http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2011/04/more-stuff-amy-chua-doesnt-want-you-to.html
but since it was already very long, I just decided to put the following commentary on a separate blog post
1) But her daughter defended her
Chua's 18 year old daughter publicly defended her mom
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/why_love_my_strict_chinese_mom_uUvfmLcA5eteY0u2KXt7hM
But remember, her daughter is 18. At age 18, even though you're legally an adult in most US states, you are most likely dependent on your parents to pay your college tuition, provide you residence and many other things.
Yeah, at age 18, you can leave home, but it takes a lot of guts to do so, especially since you most likely aren't going to leave home since you most likely can't land a job that allow to pay all your expenses on your own. So unless you already got offers for a multi-million dollar contract from the sports or entertainment business, an 18 year old version of yourself is still dependent on their parents.
And if you're dependent on your parents, are you likely to tell them how you really feel about them? Chances are high the answer is No!
But when your kids are adults who are well established in their career, they're less dependent on you! At that point, be mentally prepared to hear them tell you how they truly feel about you!
In my case, it was only recently I told my dad in a letter how I truly felt about some of his errors in raising me! (Read it about in part 3 of "Why the US Latinos need their own version of Bill Cosby" at
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html#2307811647255007440)
Yeah, I mention some concerns in bits and pieces over the years. But in this letter that I sent pulled no punches, it was uncensored and minced no words.
(I offered the idea of meeting with a psychiatrist on this issue, he has yet to take that offer. I did see him this past Easter -- I'm sure he read the letter, but I didn't push the issue when I met with him. We were civil to each other though)
So yeah Amy Chua, your 18 year old daughter is still so dependent on you that she feels she has to publicly defend you! She's still scared of you!
But fear doesn't last forever! She might pull an Esmie Tseng, a Latrell Sprewell on you when she gets older and more ready to be defiant on you! She might write a true tell-all book on you to be showcased on various talk shows. Or she might pull an Eminem and make rap records using the same vicious insults on you that you did to her You ain't hear nothing from her yet! Not even close!
It's like a slogan I saw on myspace "I don't worry about revenge, because karma is a bigger b**** than I'll ever be". But I'll just say this ..... Karma is a bigger b***** than you are!
2) More greatest commentary hits on that nutcase Amy Chua
Some comments to the previously mentioned Grace Hwan Lynch editorial
http://letters.salon.com/mwt/feature/2011/01/14/asian_american_perspective_on_tiger_mom_open2011/view/?show=all
One other thing....
....What is the obsession with classical music instruments in many Asian-American communities? If you are going to train your child for success, how about something that has real relevance in today's society? It's like there is a sub-set of the population that still defines success by early 20th century standards - go to name brand schools, listen to opera, play the piano / violin, etc.... I fail to see how these things make you a smashing success. I know so many children of Asian-American immigrants who do all of these things successfully - and then they get to adulthood and have no idea what they really want to do and no particular training in anything useful.
—Helioscope
Before you start playing the race card on me for mentioning this comment, I do understand if many people feel that comment was too stereotypical on Asians. However, it did have a GREAT point! Chua and and other parents of her culture have an excessive obssession of making their kids the next Yo-Yo Ma! That's like many North American parents who are so obssessed with making their kids the next Kobe Bryant or the next Tom Brady! While there's nothing wrong with having some music and sports to a kid's life, the reality is MOST OF THOSE KIDS will NOT MAKE IT TO STARDOM!
If the kids grow up with parents who obssess about those things, and most of them will NOT make it to the big leagues, then they will NOT have any marketable skills for employment. They will spend their early adulthood lost and disillusioned! This is why kids need a balance. Yes, they might practice a music style or a sport, but they also need to spend time developing other skills as well!
And talking about parents and sports, read this one
Instead of Tiger Mom, Americans have Sports Dad
Our home-grown equivalent of the Tiger Mom is the Sports Dad, who's living out his failed dreams of sports stardom vicariously through his sons. He values athletic achievement over everything else in life, just like Tiger Mom values academic and musical achievement over everything else in life. He also can be just as destructive to his kids.
I knew several Sports Boys in middle and high school and run into them occasionally on my kids' sports teams. Sure, they have athletic success -- although most of them peaked in high school and never made an impact in college sports, let alone the pros. But these guys tend to be emotionally messed up and have bad relationships with their dads. Their sisters resent their dads for being hyper-focused on their golden brothers. Their un-athletic brothers have it worst, because Sports Dad tries to bully them into becoming star athletes, then gives up on them as failures when they're not.
Sports Dad and Tiger Mom embody the belief that if some is good, more is better, and extreme is best of all. The middle ground where you teach your kids to be disciplined and focused without bullying them or forcing them to become something they're not does not seem to enter into their thinking.
—Nancy Ott
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AMEN to that comment! My advise to parents whose kids who don't like sports, but you're still concerned about your kids fitness --- Get them a bike :) It's a fun way to get around, burns calories, and there's no pressure from coaches or teammates who are sore losers! Just don't pressure them into being Lance Armstrong!
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"Tough love"?
I am strongly against the uncompromising, insensitive parenting style that Amy Chua has proudly practised during her daughter's formative years, and which is euphemistically called "tough love". There is nothing loving about calling your child "garbage" and rejecting your child's handmade birthday card as "not good enough".
Amy Chua sounds like the neurotic, anxious, insecure, hyper-driven product of "tough love", and the real reason she has driven her little girls so relentlessly is because deep-down, Amy Chua does not feel good enough. So she has needed to mold her daughters into perfect little "doers", all in a neurotic bid to assuage her own feelings of inadequacy, her own shame. A wise and loving mother does not need to write books loudly justifying her mothering style. Unfortunately for Chua's daughters, unless their mother can be courageous enough to look beneath her self-righteous bravado and puffery, and connect with her repressed pain and grief about her own loveless and bleak childhood, she will keep on victimizing her daughters much the same way she was victimized by her own parents, subjecting her daughters to the same cruelty to which she was subjected. The most dangerous parent is the one who idealizes his/her own childhood and believes that he or she is better off for having been beaten, berated and humiliated as a child.
Too late, Amy Chua may realize that it was she who was far from being a "good enough" mother. By that time, her daughters will have grown up and will likely be struggling with a host of emotional problems. They will either blindly pass on their mother's cruelty to their own children, or they will spend a lifetime trying to heal from their emotionally abusive childhoods.
—Perplexed Reader
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My favorite comment was the one highlighted like this which was The most dangerous parent is the one who idealizes his/her own childhood and believes that he or she is better off for having been beaten, berated and humiliated as a child.
People seriously need to think things through! I'm tired of hearing negative, rude, abusive jerks saying stuff like "I was raised this way, and I came out OK!" because it's OBVIOUS to everyone around them, that THEY DIDN'T COME OUT OK! They are rude, pathetic people who lack self-awareness! They learned to be rude because their family was rude! So they think that's the best way to be, so they continue their BS tradition of verbally and physically abusing their kids!
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Friday, January 14, 2011 11:55 AM ET
jared2
Making your kid study violin and piano is not the same as appreciating music. If they appreciated music then we'd see more Chinese guitar players and drummers and horn players too.
But those instruments come with low social status. You have to really love music for itself in order to study those.
And I've been attending writing workshops in LA for the last decade. I can't recall seeing even one single Asian student in any of them.
The Asian population of LA is very high, and still not one Asian aspiring novelist in the biggest creative writing program in the region?
Same with the drama program. People complain about the lack of Asian actors, but everyone knows it's Mom, not racism, that is keeping them out of the competition.
—Silenced
Again, someone will pull out the race card! But look at the context --- Asian parents do more harm to their kids than "white racist society". Asian-American parents like Amy Chua who want to bully their kids into only being doctors, lawyers, engineers and classical musicians do serious harm to kids who have other legit interests! This nonsense is what keeps many Asians from trying out for Hollywood!
Silenced pointed out that LA got plenty Asians! In fact, Asian-Americans outnumber African-Americans in LA's general population! Yet Asians are outnumbered by African-Americans in the entertainment industry based in LA! It's not the fault of "white/Jewish super-powers" nor is the fault of "black entertainment moguls". It's the fault of Asian-American parents who are too controlling of their kids, not allowing their kids to take risks in pursuits of their interests!
Now another comment how Amy Chua is DANGEROUS to the image of Asian-Americans
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Friday, January 14, 2011 11:33 AM ET
This Bitch Gives Chinese Mothers A Bad Name
Sorry, but Chua is about as representative of Chinese motherhood as Joan Crawford is of American motherhood.
She's just a narcissistic, type-A sociopath more concerned with shallow trophy achievements than with her children's real inner growth and development.
But this isn't a Chinese thing, or even an immigrant thing.
It's an obnoxious, status-obsessed bitch thing.
Spare us from bitches like this and their horrible spawn!
—Unimpeachable Bastard
AMEN TO THAT!
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From a kid who rebelled against a Chua-like parent
My mom tried this shit with me.
So I smashed the guitar, rather than be forced to practice (seemingly endlessly) at something I didn't like.
I intentionally got kicked out of private school, rather than be forced to go somewhere I didn't want to go.
I took the classes, and majors, I wanted to, rather than submit to some preordained path to "success".
And you know what? I'm happy and not uptight today. I make enough money to be comfortable, if by no means rich. And, best of all, I don't spend every waking moment caring about how other people are judging me. I couldn't care any less.
And if, in 100 years or so, China somehow overtakes the US, so fuckin' what? I'll have lived my life, happily, and will either be long gone or shortly on the way out (depending on future medical technology).
—Mike Hawke
Remember parents, your kids aren't going to be scared of you forever! You better be prepared for that! Bullying and micro-managing your kid's life can be dangerous in the long run when your kids stop being scared of you!
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Since Amy Chua's family tree zig-zagged from China into the Phillipines, I found this one from a Filipino American
Friday, January 14, 2011 06:47 PM ET
Thoughts from a Filipino-American
My heritage is somewhat different from what Amy Chua was brought up with, but there are similarities: the pressure to be perfect, the pressure to excel, the pressure to be like everyone else at an elevated level. I'm in therapy right now, and part of my issues stem from my Asian-American experiences.
I don't play the piano. I don't play the violin. I can't do math for shit. And guess what? I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is the sentiment that I SHOULD play the violin, that I SHOULD play the violin, that I SHOULD renounce any iota of individuality just so I can fit with the stereotype of what an Asian American (or just an Asian) should be. I don't like being compared and contrasted with kids from the People's Republic of China or the Philippines any more than I like being compared and contrasted with my brothers and sisters and other Asian Americans.
You know what happens when you push an Asian kid too far? William Hung and Seung-hui Cho. One is a pop culture JOKE and the other killed over 30 people before turning the gun on himself. I won't be surprised if Amy Chua's daughters end up on the Bad Girls Club or Snapped.
—AlexDSSF
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One last comment, from a teacher
Sunday, January 16, 2011 08:23 AM ET
Horrible parenting
I read Chua's piece in The Wall Street Journal and, even now, two days later, I'm horrified by what she's done to those two little girls.
First of all, she's not much of a law expert if she feels comfortable admitting some of the things she's done -- and admitting them in print. I'm not familiar with the law in CT, but refusing to let a child stop piano practice to eat or use the bathroom has got to be abuse in any state in this Union. By rights, she ought to fear a knock on her door by Child Protective Services at any moment. But, of course, she's a Yale professor, so that won't happen. This burns me up because, doubtless, if she mopped the halls of Yale, rather than taught in them, she would get that CPS visit.
Secondly, as an educator, Chua approach to child-rearing gives me cold chills down my spine. I don't teach children at present. But, I can't imagine how I would handle knowing that putting an A- or, heaven forbid, a B on a student's paper would get him or her screamed at for hours once home. On the one hand, there's academic integrity but, on the other, I also have to live with myself. Sometimes, getting screamed at is worse than getting hit. I can believe that -- at least subconsciously -- I'd be inclined to always give students like that high grades.
There's some merit in Chua's criticism that Americans are too focused on individuality. But, she, on the other side of the coin, is far too narrowly focused. Plowing ahead doggedly in order to learn something isn't the only way and she's not really doing right by her daughters by handing them only one arrow to put in their quiver of resources.
I offer a case in point. I'm an avid knitter and I have been for years. The first thing I tried to knit was a scarf. Even though I followed all the directions and the pattern was in the most basic knitting stitch possible, it came out a deformed mess. It looked like something that should be buried in holy ground and prayers said over it.
After I'd done six or eight inches of knitting, it was clear I couldn't rescue the thing and I put it aside.
Several months later, I re-started the scarf, from scratch, and it came out just fine. In fact, it was so nice, I made a gift of it to a friend.
Why the difference in the two experiences? I was using the same yarn, needles and pattern. Certainly, I was using the same hands and eyes.
The difference is that, after I took a break from the project and relaxed, the stitches came out evenly and didn't warp as they had before. Because I was a novice and was nervous, I was knitting too tightly and the resulting fabric bunched up.
Obviously, one doesn't always have the luxury of taking such a break in time during the academic school year and subjects like math and history are more important than a mere hobby. But, my point is that there's more than one way to learn something. Walking away from something and taking a breather isn't always laziness or giving up. Sometimes, it's the best strategy.
I don't know what the future will hold, but I've heard Chua say, in radio interviews, that she and her girls have a close relationship. Needless to say, I doubt this. Or, rather, I doubt that this will always be the case. They love her now because children are hardwired to love parents, even the most awful. They also love her because they're still young. I'd be interested to see what the family situation is like 15 years from now, when both girls will probably be well on their own.
It's also possible, I think, that Chua's book itself (or, specifically, the outrage from readers against it) may wind up opening the girls' eyes. When you live in a situation daily, it's hard to see it clearly. When someone from the outside shines a light on circumstances, though, you do see clearly.
Perhaps seeing their mother's behavior through the eyes of others will cause the girls to have a different perspective. If so, Chua will have hoist herself in her own petard.
Couldn't happen to a more deserving tiger.
—Nyneve
Amen to all that! That concludes my latest criticisms of Amy Chua for now! Unless, I hear more stuff, or in case I'll email copies of these blog posts to Amy Chua later on, and see if she responds, LOL!
