\nAlot of people wonder how Chinese parents
\nraise such stereotypically successful kids.
\nThey wonder what these parents do to produce so
\nmany math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s
\nlike inside the family, and whether they could do it
\ntoo. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here
\nare some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa,
\nwere never allowed to do:
\n attend a sleepover
\n have a play date
\n be in a school play
\n complain about not being in a school play
\n watch TV or play computer games
\n choose their own extracurricular activities
\n get any grade less than an A
\n not be the No. 1 student in every subject except
\ngym and drama
\n play any instrument other than the piano or violin
\n not play the piano or violin.
\nI’m using the term “Chinese mother” loosely. I
\nknow some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and
\nGhanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I
\nknow some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost
\nalways born in the West, who are not Chinese
\nmothers, by choice or otherwise. I’m also using the
\nterm “Western parents” loosely. Western parents
\ncome in all varieties.
\nAll the same, even when Western parents think
\nthey’re being strict, they usually don’t come close to
\nbeing Chinese mothers. For example, my Western
\nfriends who consider themselves strict make their
\nchildren practice their instruments 30 minutes every
\nday. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the
\nfirst hour is the easy part. It’s hours two and three
\nthat get tough.
\nDespite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes,
\nthere are tons of studies out there showing
\nmarked and quantifiable differences between Chinese
\nand Westerners when it comes to parenting. In
\none study of 50 Western American mothers and 48
\nChinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the
\nWestern mothers said either that “stressing academic
\nsuccess is not good for children” or that
\n“parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.”
\nBy contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt
\nthe same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese
\nmothers said that they believe their children
\ncan be “the best” students, that “academic achievement
\nreflects successful parenting,” and that if children
\ndid not excel at school then there was “a problem”
\nand parents “were not doing their job.” Other
\nstudies indicate that compared to Western parents,
\nChinese parents spend approximately 10 times as
\nlong every day drilling academic activities with
\ntheir children. By contrast, Western kids are more
\nlikely to participate in sports teams.
\nWhat Chinese parents understand is that nothing
\nis fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anyWhy
\nChinese Mothers Are Superior
\nBy AMY CHUA
\nErin Patrice O’Brien
\nThe Wall Street Journal
\nJanuary 8, 2011
\nAmy Chua with her daughters, Louisa and Sophia, at
\ntheir home in New Haven, Conn.
\nChua Chinese Mothers Are Superior
\n2
\nthing you have to work, and children on their own
\nnever want to work, which is why it is crucial to
\noverride their preferences. This often requires fortitude
\non the part of the parents because the child will
\nresist; things are always hardest at the beginning,
\nwhich is where Western parents tend to give up. But
\nif done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a
\nvirtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice
\nis crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated
\nin America. Once a child starts to excel at
\nsomething – whether it’s math, piano, pitching or
\nballet – he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction.
\nThis builds confidence and makes the once
\nnot-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for
\nthe parent to get the child to work even more.
\nChinese parents can get away with things that
\nWestern parents can’t. Once when I was young –
\nmaybe more than once – when I was extremely disrespectful
\nto my mother, my father angrily called
\nme “garbage” in our native Hokkien dialect. It
\nworked really well. I felt terrible and deeply
\nashamed of what I had done. But it didn’t damage
\nmy self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly
\nhow highly he thought of me. I didn’t actually think
\nI was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.
\nAs an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia,
\ncalling her garbage in English when she acted extremely
\ndisrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned
\nthat I had done this at a dinner party, I was
\nimmediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy
\ngot so upset she broke down in tears and had to
\nleave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate
\nme with the remaining guests.
\nThe fact is that Chinese parents can do things that
\nwould seem unimaginable – even legally actionable
\n– to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to
\ntheir daughters, “Hey fatty – lose some weight.” By
\ncontrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the
\nissue, talking in terms of “health” and never ever
\nmentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in
\ntherapy for eating disorders and negative selfimage.
\n(I also once heard a Western father toast his
\nadult daughter by calling her “beautiful and incredibly
\ncompetent.” She later told me that made her feel
\nlike garbage.)
\nChinese parents can order their kids to get
\nstraight As. Western parents can only ask their kids
\nto try their best. Chinese parents can say, “You’re
\nlazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you.”
\nBy contrast, Western parents have to struggle with
\ntheir own conflicted feelings about achievement,
\nand try to persuade themselves that they’re not disappointed
\nabout how their kids turned out.
\nI’ve thought long and hard about how Chinese
\nparents can get away with what they do. I think
\nthere are three big differences between the Chinese
\nand Western parental mind-sets.
\nFirst, I’ve noticed that Western parents are extremely
\nanxious about their children’s self-esteem.
\nThey worry about how their children will feel if
\nthey fail at something, and they constantly try to
\nreassure their children about how good they are
\nnotwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test
\nor at a recital. In other words, Western parents are
\nconcerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese
\nparents aren’t. They assume strength, not fragility,
\nand as a result they behave very differently.
\nFor example, if a child comes home with an Aminus
\non a test, a Western parent will most likely
\npraise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in
\nhorror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes
\nhome with a B on the test, some Western parents
\nwill still praise the child. Other Western parents
\nwill sit their child down and express disapproval,
\nbut they will be careful not to make their child feel
\ninadequate or insecure, and they will not call their
\nchild “stupid,” “worthless” or “a disgrace.” Privately,
\nthe Western parents may worry that their
\nchild does not test well or have aptitude in the subject
\nor that there is something wrong with the curriculum
\nand possibly the whole school. If the
\nchild’s grades do not improve, they may eventually
\nschedule a meeting with the school principal to
\nchallenge the way the subject is being taught or to
\ncall into question the teacher’s credentials.
\nIf a Chinese child gets a B – which would never
\nhappen – here would first be a screaming, hairtearing
\nexplosion. The devastated Chinese mother
\nwould then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice
\ntests and work through them with her child for as
\nlong as it takes to get the grade up to an A.
\nChinese parents demand perfect grades because
\nthey believe that their child can get them. If their
\nchild doesn’t get them, the Chinese parent assumes
\nit’s because the child didn’t work hard enough.
\nThat’s why the solution to substandard performance
\nis always to excoriate, punish and shame the child.
\nThe Chinese parent believes that their child will be
\nstrong enough to take the shaming and to improve
\nfrom it. (And when Chinese kids do excel, there is
\nplenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in
\nthe privacy of the home.)
\nSecond, Chinese parents believe that their kids
\nChua Chinese Mothers Are Superior
\n3
\nowe them everything. The reason for this is a little
\nunclear, but it’s probably a combination of Confucian
\nfilial piety and the fact that the parents have
\nsacrificed and done so much for their children. (And
\nit’s true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches,
\nputting in long grueling hours personally tutoring,
\ntraining, interrogating and spying on their kids.)
\nAnyway, the understanding is that Chinese children
\nmust spend their lives repaying their parents by
\nobeying them and making them proud.
\nBy contrast, I don’t think most Westerners have
\nthe same view of children being permanently indebted
\nto their parents. My husband, Jed, actually
\nhas the opposite view. “Children don’t choose their
\nparents,” he once said to me. “They don’t even
\nchoose to be born. It’s parents who foist life on their
\nkids, so it’s the parents’ responsibility to provide for
\nthem. Kids don’t owe their parents anything. Their
\nduty will be to their own kids.” This strikes me as a
\nterrible deal for the Western parent.
\nThird, Chinese parents believe that they know
\nwhat is best for their children and therefore override
\nall of their children’s own desires and preferences.
\nThat’s why Chinese daughters can’t have boyfriends
\nin high school and why Chinese kids can’t go to
\nsleep away camp. It’s also why no Chinese kid
\nwould ever dare say to their mother, “I got a part in
\nthe school play! I’m Villager Number Six. I’ll have
\nto stay after school for rehearsal every day from
\n3:00 to 7:00, and I’ll also need a ride on weekends.”
\nGod help any Chinese kid who tried that one.
\nDon’t get me wrong: It’s not that Chinese parents
\ndon’t care about their children. Just the opposite.
\nThey would give up anything for their children. It’s
\njust an entirely different parenting model.
\nHere’s a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style.
\nLulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and
\nworking on a piano piece called “The Little White
\nDonkey” by the French composer Jacques Ibert.
\nThe piece is really cute – you can just imagine a little
\ndonkey ambling along a country road with its
\nmaster – but it’s also incredibly difficult for young
\nplayers because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically
\ndifferent rhythms.
\nLulu couldn’t do it. We worked on it nonstop for a
\nweek, drilling each of her hands separately, over
\nand over. But whenever we tried putting the hands
\ntogether, one always morphed into the other, and
\neverything fell apart. Finally, the day before her
\nlesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was
\ngiving up and stomped off.
\n“Get back to the piano now,” I ordered.
\n“You can’t make me.”
\n“Oh yes, I can.”
\nBack at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She
\npunched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music
\nscore and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back
\ntogether and encased it in a plastic shield so that it
\ncould never be destroyed again. Then I hauled
\nLulu’s dollhouse to the car and told her I’d donate it
\nto the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn’t
\nhave “The Little White Donkey” perfect by the next
\nday. When Lulu said, “I thought you were going to
\nthe Salvation Army, why are you still here” I
\nthreatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas
\nor Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for
\ntwo, three, four years. When she still kept playing it
\nwrong, I told her she was purposely working herself
\ninto a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she
\ncouldn’t do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly,
\nself-indulgent and pathetic.
\nJed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting
\nLulu – which I wasn’t even doing, I was just motivating
\nher – and that he didn’t think threatening
\nLulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really
\njust couldn’t do the technique – perhaps she didn’t
\nhave the coordination yet – had I considered that
\npossibility
\n“You just don’t believe in her,” I accused.
\n“That’s ridiculous,” Jed said scornfully. “Of
\ncourse I do.”
\n“Sophia could play the piece when she was this age.”
\n“But Lulu and Sophia are different people,” Jed
\npointed out.
\nFrom Ms. Chua’s album: ‘Mean me with Lulu in hotel
\nroom… with score taped to TV!’
\nChua Chinese Mothers Are Superior
\n4
\n“Oh no, not this,” I said, rolling my eyes.
\n“Everyone is special in their special own way,” I
\nmimicked sarcastically. “Even losers are special in
\ntheir own special way. Well don’t worry, you don’t
\nhave to lift a finger. I’m willing to put in as long as
\nit takes, and I’m happy to be the one hated. And you
\ncan be the one they adore because you make them
\npancakes and take them to Yankees games.”
\nI rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I
\nused every weapon and tactic I could think of. We
\nworked right through dinner into the night, and I
\nwouldn’t let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to
\ngo to the bathroom. The house became a war zone,
\nand I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to
\nbe only negative progress, and even I began to have
\ndoubts.
\nThen, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly
\ncame together – her right and left hands each
\ndoing their own imperturbable thing – just like that.
\nLulu realized it the same time I did. I held my
\nbreath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she
\nplayed it more confidently and faster, and still the
\nrhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming.
\n“Mommy, look – it’s easy!” After that, she wanted
\nto play the piece over and over and wouldn’t leave
\nthe piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed,
\nand we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other
\nup. When she performed “The Little White Donkey”
\nat a recital a few weeks later, parents came up
\nto me and said, “What a perfect piece for Luluit’s
\nso spunky and so her.”
\nEven Jed gave me credit for that one. Western
\nparents worry a lot about their children’s selfesteem.
\nBut as a parent, one of the worst things you
\ncan do for your child’s self-esteem is to let them
\ngive up. On the flip side, there’s nothing better for
\nbuilding confidence than learning you can do something
\nyou thought you couldn’t.
\nThere are all these new books out there portraying
\nAsian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven
\npeople indifferent to their kids’ true interests. For
\ntheir part, many Chinese secretly believe that they
\ncare more about their children and are willing to
\nsacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who
\nseem perfectly content to let their children turn out
\nbadly. I think it’s a misunderstanding on both sides.
\nAll decent parents want to do what’s best for their
\nchildren. The Chinese just have a totally different
\nidea of how to do that.
\nWestern parents try to respect their children’s individuality,
\nencouraging them to pursue their true
\npassions, supporting their choices, and providing
\npositive reinforcement and a nurturing environment.
\nBy contrast, the Chinese believe that the best
\nway to protect their children is by preparing them
\nfor the future, letting them see what they’re capable
\nof, and arming them with skills, work habits and
\ninner confidence that no one can ever take away.
\nAmy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School
\nThis essay is excerpted from “Battle Hymn of the
\nTiger Mother” by Amy Chua, Penguin Press, 2011.<\/p>\n
Follow Up Essay
\nIn China, Not All
\nPractice Tough Love
\nby Victoria Ruan
\nSome parents want their children to be creative,
\nindependent and less obsessed with test scores
\nParenting advice in China has long stressed
\ndiscipline and authority. Those lessons are
\nreinforced in best-selling books like “Harvard Girl
\nLiu Yiting,” a how-to manual published in 2000 by
\nthe parents of a student who won a coveted spot at
\nthe Ivy League school. Among the characterbuilding
\nexercises to which they subjected their
\ndaughter was having her hold ice cubes in her
\nhands for long stretches.
\nChua family. Sophia playing at Carnegie Hall in
\n2007.
\nChua Chinese Mothers Are Superior
\n5
\nIn recent years, however, books that encourage
\nparents to nurture their children’s independence and
\nconfidence, as opposed to focusing exclusively on
\nhigh academic achievement, have grown increasingly
\npopular. They reflect a quiet shift in the parenting
\nstyle of middle-class families, especially in
\nChina’s growing cities.
\nThe current best-selling parenting book, “A Good
\nMom Is Better Than a Good Teacher,” by former
\nBeijing public school teacher Yin Jianli, has sold
\nmore than two million copies since it was published
\nin January 2009. Ms. Yin advocates listening to
\nkids and developing their potential without forcing
\nthem to obey authority.
\nChinese parents rarely question the decisions of
\nteachers, but Ms. Yin sometimes offered to do
\nhomework for her daughter. In one case, a teacher
\nhad asked the girl to copy the same words over a
\ndozen times one night as punishment for failing to
\nmemorize them. Ms. Yin believes that such tasks
\nhurt children’s interest in studying.
\nAnother best-seller, “Catching Children’s Sensitive
\nPeriods” by Sun Ruixue, follows a similar approach.
\nMs. Sun writes that she “aims to help more
\nparents understand their kids and let every kid grow
\nup healthily in love and freedom.” It is a sequel to
\nher 2000 book “Love and Freedom,” which focused
\non the idea of discovering a child’s “true nature,” as
\ndeveloped by the Italian physician and education
\nreformer Maria Montessori.
\nIn “My Kid Is a Medium-Ranking Student,” author
\nFang Gang stresses that children don’t necessarily
\nneed the highest test scores to enjoy a happy
\nand successful life. “Our society, to some extent,
\nremains a society full of ranking-related prejudice,”
\nhe writes. But among the students with the top test
\nscores, he asks, “how many have kept independent
\nthinking, creativity and their unique characteristics”<\/p>\n
Many readers of these booksparents in their
\n30s and 40swere born during the Cultural Revolution
\nthat took place in China from 1966 to 1976.
\nAfter the turmoil of that difficult period, traditional
\nthinking about education persisted. At schools,
\nteachers continued to evaluate students on the basis
\nof test scores and how closely they followed instructions.
\nAs China has gradually opened up to the
\nworld, however, Western ideas about education
\nhave spread, and many parents have started to question
\nthe traditional approach.
\nNow, most of the best-selling parenting books
\nlisted on Dangdang.com, China’s largest online
\nbook retailer, are written by authors from outside of
\nmainland China, including South Korea, the U.S.,
\nTaiwan, Japan, Germany and the U.K. American
\nimports on the list include John Gray’s “Children
\nAre From Heaven: Positive Parenting Skills for
\nRaising Cooperative, Confident and Compassionate
\nChildren,” and “How To Talk So Kids Will Listen
\n& Listen So Kids Will Talk,” by Adele Faber and
\nElaine Mazlish.
\nAnother best seller, “One Must Not Fail in the
\nEnterprise of Being a Father,” is co-written by Alex
\nXu, an American businessman who was born in
\nChina’s countryside and later received his master’s
\ndegree in the U.S., and his daughter Ashley Xu,
\nwho was born and educated in the U.S. Mr. Xu,
\nwho runs a hotel chain in China and heads several
\nother multinational companies, urges parents to
\nease the burden of their children’s studies and to
\nchoose supplementary after-school activities based
\non their children’s interests rather than on their own
\nambitions for them.
\nMr. Xu encouraged his daughter Ashley to be “as
\nconfident as a foreign kid,” resisting the traditional
\nChinese emphasis on quiet deference to authority.
\nChildren shouldn’t be arrogant, he says, but they
\nalso shouldn’t be “overly modest.”<\/p>\n
Follow Up Essay
\nAre US Parents Too Soft
\nBy John J. Edwards III and Erin Patrice OBrien
\nHow do we motivate our children to succeed
\nin school, and in life Its a fundamental
\nquestion that animates every parents juggle, and
\nthere are as many answers as there are families.
\nAmy Chua, author of the new book Battle Hymn
\nof the Tiger Mother, shares her own forceful, unyielding
\nanswer in an excerpt published in Saturdays
\nReview section.
\nNear the beginning, Ms. Chua writes, Here are
\nsome things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa,
\nwere never allowed to do:
\n attend a sleepover
\n have a playdate
\n be in a school play
\n complain about not being in a school play
\n watch TV or play computer games
\nChua Chinese Mothers Are Superior
\n6
\n choose their own extracurricular activities
\n get any grade less than an A
\n not be the No. 1 student in every subject except
\ngym and drama
\n play any instrument other than the piano or
\nviolin
\n not play the piano or violin.
\nMs. Chua says that being a Chinese mother
\ndoesnt require being Chinese, but it does require
\nignoring most of what parenting has come to mean
\nin upper-middle-class Western societies. Where
\nWestern parents obsess over a childs self-esteem
\nand couch criticism in only the most oblique and
\nsupportive terms, Chinese parents assume
\nstrength, not fragility, and thus deploy insults and
\npressure with abandon.
\nChinese mothers can say to their daughters,
\nHey fattylose some weight, Ms. Chua writes.
\nBy contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around
\nthe issue, talking in terms of health and never
\never mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end
\nup in therapy for eating disorders and negative selfimage.
\n(Interestingly, in China, books that encourage
\nparents to nurture their childrens independence
\nand confidence, as opposed to focusing exclusively
\non high academic achievement, have grown increasingly
\npopular, as weve posted about before.)
\nA centerpiece of Ms. Chuas excerpt is her tale of
\nteaching her daughter Louisa, known as Lulu, to
\nplay a difficult piano piece at age 7. Lulu struggles
\nwith the different rhythms required for each hand in
\nthe piece, finally tearing up the sheet music in frustration;
\nMs. Chua tapes it together, laminates it and
\nforces Lulu back to the keyboard. As the battle
\nrages, she eventually tells Lulu to stop being lazy,
\ncowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic, which
\ndraws a gentle rebuke from the Western parent in
\nher own household, her husband, Jed. Ms. Chua,
\nundeterred, goes back to work on Lulu, through
\ndinner and into the night, with no water or bathroom
\nbreaks. Finally, Lulu succeeds, leading to a
\njoyful, snuggly night at home and, weeks later, a
\nbrilliant recital performance.
\nIn sharp contrast to Ms. Chuas philosophy is the
\ncult hit documentary Race to Nowhere, made by
\na parent, Vicki Abeles, who was prompted to shoot
\nthe film after her daughter started having stressrelated
\nstomachaches. The book features boys who
\ntake leaves from high school because of the intense
\npressures, girls who suffer stress-induced insomnia
\nand other maladies, and rampant cheating, as students
\nstruggle to keep up, according to a New
\nYork Times feature about the film. When success
\nis defined by high grades, test scores, trophies, a
\nchild psychologist says in the film, we know that
\nwe end up with unprepared, disengaged, exhausted
\nand ultimately unhealthy kids.
\nMy wifes and my own experience with our 9-
\nyear-old daughter and 6-year-old son is between
\nthe extremes, for now. We encourage academic
\nachievement (and I chafe at the current pedagogical
\npractice of not correcting our first-graders
\nspelling), but were hardly taskmasters for perfection.
\nAnd when our son, who has showed early
\npromise at tennis, got tired of formal lessons, we
\nlet him drop them rather than, say, call him lazy,
\ncowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.<\/p>\n
Review of Amy Chuas
\nBattle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
\nWSJ January 11, 2011
\nHome Truths, Marching On
\nNo play dates, no TV. Then a 13-year-old rebels.
\nBy CLARE MCHUGH
\nT here’s nothing like parenting for uncovering
\nour most deeply held beliefs. In general conversation
\nwith friends, plenty of us exercise a certain
\nliberal-mindedness, a flexibility of perspective
\nthat eases social intercourse. Why alienate pals by
\nlecturing them on the need to be more detailoriented,
\nor frugal, or neat At work it’s rarely
\nsmart to tell colleagues that their thinking is sloppy
\nor dull, even if it is.
\nBut this self-restraint goes out the window when
\nwe are confronted with our own teenage offspring.
\nWith them we do not hesitate to pontificate on everyday
\nvirtues, every day. We extol the benefits of
\ndoing homework and studying for tests. We pass on
\nour hard-won nuggets of wisdom to the people we
\nmost love in the world. And how do these people
\nreact They roll their eyes.
\nAsian parents are renowned not only for attempting
\nto steer their children in the right direction but
\nalso for exerting such impressive control over them
\nthat young Asians excel in almost every area of
\nworthwhile endeavor. Can we all learn from this
\nexample Can we move from merely spouting off
\nto shaping prodigies Can we get our children to
\nChua Chinese Mothers Are Superior
\n7
\nachieve more, misbehave less and revere us all the
\nway to a sunny graduation day in Harvard Yard
\nAmy Chua addresses such questions in “Battle
\nHymn of the Tiger Mother,” an account of her attempt
\nto bring up her two daughters, now teenagers,
\nin the Asian way. Ms. Chua is herself a highachieving
\nChinese-Americanshe is a Yale law
\nprofessorbut her child-rearing campaign is not
\neasy. “Chinese parenting is incredibly lonelyat
\nleast if you’re trying to do it in the West, where
\nyou’re on your own,” she writes. “You have to go
\nup against an entire value systemrooted in the
\nEnlightenment, individual autonomy, child development
\ntheory and the Universal Declaration of Human
\nRights.”
\nSuch grand pronouncements are characteristic of
\nthe driven, passionate and insightful Ms. Chua. Her
\nsweeping statements do begin to pall after a while,
\nbut what saves “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,”
\nand makes Ms. Chua ultimately an endearing presence,
\nis her ability to be candid about her excesses
\nand poke fun at herself.
\nAfter her first daughter, Sophia, was born in
\n1993, and then Louisa three years later, Ms. Chua
\ndecided to set the bar high: They’re not allowed to
\ngo on play dates or to sleep over at friends’ houses.
\nThe TV is off-limits, as are videogames. She requires
\nher daughters to be fluent in Mandarin, although
\nshe herself learned the Hokkien dialect at
\nhome. She expects them to be straight-A students,
\nadvising them to check test answers three times and
\nlook up every word they didn’t know and memorize
\nits exact meaning.
\nShe also fears that her children will be pampered
\nand decadent, growing up in America’s prosperity.
\nSo she insists that they do physical labor. As often
\nas possible she tries “to make them carry heavy objectsoverflowing
\nlaundry baskets up and down
\nstairs, garbage out on Sundays, suitcases when we
\ntraveled.” She brooks no disrespect. When Sophia
\nacts out on one occasion, her mother tells her that
\nshe’s “garbage.”
\nMs. Chua considers most extra-curricular activities
\na waste of time, except one: playing a musical
\ninstrument. And it is in this realm that her fanaticism
\nreaches full flower. She selects the piano for
\nSophia and starts her with lessons at age 3. She
\nchooses the violin for Louisa. Both girls turn out to
\nbe talented musicians, and Ms. Chua is a determined
\ntaskmaster. “My Western friends who consider
\nthemselves strict make their children practice
\ntheir instruments thirty minutes every day. An hour
\nat most,” she writes. “For a Chinese mother, the
\nfirst hour is the easy part. It’s hours two and three
\nthat can get tough.”
\nThe descriptions of Ms. Chua’s interactions with
\nher children during practice sessions are hairraising
\nin their intensity and belie any notion that
\nChinese kids are naturally more compliant than
\nchildren in the West. For hours she bullies the girls
\nand cajoles them to do more, hovering over them to
\ncriticize their fingering and rhythm. Because she
\nattends their lessons, she has notes on the teacher’s
\ncomments and cites them incessantly. When Ms.
\nChua has to miss a daily practice, she leaves
\nmemos covering what her daughters should do. One
\npoint among dozens in a typical missive: “Page 8,
\n[measure] 40: This chord is way too heavy! bow
\npressure and high violin! Articulate short notes.”
\nOne marvels at Ms. Chua’s energy and focus
\nshe has a demanding full-time job on top of all this
\nmusical monitoringbut one feels for the children.
\nOnly in her dealings with the family’s two dogs
\ndoes the author seem, well, normal. “I don’t make
\nany demands of them . . . or their future,” she writes
\nof the big cuddly Samoyeds. “For the most part, I
\ntrust them to make the right choices for themselves.
\nI always look forward on seeing them, and I love
\njust watching them sleep. What a great relationship.”<\/p>\n
In the end it’s not the dogs but Louisa who persuades
\nMs. Chua that she needs to modify her approach.
\nAlways the more defiant of the two daughters,
\nLouisa finally cracks, on a family trip, when
\nher mother insists that she try caviar in a restaurant
\nnear Moscow’s Red Square. Somehow that demand
\ntriggers in the 13-year-old girl a true Americanstyle
\nteenage outburst featuring thrown glasses and
\nI-hate-you’s ricocheting around the room. After this
\nshocking display of disobedience, Ms. Chua concludes
\nthat she needs to relax her hold and grant the
\ngirls a modicum of independence. Louisa promptly
\ndials back her violin-practicing to a mere 30 minutes
\na day and bans her mother from kibitzing.
\nSo where does that leave Ms. Chua Pretty much
\nwhere millions of other parents are, standing on the
\nsidelines of our children’s lives, proud, anxious observers
\ntrying to offer useful advice. Meanwhile,
\nMs. Chua is thinking about getting another dog. <\/p>\n
\nA coordination problem (a term of art in economics and management) occurs when you have a task to perform, the task has multiple and shifting components, the time for completion is limited, and your performance is affected by the order and sequence of the actions you take. The trick is to manage it so that the components dont bump into each other in ways that produce confusion, frustration and inefficiency.<\/p>\n
You will face a coordination problem if you are a general deploying troops, tanks, helicopters, food, tents and medical supplies, or if you are the C.E.O. of a large company juggling the demands of design, personnel, inventory and production.<\/p>\n
And these days, you will face a coordination problem if you want to get a cup of coffee.
\nIt used to be that when you wanted a cup of coffee you went into a nondescript place fitted out largely in linoleum, Formica and neon, sat down at a counter, and, in response to a brisk Whatll you have, dear said, Coffee and a cheese Danish. Twenty seconds later, tops, they arrived, just as you were settling into the sports page.<\/p>\n
Now its all wood or concrete floors, lots of earth tones, soft, high-style lighting, open barrels of coffee beans, folk-rock and indie music, photographs of urban landscapes, and copies of The Onion. As you walk in, everything is saying, This is very sophisticated, and youd better be up to it.<\/p>\n
It turns out to be hard. First you have to get in line, and you may have one or two people in front of you who are ordering a drink with more parts than an internal combustion engine, something about double shot, skinny, breve, grande, au lait and a lot of other words that never pass my lips. If you are patient and stay in line (no bathroom breaks), you get to put in your order, but then you have to find a place to stand while you wait for it. There is no such place. So you shift your body, first here and then there, trying not to get in the way of those you cant help get in the way of.
\nFinally, the coffee arrives.
\nBut then your real problems begin when you turn, holding your prize, and make your way to where the accessories things you put in, on and around your coffee are to be found. There is a staggering array of them, and the order of their placement seems random in relation to the order of your needs. There is no right place to start, so you lunge after one thing and then after another with awkward reaches.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, two or three other people are doing the same thing, and each is doing it in a different sequence. So there is an endless round of excuse me, no, excuse me, as if you were in an old Steve Martin routine.<\/p>\n
But no amount of politeness and care is enough. After all, there are so many items to reach for lids, cup jackets, straws, napkins, stirrers, milk, half and half, water, sugar, Splenda, the wastepaper basket, spoons. You and your companions may strive for a ballet of courtesy, but what you end up performing is more like bumper cars. Its just a question of what will happen first getting what you want or spilling the coffee you are trying to balance in one hand on the guy reaching over you.
\nI wont even talk about the problem of finding a seat.
\nAnd two things add to your pain and trouble. First, it costs a lot, $3 and up. And worst of all, what youre paying for is the privilege of doing the work that should be done by those who take your money. The coffee shop experience is just one instance of the growing practice of shifting the burden of labor to the consumer gas stations, grocery and drug stores, bagel shops (why should I put on my own cream cheese), airline check-ins, parking lots. Its insert this, swipe that, choose credit or debit, enter your PIN, push the red button, error, start again. At least when you go on a vacation that involves working on a ranch, the work is something youve chosen. But none of us has chosen to take over the jobs of those we pay to serve us.<\/p>\n
Well, its Sunday morning, and youre probably reading this with a cup of coffee. I hope it was easy to get.<\/p>\n
\nPlease discuss which readings your preferred this term and which you did not. Offer reflection and specifics.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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