will take time to learn the new culture and to be accustomed to their ways. Therefore, it would not be surprising if first generation immigrant parents place the hardest strain on their children. Since they have not yet been accustomed to American culture, they will be more likely to adhere to their traditional ways. Immigrants who have been in the country longer may have slowly compromised traditional views with new
The universality versus cultural specificity debate both have aspects that make sense and can be applied to childhood development. On one side, supporters of the argument for the universality of parenting suggest that certain types of parenting styles will produce the same child development outcomes in different cultures. On the other hand, the argument for cultural specificity states that different parenting practices vary from culture to culture, and that culture ultimately determines the outcomes of child development. Each culture has specific styles of parenting that instill values on children particular to that culture. Each individual has characteristics of what their parents taught them, which gives every individual their own personality. Both sides present logical information on the cultural impacts of parenting on child development outcomes.
However, she never considers the long term effects that Western style parenting has that is superior to her tiger mom parenting style. "Western parents seem much more concerned about their children’s psyches, their self-esteem, whereas tough immigrant parents assume strength rather than fragility in their children and therefore behave completely differently” (Luscombe). The Chinese parents ' lack of consideration for their children 's feelings put their future well being at risk. In fact, "suicide in China accounts for 26% of all suicides worldwide" (WHO). This astonishing fact causes people to raise eyebrows towards the long term effects that Chinese parenting causes. It gives children low self-esteem and depression that domino effect out of control as they grow
In “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” by Amy Chua, she argues that the Chinese are the most successful doing this. Through a harsh parenting method with continuous punishment and unmatched motivation, Chinese children prove to be one of the more successful races of children. The Chinese believe that they know what is best for their children, and that
“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” is an excerpt from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, a Yale Law professor. In this excerpt the author explains why Chinese children tend to be more successful in life and expresses her dislike towards Western parenting. The first idea Chua explains is a list of activities her daughters are allowed to do and not do in order to focus solely on academic progress. Second, the author demonstrates the contrast in mindset between Chinese mothers and Western mothers by explaining how Chinese mothers feel differently than Western mothers in regards to academic success and learning. Furthermore, she describes how Chinese mothers can demand things from their children. Finally, they can also say