Today’s parenting model was composed by diversity, through media and books that parents got to know different parenting styles. Since more and more people focused on how to cultivate the next generation, the difference between Chinese and Western parenting styles would arouse controversy. It seems like Chinese and Western parenting methods are totally different, which give both Chinese and Western parents a shock. However, what interesting is that both parenting methods can foster elitists. Amy Chua in “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” discusses her typical Chinese parenting style, which is a coercion way to love her daughters. She always pushes her daughters to play the piano and do school works. In a word, she wants to take every of her …show more content…
However, when we looked at Western parenting model, we can also find something attractive. Adam Gopnik, serves as a typical Western parent, in his article “Bumping into Mr. Ravioli” also shows his parenting style. Differed from Chua, he is not strict at all. Instead, he only wants his daughter can live a happy life. Just like all the other Western parents, he cares about his daughters’ psyche so much. When he found his daughter has an imaginary friend, he is so worried that he asked psychologist for help. What both Western and Chinese parenting methods in common is that both parents want their children can live a better life. In fact, we do not need to split parenting styles into separated parts. A successful parent should combine Chinese and western parenting methods together. The role of parent is to foster their children to become independent. Success may looks different in different people’s eyes, so parents should abandon the idea of make a life plan for their children and force their children to do what they think can create success. Also, a successful parent should not use Confucian filial piety as an excuse to prove that their children owe them …show more content…
A successful parent should leave their children some options and guide them when they need help. Chua pointed out why she choose to made every decisions for her daughters by saying that, “Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children’s own desires and preferences” (54). Chua chooses a Chinese parenting way to educate her daughters, and the characteristic is always being in control, which is not realistic and not good for her daughters. She blocked all the possibilities, which at the same time blocked all the pleasures for her daughters. Because there are so many unknowns in our lives, our lives become interesting. If someone said to us that they made a plan for our lives and the only thing we need to do is follow that plan, we must feel disappointed and upset. Children need these unknowns, an assigned life may lead them to success, but the definition of success is different among different people. Parents should only help their children when their children feel confused and need help and children will only be responsible for the lives chosen by themselves. On the contrary, Gopnik choose not to intervene his daughter’s decision at the most extent even when he is worried about that decision. Instead of stopping his daughter playing with
Like the name of this article suggests, the writer's main purpose is to persuade the audience to make them believe that Chinese mothers are indeed superior. To support her argument she uses different methods to appeal to her audience's favor: she uses statistics of researches about Chinese mothers and Western mothers opinions, opinions that are mostly about how parents should or should not do when they are raising their children. She also uses passages of her life as a Chinese mother to support her argument. Also, she points out a few characteristics of western parents that are completely opposite to how a Chinese mother raises their children, which made her argument stronger. Nevertheless, there were some fallacies in her logic. One of her main fallacies is what we call "Hasty Generalization".
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
Chao, R. K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: Understanding chinese parenting through the cultural notion of training. Society for Research in Child Development, 65(4), 1111-1119.
Chinese parenting is competent at times but there are other times where it is more suitable to follow other forms of parenting such as the Western style.These findings have important consequences for the broader domain of parent-child relationships. Whether it is Chinese parenting or Western parenting the relationship between family members is crucial. According to Amy Chua, Chinese parenting is more effective in helping the child attain a better future through the parents’ interests, while Western parenting style reflects mainly the interests of the child.
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...
Lastly, the author argues that Chinese parents’ high level of expectation results in utterly differing parenting method. While Western parents’ role in their children’s lives is primarily a supporting one, Chinese parents intensely drill their children in preparation the
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)
Amy Chua (2011) names off three reasons that support her argument in why Chinese children are more successful. First, she mentions that Westerners worry too much on how their child will accept failure, whereas Chinese parents assume only strength in their child and nothing less. For example, if a Western child comes home with a B on a test, some parents will praise the child on their success and some may be upset, while a Chinese parent would convince their child they are “worthless” and “a disgrace.” The Western parents hope to spare their children’s feelings and to be careful not to make their child feel insecure or inadequate, while Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe their children can get them (Chua, 2011). Secondly, Chinese parents believe their chil...
Parent has changed with the years. Spanking a child was okay in the past, but is frowned upon. Some parents believe in talking through situations. “In any society, parenting beliefs are a reflection of that society 's cultural values and traditions” (Hulei, Zevenbergen, & Jacobs, 2006). Traditions in one culture may not be accepted in another culture. Traditions change with the times; what is accepted today may not be accepted later in the future. Parent is based on three main styles, but past research has included a fourth. This essay will describe four parenting styles and compare them to the parenting styles on the Chinese and European parents.
In “Two Kinds”, the mother is constantly demanding respect from her daughter. It reminded me of when a friend of mine said, “I’m my own Chinese mother” while she was preparing for finals week. Is it culturally understood that Chinese mothers are strict? At the end of the story, the mother, very upset, demands:
A parent’s parenting styles are as diverse as the world we live in today. Nowadays, parents only want what is best for their children and their parenting styles plays a crucial role in the development of children which will in the long run, not only effect the child’s childhood years, but later prolong into their adult life as well.
The universality versus cultural specificity debate both have aspects that make sense and can be applied to childhood development. On one side, supporters of the argument for the universality of parenting suggest that certain types of parenting styles will produce the same child development outcomes in different cultures. On the other hand, the argument for cultural specificity states that different parenting practices vary from culture to culture, and that culture ultimately determines the outcomes of child development. Each culture has specific styles of parenting that instill values on children particular to that culture. Each individual has characteristics of what their parents taught them, which gives every individual their own personality. Both sides present logical information on the cultural impacts of parenting on child development outcomes.
Webster’s dictionary defines parenting as the process of raising and education a child from birth until adulthood. Everyone has or had a caregiver, whether it be pests, animals or human beings. However, the thing that differs is the method of parenting. There are many methods of parenting, but there are only three main parts. They include authoritarian parenting style, permissive parenting style, and democratic parenting style. The next few paragraphs will give the reader a detailed description of these three parenting methods and what my parents have used in parenting me.
Parenting in today’s society is extremely competitive. Raising children has become the new sport interest to the parents, and the success that the kids achieve in life is the gold medal. You see the articles in magazines, the websites online, and the ads on TV that promote the newest and greatest parenting methods used by mothers and father everywhere. The differences we see in parenting can differ from family to family, but the biggest contrast is between the different ethnicities of the world. How a Western mother raises her child may be completely different than that of a Chinese mother. These differences are the ones that are observed by author Amy Chua, as well as mothers who have read her works of literature.
“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” is an excerpt from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, a Yale Law professor. In this excerpt the author explains why Chinese children tend to be more successful in life and expresses her dislike towards Western parenting. The first idea Chua explains is a list of activities her daughters are allowed to do and not do in order to focus solely on academic progress. Second, the author demonstrates the contrast in mindset between Chinese mothers and Western mothers by explaining how Chinese mothers feel differently than Western mothers in regards to academic success and learning. Furthermore, she describes how Chinese mothers can demand things from their children. Finally, they can also say