<p>Yes, but isn’t Chua saying that if a Chinese mother (such as herself) thought her daughter was fat, she’d say “hey fatty, lose some weight?” And if that Chinese mother were raising her daughters the proper Chinese mother way, those girls would be raised like Chua’s - hours at the piano/violin and homework, never playing at a friend’s house where they might eat junk food. So if that Chinese mother’s daughter was fat, it seems to me it would be the mother’s fault! And then she calls the girl “fatty” and makes it the girl’s responsibility to lose the weight. How can this approach be rationalized?</p>
<p>I think that no mother wants to admit when her control has lead to some undesired results. Amy Chua, especially, doesn’t seem to me the type of person who would ever accept any blame, just credit.</p>
<p>I was responding to Bay’s post. Amy Chua thought her kids were fat. I doubt they were and I wouldn’t care if they were. Amy Chua thought they were and evidently she thought there was something wrong with them for that reason. Bay pointed out that Amy Chua may have had some blame in that regard because she wouldn’t let them go out and play. I was responding to Bay’s query about why Amy Chua couldn’t see that. Go back and reread the posts if you don’t believe me.</p>
<p>Re the card incident: when my kids were that age, they had no idea when anybody’s birthday was. If my birthday rolled around and I was supposed to get cards, that activity had to be coordinated by my husband.</p>
<p>Since Chua’s DH apparently forgot about her birthday (wasn’t there some complaint about having to eat at a “mediocre” restaurant?), he probably also forgot about reminding the kids to make cards until about 15 minutes before they left the house. So the tantrum was perhaps to criticize him via the kid as much as it was to criticize the kid for spending 14 of her 15 free minutes doing something else.</p>
<p>Among what some real traditionalist Confucian Chinese in my parents generation and older, this would be considered characteristic of the mass of “uncouth” “ill-bred” Chinese who have adopted “corruptive merchant values”. This includes my own parents who regarded anyone who asked about one’s income or the cost of one’s purchases to be either the behavior characteristics of “ill-bred” persons…whether Chinese or Americans. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the behavior you describe as “Chinese” is not exclusive to them IME. I’ve met more than my fair share of Americans who do the same…sometimes to much more gaudy excess. Of course, these Americans are the types commonly disdained by the upper-crust elite as “rank social climbers”.</p>
<p>We are not upper crust elite Chinese or Americans. We are very ordinary social climbers (the kind that actually needs to touch money in order to keep our stomach full) who could afford to pay full fare for our kids to go to college. </p>
<p>Even though I need to touch money, which makes me disdained by the upper-crust, I do feel good that I could buy most things in a store, which I don’t because I am trying not to be “ill-bred.”</p>
<p>The book makes absolutely no reference to the weight of her children. I pointed out the context of the “Hey Fatty” comment in an earlier post. The Today show interview I found was not with Matt Lauer, but with Meredith Viera and did not discuss this comment. So if you can find a link to an interview where she says she actually said this to her child, then we can discuss whether “she thought something was wrong with them for that reason”.</p>
<p>Bay is speculating about an imaginary situation with her kids (including that Chua strictly controls all their food intake) with no basis in the book.</p>
<p>Yes, you are correct, I was speculating. But I was using what I know about the book and Chua’s life to draw those conclusions. Do you think they are wrong?</p>
<p>Chua said her children never had playdates or sleepovers.</p>
<p>The family lives in New Haven, so I assume the girls do not have neighborhood friends whose homes they frequent, and they probably attend a private school.</p>
<p>Chua says they must be #1 in (almost) every subject and practice hours per day, so I assume they are either at their private school or at home studying/practicing and eating meals 5 days per week.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the girls do on the weekends, so maybe they are roaming about, away from their mom and dad, gorging themselves on junk food, but it doesn’t seem likely. Don’t you agree?</p>
<p>So if Chua’s (and all proper Chinese mothers’) girls were to become fat, how would that happen? And if it were to happen, wouldn’t it be the mothers’ fault? And if it were the mother’s fault, wouldn’t it be horrible for the mother to call the daughter “fatty?”</p>
<p>This was a logical progression for me, but maybe I missed something.</p>
<p>If authentic, it is from an issue of the Harvard Crimson, in November 1980, when by my reckoning, Chua, who graduated in 1984, would have been a freshman at Harvard. The article mentions an “Amy Chua” and then contains the following interesting comments:</p>
<p>“Chua and one of her roommates [name omitted here] wanted to know what it felt like to be obese. So one night at 3 a.m., they stuffed pillows in their clothes and put on their down jackets and went jogging. Now they know what it feels like to be obese. They eat less at the Union these days.”</p>
<p>"Chua, like her roommate [name omitted], will tell her parents that she loves Harvard, but will keep the details to herself. In fact, she realizes, ‘I’ll have to censor everything, especially stuff about my working habits and my eating habits.’ "</p>
<p>I don’t know for sure whether the link to the Crimson is authentic. No other comments, but this is certainly something to ponder, in this context.</p>
<p>Also, you know how the side-bar ads on CC tend to draw on keywords in the discussion? (Maybe they cut that feature out after many jokes on another thread in the cafe?) Nonetheless, I am waiting to be offered diet aids in the side bar.</p>
<p>There were two interviews, the first was with Matt Lauer, the second was with Meredith Viera. In the first Amy Chua absolutely said that she told Sophia “Hey fatty, lose some weight”. I can’t find the link to either interview, I will keep looking.</p>
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<p>Are you trying to tell me that someone who says that to their child doesn’t think there is something wrong with being fat? Why would they say something like that if they didn’t think there was something wrong with being fat?</p>
<p>I can’t find the video I remember on the Today Show website. The only one that I can find is the one referred to by Wildwood, it is very possible that I am misremembering, my memory isn’t very good anymore.</p>
<p>Bay, First of all the girls are not overweight judging from the pictures. So I don’t see what the point is with this. And second of all, it really would be controlling for a parent to regulate every snack and the quantity consumed at every meal. Children have their own natural physique and I hardly think any parent can or should control exactly how much their children eat or weigh. They can encourage healthy options, that’s it. What kind of food Amy Chua provided to her children, we’ll never know. You can conclude the girls didn’t do sports every day, but not much else. There is mention of biking trips and that the girls took tennis lessons at some point.</p>
<p>This point is, that Chua claims that Chinese mothers tell their overweight daughters, “Hey fatty, lose some weight!” and Chua thinks this is superior to the (supposed) Western way of “tiptoeing” around the issue. Isn’t this what she said?</p>
<p>So I am saying, how can calling your daughter “fatty” ever be the right thing to do, when the mother is in control of the child’s schedule and life? A mother is responsible for the health and well-being of her child, especially mothers who schedule and plan and determine their child’s every activity. So if the child gets fat, its the mother’s fault! </p>
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<p>Do you think a young child can control exactly what she eats or weighs? Of course not; not without being fed by and recieving guidance from her parents or an adult. So why would it be okay to call that child “fatty?” That is just mean.</p>
<p>Again, it’s the nastiness – imagine being so lacking in common sense and humanity that you couldn’t figure out the difference between “honey, I’m concerned that you’re not eating healthy and getting enough movement, let’s figure out ways to improve your diet – yum, let’s go get some strawberries and take a walk after dinner!” and “hey, fatty, lose some weight.”</p>
<p>Well, gosh, it’s also really controlling to make your children play piano for 6 hours a day. 6 hours a day! Out of the maybe 16 they’re awake!</p>
<p>I concur that there is no mention in the book of Chua saying anything to her children to lose weight. She makes that comment that a Chinese parent would say “Hey, fatty, lose some weight” whereas a Western parent wouldn’t, but in the surrounding context it’s pretty clear that this is a generalized statement, not something that she is claiming to have said (or even thought for that matter).</p>
<p>I know it sound horrendous by mainstream American standards, but maybe in a typical Asian families (and Latin American families that call their kids “gordito” all the time) parents feel the relationship is such with their kids that they can say things like that and not have it be a big deal. I don’t know, I’m not in an Asian family, but Oldfort has said as much. In any case, you have to look at the life-long context, not a single sudden blunt comment. The point Chua is making, and that I would agree with, is that Western parenting, at least in the current generation, includes a lot of overprotecting of feelings, that sometimes can have the opposite effect of what’s intended. And, I believe, that many would be surprised at how well straight talk and tough love builds healthy self-esteem.</p>
<p>In this respect, I think we should worry more about the growing number of girls in our society with Western parents who DO have eating disorders, and not the Chua daughters, or any other Asian girl who does not.</p>
<p>As for the practice schedule, the girls practiced three hours on weekdays (as much as six on some weekend days). Do you realize how much time the typical American kid spends in front of the television/computer/playstation each day? If you took away all those activities you’d have three hours to practice and plenty of time to spare for other things. Plus the girls were not in other after-school activities, many of which take up more than an hour a day. I’d say the girls were no more over-scheduled than the typical upper-middle class “western” kid.</p>
<p>People are looking to find ways to declare that these girls were miserable. Yes, Lulu was unhappy for a while, and rebelled, like many, many 13-year-olds. But she doesn’t seem to regret the practice regimen in retrospect and certainly seems to be doing well now with tennis and violin, and Sophia continues to practice piano on her own, so what’s the problem in that family?</p>
<p>I reiterate that there are aspects of Chua’s style that I don’t agree with, but I feel someone has to defend her/the book against unfair distortions.</p>