Amy Chua, a professor at Yale caused quite a storm when her article about the superiority of Chinese mothers was published in the Wall Street Journal. Although I don’t agree with everything she said I loved the shrieks and screams it produced amongst the chattering classes both here and in the USA
First, I’ve noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children’s self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. 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 very differently.
As a parent and grandparent, and after forty years of teaching teenagers in some pretty tough schools I would say Amy has a point there. Children can usually recognise false praise within a microsecond of it being given and quickly become adept at using the self esteem card to ward off any attempt to defer their own gratification.
J E Dyer, a retired naval intelligence officer and evangelical Christian, was also impressed by Chua but felt that the debate sparked off by her article needed to be seen within a cultural context.
The narrower focus on whether children should be channeled, pressured, and denied recreation is unquestionably worthwhile, but it doesn’t fully illuminate the cultural context in which our choices about that are made. For Westerners, the maternal type is as much as about the mother as it is about the performance of the children
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Enter Sarah Palin, according to Dyer, Mama Grizzly rather than Tiger Mom
The Western counterpart of the Tiger Mom—the American counterpart in particular—can arguably be identified as the Mama Grizzly. Palin is one instance of the type: a mother of five, she runs a family business with her husband, but raising her children is Job One. She doesn’t expect her children to be perfect; she teaches them principles for honest and honorable life, and accepts that the day will come when she must trust them to act on those principles. She does encourage the children to try new things, master the skills that mean survival in the environment they will live in, and find what they love in life and what they want most to do.
Chua’s message seems to demand a total focus on the relationship between parents and children and the need to fit in with society’s expectations, very much part of the Confucian tradition. But Sarah Palin exemplifies a more western approach to society,
In this culture, a mother’s business is to broker the moral project of society for her children. And, as with all brokerage, it’s a two-sided challenge: the archetypal Mama Grizzly is as determined to shape society for her children as she is to shape her children for society.
Hence Palin’s entry into politics was initially driven by a desire to improve the community within which her children would grow and develop. Chua spent hours pushing her children to score highly in their school assignments and perform flawlessly at musical recitals. Palin spent countless hours at PTA meetings trying to ensure that her kids – and others – got a better deal.
Dyer, quite rightly in my opinion, feels that differing cultures can learn from each other
There is much to admire and learn from in Chinese and other Asian cultures. The definitive features of Western culture—society as a moral project, women as integral moral participants—are echoes of the Law of Moses and the tenets of Christianity. But in other things—honoring parents, respecting the elderly, avoiding debt, resisting sloth—the Asian cultures often reflect God’s prescription for the blessed life better than ours.
Read the rest of Dyer’s piece here – and maybe you might, like me, imagine the most famous episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska never made – the Palins and the Chuas go camping….
