<p>I read the previous book.</p>
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<p>No idea, I never read her books. I was basing that on what others have said about them, notably the whole “Chinese moms raise better kids” thing. Does she not say that?</p>
<p>@Sorghum, thanks for sharing. Really interesting method (pretty much what my parents did).</p>
<p>If you frame it that way I’d wholeheartedly agree with you. I mean, whatever floats your boat right? Even if it means sinking the boat with pianos and books. :)</p>
<p>I don’t think she wrote the header.
[Why</a> Chinese Mothers Are Superior - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754?mg=reno64-wsj]Why”>http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754?mg=reno64-wsj)</p>
<p>“A reasonable question, but I didn’t use tiger mom techniques. I used an unschooling form of home schooling, had plenty books around, traveled to about 30 countries. The result was summa cum laude at a ‘top-10’ LAC.”</p>
<p>Just using this as a jumping off point. I very much put tons of academic pressure on myself growing up. In my own mind, I just had to be the straight A, award winning, achievement collecting, highest score getter in just about everything. I looked down on people who weren’t my academic equals and defined my worth by being summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa and winning this honor and blah blah blah. </p>
<p>And then I matured. And had some personal crises that forced me to focus on what’s important in life. And I just can’t define “success” that way anymore and I’m sorry I wasted so much of my mental and emotional energy being the golden girl.</p>
<p>Hard work is great. Valuing intelligence is great. Aspirations are great. But the way Chua did it with her kids - the trip to Greece spent practicing piano versus sightseeing, the threats from not mastering a stupid piano piece, the mindset that anything less than first place is failure, the mindset in life that HYPSM is the meaning of life versus 5 very good universities - these are abhorrent values.</p>
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Many of us have attacked them both, but for somewhat different reasons. Her own writing–at least in that article–suggest that he wasn’t really on board with this technique, but that she overbore him. A mensch, he isn’t. Perhaps he’ll assert himself more in the new book.</p>
<p>Chua herself chose to promote her approach as “Chinese” parenting, and she directly opposed it to “Western” parenting. What she talks about is obviously a cultural thing, and not a racial thing, but she’s the one who chose the labels.</p>
<p>It’s a little hard to “attack” the husband for being a “proponent” of this style of parenting when it’s difficult to tell whether he’s an actual proponent, or just passively let his wife do this all. There’s a stereotypical view of a Jewish male to unpack behind that as well, since we’re talking stereotypes.</p>
<p>Is there a stereotype of jewish males kowtowing to their spouses? I really want to know - need to give the message to Ds. :D</p>
<p>“Yes, dear. Whatever you say, dear.”
Sadly, no one told my Jewish husband about this stereotype :-)</p>
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<p>Amen sister!</p>
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<p>High school can involve a lot of busywork because of absolute percent grading systems they typically impose (e.g. 90% = A, 80% = B, 70% = C, or something similar). So there must be enough easy work for the C students to be able to get 70% correct, although it may be meaningless boring busywork for the A students.</p>
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<p>May we assume that YOU read her previous books? If that is the case, a good question might be about how you did not pick up the superiority theme that permeates the entire book about Tiger Moms? </p>
<p>As far as the recent one, despite the skating around through relying on religion as much as race, here is something from the horse’s mouth – although I think it came from the other side of the animal: </p>
<p>In the introduction they write, “The paradoxical premise of this book is that successful people tend to feel simultaneously inadequate and superior.”</p>
<p>Or perhaps, the semantics-lover might point out that “that successful people tend to feel simultaneously inadequate and superior” does not mean that Chua and her husband feel the same way. What is that we could say about the groups that were not included in the successful ones? Aren’t they de facto inferior for not having been selected? </p>
<p>Do we really have to argue about Chua’s positions? Anymore than there were any doubts about Bill Ayers? Seriously.</p>
<p>I think there’s some truth to the idea that immigrant strivers feel that their culture is superior–they do tend to think that “Americans” are lazy–and there’s some truth to that as well. I wouldn’t exactly say that the immigrants feel inferior–I think they feel insecure, which is one reason many of them focus on careers that are highly portable, like medicine.</p>
<p>And it appears to me that this is basically what Chua is saying in her new book. But this is already well known.</p>
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<p>I repeat, where does she (and/or he) claim racial superiority? Of course she claims cultural superiority, for the specific task of rising high-achieving children. </p>
<p>Are you so blinded by contempt for her work that you can’t see the repeated theme that anyone of any race or culture (or gender) can become a Chinese Tiger Mom, if they want to? I wouldn’t want to, but I don’t detest her for setting out her ideas and experiences.</p>
<p>I wonder how her children will feel about her once they are away from her.
Speaking about how Chinese parents deal with a lesser grade, like A-.
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<p>Perhaps it’s because Chua keeps referring to her approach as “Chinese” that people may think she’s claiming racial superiority. I don’t think she is. But surely nobody can really think she isn’t claiming superiority? She says, in the article:
Note that she says that some Chinese mothers aren’t “Chinese mothers”–presumably because they were born in the West, as she says.</p>
<p>She should be sued for infringement by Jewish mothers–at least, the old-school Jewish mothers.</p>
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<p>Not more than the “superiority” theme in “French Women don’t Get Fat”.</p>
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This completely refutes anything you may ever say about your objectivity. </p>
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<p>Perhaps this is the main point for your hostility towards this book. Is your group not included? No, no need to respond. We all get it.</p>
<p>I don’t really get the defensiveness here. Does anybody really want to defend Chua’s methods? Is there anybody who doesn’t think they are extreme? And can anybody really read the article linked above and say she doesn’t think “Chinese” parenting is superior to “Western” parenting? I think many of us are amazed by claims that something so awful is superior. I mean, even if you practice “Chinese” parenting, do you really want to be associated with her version of it?</p>
<p>Those who condemned Amy Chua took her too seriously and its quite obvious that they never read the book, because if they did they would realize that no matter how serious Amy Chua is about raising intelligent, independent and wonderful girls she is also seriously funny, sarcastic, loving and a mother who was humbled by her youngest daughter who pushed back, Chua knew,that if she pushed her any further she would lose her daughter.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is, parenting is subjective.As a parent I have to do what works for my family, and my family alone, and I need understand that each child is different. Just because Chua published a book on her style of parenting doesn’t make her an authority and she also made that clear in her book. Sadly, many people missed that.</p>
<p>[Battle</a> Hymn of the Tiger Mother - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_mom]Battle”>Tiger parenting - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>“In a follow-up article in the Wall Street Journal, Chua explains that “my actual book is not a how-to guide; it’s a memoir, the story of our family’s journey in two cultures, and my own eventual transformation as a mother. Much of the book is about my decision to retreat from the strict ‘Chinese’ approach, after my younger daughter rebelled at thirteen.””</p>
<p>Chua has retreated from her Tiger Mom approach herself! Maybe some of us have read too much into the first WSJ article, which was for book promotion I guess, but not enough into the second one.</p>