An article called "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" appeared in the Wall Street Journal and is getting attention in the blogosphere. The author, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua, contends that stereotypical "Chinese mothers" who force their children to excel academically are the best mothers. Frankly, I feel like a victim of child abuse / neglect just from reading this article.
Chua shares about how she raises her daughters who were "never allowed to:
- attend a sleepover,
- have a playdate,
- be in a school play,
- complain about not being in a school play
- watch TV or play computer games
- choose their own extracurricular activities
- get any grade less than an A
- not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
- play any instrument other than the piano or violin
- not play the piano."
She writes "Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences." It seems that the methodology is to break your child's will, and insult them if necessary. In Chua's mind, that's okay, because the result is a child who excels in school and music. The example she gives "in favor of coercion" discusses relentlessly drilling her 7-year old daughter for a piano recital, threatening to give away her toys, and calling her "lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic." (When her husband suggested that this was "insulting" the girl, Chua's response was that she wasn't insulting her but "motivating her.") She won't let her leave the paino to go to the bathroom, she loses her voice yelling at her daughter, and "still there seemed to be only negative progress." (Somehow I'm not surprised.) Then suddenly her daughter can do it (angelic intervention?), followed by hugs, etc., and a perfect recital. For Chua, the results justify the means.
Yes, the little girl learned the piano piece. She also learned a pattern of relating that is based on coercion, degradation, love as a reward for compliance, and a compulsion to succeed. This groove is being dug deeper and deeper into her brain with each similar interaction. It is how she will raise her own children, and it will stymie all of her relationship so that love becomes equated with performance goals. She will have the tendency to find relationships that mimic this, where she is either the rejecting coercer or the rejected coerced. She will equate love with performing properly.
How Neuroscience Shows Us That This Form of Parenting Is Not "Superior"
Chua states that she learned her parenting model from her parents. She doesn't question it or look further because she values the results. She is completely blind to the emotional side of the equation. I am not a psychologist, but over the past few years I have been reading and studying extensively on the subjects of child development and psychology. I have also experienced therapy and am engaged in a spiritual path where my colleagues and I work with material from our early childhoods, and it is clear from our work that episodes like these leave devastating imprints on the psyche. Everything I read by experts in child and developmental psychology is counter to what Chua writes. While Chua is a law professor, she has absolutely no credentials in anything to do with child psychology or child development or education. Her only credential is the biological achievement of having borne a child. In the human species, bearing a child does not automatically make one a good parent.
Most recently in my studies I read the book A General Theory of Love – which should be required reading for every human being, and particularly all parents. Written by three psychiatrists, it is an easy-to-read, poetic and passionate rant about how the human race has strayed so far from understanding what we need as human beings to feel happy, loved and valuable, and to be able to relate in healthy ways. Our emotional needs are hard-wired in our limbic systems. As infants/children we need love and holding. We need parents who love us unconditionally and will spend one-on-one time with us. We need reflection from and dialogue with our parents. We need time to cultivate relationships as much as we need time spent drilling math exercises or practing violin. There is research behind this, from both animal and human studies.
Children who are driven to become performing automatons may excel academically, may play piano perfectly, but will they be able to have authentic, valuable, successful, dynamic relationships with their peers, with future romantic partners, with their own children? Will they be happy? Will they know who they are uniquely as individuals, their own preciousness?
One commentator on the Huffington Post, raised by Chinese parents under similar methodology, writes as an adult: "I was good at my job. But I had chronic hives. I couldn't sleep, and when I did I would wake up with fingernail imprints in the palms of my clenched hands. I couldn't get pregnant. I was 30, a success, but felt a failure."
There's much we as humans can learn about optimal parenting – as evidenced by all the unhappiness, malaise, and delinquency we see in young people and in ourselves. I sincerely hope that no parent takes Chua's advice to heart. There are compassionate and loving models out there that will guide us better and are substantiated by our increasing understanding of the human mind and soul.
I was stunned when I saw the "Tiger Mom" interviewed and wondered how socially comfortable her children are.
Part of success is an ability to get along with others. Often, children who have a personality-diminishing schedule placed on them don't develop the ability to play (the work of children) or socialize comfortably with age peers or those who are not authority figures.
Posted by: Dr Stephen E. Doyne | August 21, 2011 at 07:41 PM