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Cross-cultural differences between Chinese and Western parenting styles/ methods
Cross-cultural differences between Chinese and Western parenting styles/ methods
What basic premise underlies chinese parenting
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Independence is better off earned that given. It is something that is learned over time and ultimately valued. Women in this day and age are caught in the troubles of creating an authenticity for themselves and independence men. Michael Kimmel explains the struggles of women in a society ruled by men in his essay “Guyland: Eyes on the Guys”. Guyland is a figurative place that Kimmel creates to describe the societal standards that women must fit to enter adulthood. He stresses the pressures that women are put through to get through Guyland, including the maintenance of their authenticity and sense of agency. Amy Chua introduces two different styles of parenting in her essay “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior”. Chua compares the styles of Chinese …show more content…
parenting and Western (variety of other cultures other than Chinese) parenting to support her idea that Chinese parents stereotypically raise more successful children than other cultures. Though Western parenting is more liberating, it does not benefit the way children learn to discover their own individuality and independence. Western parenting is not strict enough like that of the parenting of Chinese mothers, causing the average american girl to conform to the negative aspects of Guyland such as a world of entitlement, self-hating behaviors, and validation from others. American women are raised with a false sense of agency. They are educated to believe that they are entitled to rights that their past generations fought for. Rights fought for by Westerners that stress the importance of this generation's opportunities to do what women weren’t able to do in the past. Kimmel mentions Dan Kindlon, psychologist and author of “Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World”, and his claim that “today’s generation of girls, born in the early 1980s and beyond, have undergone a kind of collective psychological transformation that is the natural result of gender equality of recent history,”(243). Women of this age are empowered and entitled like never before but at the same time are held responsible to continue the feminist movement as if they are in debt to the women who fought for their rights. Much like how Chinese parents believe that their children owe them everything. From all the sacrifices the parents made, Chinese children are meant to repay their debt by obeying and making their parents proud. Chua contradicts this deception of agency from both Western and Chinese parenting when she quotes her husband Jed, saying “‘Children don’t choose their parents,’ he once said to me.’They don’t even choose to be born. It’s parents who foist life on their kids, so it’s the parents’ responsibility to provide for them. Kids don’t owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids’”(qtd 54). In reality children do not owe their elder generations anything. Women would gain their own sense of agency by not being held responsible for the actions of western parents. The magnitude of strictness in the Chinese parenting methods forces children in the right direction to better themselves.
Chinese parents override their children's desires and preferences at a young age to steer them clear of any distractions. Chua begins her writing piece with a list of activities that she would not allow her children to do. From activities such as attending a sleepover to achieve grades lower than an A, Chua’s children were pushed to do everything a certain way. It might seem restraining to the child but “ Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children… They would give up anything for their children,”(Chua 64). They are essentially limiting their children's choices to give them a predestination to success while still giving them the freedom to express themselves. Western parents are the complete opposite. They allow their children to pursue whatever they please even if it were wrong. This is how American women are drawn to self-hating behaviors caused by pressures of Guyland. Kimmel states “There are plenty of girls who avoid the more dire pitfalls of females of female adolescence in America today–from eating disorders to self-mutilation, reckless promiscuity to binge drinking. Yet man do not. And while there are several reasons that might explain the kind of self-hating behaviors described above, none is more relevant to our conversation than the pressures exerted by the culture of Guyland,”(244). Harlot sexual tendencies, alcohol abuse, and degrading sorority pledging are all examples of the vices women are drawn to due to the loose parenting of westerners. Western parenting does not push their children into the right direction like Chinese parenting, revealing them to the dark aspects of Guyland where women risk their authenticity and
independence. Women fail to find the sense of agency and uniqueness in their lives, when seeking validation. Western parenting causes women to rely on others such as sororities and men to feel accepted. They ruin their sense of agency this way by depending on others for acceptance. It also ruining the solid relationships that they already established. Kimmel quotes Rosalind Wiseman, author of “Queen Bees & Wannabes”, expressing that women in sororities discover that “girls’ social hierarchy increasingly traps girls in a cycle of craving boys’ validation, pleasing boys to obtain that validation, and betraying the friends who truly support them,”(qtd 246). They destroy their image when conforming to male expectations. Sorority rituals such as “Circle the Fat” or “Bikini Weigh” pressure females to change their figures to fit societal norms instead of remaining true to themselves. They lack the agency they desire because they were not raised in the correct form. Chinese parents, on the other hand, raise their children to be firm and independent. It is almost as if Chinese parents program their children to succeed without help of others no matter what costs. Chua differentiates the outcome of each parenting methods “Western parents are extremely self conscious about their children’s self esteem… In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese parents aren’t. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave differently,”(53). The parenting techniques that Chinese parents use, make their children less dependant on the acceptance of others. Therefore, allowing them to remain authentic to their own ways instead of conforming to the expectations of others. This stresses why western parenting affects the way that women search for their sense of agency.
Amy Chua utilizes evidence to verify that Western parenting practice is wrong and not as effective as Chinese parenting practice. In her article, Chua comments, “Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable-even legally actionable-to Westerners, “Hey fatty-lose some weight.” By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue” (Chua 54). She also gives her observation as evidence to convince Westerners treat their kid wrongly. She adds her observation in her article “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” “I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her “beautiful and incredibly competent.” She later told me that made her feel like garbage” (Chua 54). Brooks, in opposite, does not fight against to prove Chinese parenting techniques are completely wrong. However, he just want to give evidence so that Chua and Chinese, in common, understand Western parenting practices are good in some ways. In Brooks’ article, he clears, “So I’m not against the way Chua pushes her daughters” (Brooks 59). Furthermore, David Brooks writes in his article “I wish she recognized that in some important ways the school cafeteria is more intellectually demanding than the library” (Brooks
In David Sedaris’s essay collection, Naked, “I like guys” had probably stand out as interesting, compelling, and meaningful essay he has done. Because of its title, “I like guys” had given away his story that relates to homosexual. It turns out that it is about David discovered that he is homosexual when he was a teenager during his summer camp in Greece. In addition, he did discuss about developing his crush on a fellow camper who is a boy. The interesting, compelling, and meaningful part is when the two of them spread false rumors on each other until his crush exposed David’s gayness, David felt betrayed by what he had done, even though all the campers did not care, and that caused them to ruin their friendship. It seems that David wanted to pour out his feelings about his experience of liking a certain guy and its consequences. In fact, he came up with his theme of
Firstly, the relationship expectations in Chinese customs and traditions were strongly held onto. The daughters of the Chinese family were considered as a shame for the family. The sons of the family were given more honour than the daughters. In addition, some daughters were even discriminated. “If you want a place in this world ... do not be born as a girl child” (Choy 27). The girls from the Chinese family were considered useless. They were always looked down upon in a family; they felt as if the girls cannot provide a family with wealth. Chinese society is throwing away its little girls at an astounding rate. For every 100 girls registered at birth, there are 118 little boys in other words, nearly one seventh of Chinese girl babies are going missing (Baldwin 40). The parents from Chinese family had a preference for boys as they thought; boys could work and provide the family income. Due to Chinese culture preference to having boys, girls often did not have the right to live. In the Chinese ethnicity, the family always obeyed the elder’s decision. When the family was trying to adapt to the new country and they were tryin...
Kane displays five different ways of parenting based on gender. She first introduces us to the Naturalizers. Naturalizers practice traditional values when raising their child. They believe in the concept of “it was how they were born” (Kane, 2012. p. 53). The mere definition explains to us that the biological outlooks outweigh the social outlooks. Naturalizers believe that differences are vital to gender. Next, the reader learns of a group named Cultivators. Cultivators believe that gender is socially constructed in the parents influence. Although this is deemed true by them, Kane shows the reader how Cultivators still adhere to the traditional value of young men but are okay with young women being nontraditional (taking out trash, doing
Chua believes that Chinese parents force their children to be academically successful in order to reach “higher” goals in life. She emphasizes this when she states “…Chinese parents have … higher dreams for their children…” (Chua 8). Although Amy set higher s...
“Boys” by Rick Moody summarizes the life journey of two stereotypical boys and how they gain power from the experiences they face. The boys face both positive experiences and tragedies that impacts their amount of power. In the short story, the author is conveying the idea that as the boys mature they obtain more power. He shows this through the literary devices conflict, tone, and repetition.
One type of effect the Chinese mothers’ expectations has in their relationship with their “Americanized” daughter is negative since the mothers are unable to achieve anything. An-Mei Hsu expects her daughter to listen and obey as the young ones do in Chinese culture, but instead receives a rebellious and stubborn daughter, “‘You only have to listen to me.’ And I cried, ‘But Old Mr. Chou listens to you too.’ More than thirty years later, my mother was still trying to make me listen’” (186-187). Instead of the circumstances improving, the mother is never able to achieve anything; her forcing and pushing her daughter to the Chinese culture goes to a waste. They are both similar in this sense because both are stubborn; the daughter learns to be stubborn through American culture and wants to keep herself the way she is, whereas the mother wants to remove this teaching from American culture and does not give u...
Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, “It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.” This “unseen terror” is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese women and their American-born daughters struggle to understand one another’s culture and values. The second-generation women in The Joy Luck Club prove to lose their sense of Chinese values, becoming Americanized.
Every year about a million immigrants come to America in hope to start a better life for their family. They leave with virtually nothing, just the clothes on their backs and a few, hard earned coins. As they start a new life here in the United States, most immigrants tend to notice the drastic differences that are present between their culture and Western society, particularly in the way women are supposed to talk and behave. In the excerpt from “Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts,” Maxine Hong Kingston addresses these hardships as a Chinese girl who is searching for her voice in America. During the excerpt, Kingston portrays fitting into these “cultural expectations” as absolutely necessary, as shown in the last paragraph in Page 10. She says things like “If you don’t talk… then you can’t be a house wife.” Or “Don’t you ever want to be a cheerleader?” (Kingston 10) At the time of this scene, the narrator was so sure that the American way was the right way, that she bullies a younger student into changing. Alas the student never changes and the narrator falls sick for a year and a half because of her ill actions. However, plenty has changed since that time of the Korean War (1950’s.) Nowadays, these expectations of what is an American woman are changing. Compared to the 1950’s, women currently are holding much more power, and are viewed as a superior sex symbol.
The second and third sections are about the daughters' lives, and the vignettes in each section trace their personality growth and development. Through the eyes of the daughters, we can also see the continuation of the mothers' stories, how they learned to cope in America. In these sections, Amy Tan explores the difficulties in growing up as a Chinese-American and the problems assimilating into modern society. The Chinese-American daughters try their best to become "Americanized," at the same time casting off their heritage while their mothers watch on, dismayed. Social pressures to become like everyone else, and not to be different are what motivate the daughters to resent their nationality. This was a greater problem for Chinese-American daughters that grew up in the 50's, when it was not well accepted to be of an "ethnic" background.
In the short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid is a story that everyone can related to. The story is about a mother telling her daughter what to do, what not to do and how to do things. Kind of like society or parents or a friends of what to do. There has also been always been expectations of what to do and how to do things in life regards of gender, nationality or religion. The male has he’s duties and the female has different duties. However, in the typical society today, a person is supposed to graduate from high school and go straight in to an Ivy League university, to get a degree in a field of study that makes lot of money. While working a person must save money for that dream big house with the white picket fence. At the same time, you have to look for that perfect spouse so you can have the big beautiful dream wedding. After the wedding it’s the romantic honeymoon to Bora Bora. After a couple years the baby comes, and you are a happy family. Typically, that is what parents teach their children of what is what is expected of them.
The Chinese mothers, so concentrated on the cultures of their own, don't want to realize what is going on around them. They don't want to accept the fact that their daughters are growing up in a culture so different from their own. Lindo Jong, says to her daughter, Waverly- "I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promise. This means nothing to you because to you, promises mean nothing. A daughter can promise to come to dinner, but if she has a headache, a traffic jam, if she wants to watch a favorite movie on T.V., she no longer has a promise."(Tan 42) Ying Ying St.Clair remarks- "...because I remained quiet for so long, now my daughter does not hear me. She sits by her fancy swimming pool and hears only her Sony Walkman, her cordless phone, her big, important husband asking her why they have charcoal and no lighter fluid."(Tan 64)
There are big differences in how Chinese mothers act towards their children compared to Western mothers including the expression of feelings and approval, the worth of their children, and what is best for them. Amy Chua (2011) incorporates her own personal experiences of being a Chinese mother within her article and compares that to what she witnesses in America.
to the conclusion at one point that the whole thing was hopeless because it is a biological fact women have babies and that is always a career breaker. I end this paper rather disappointed that now, as it was centuries ago,are allowing their lives to be run by male views and stereotypes. The world is moving forward but unless women stop allowing
middle of paper ... ... women know and think that if they don’t act or behave to their expectations they will. looked down upon and possibly neglected by their family and society. To avoid losing friends and family, most male and female, construct their own role in their life.