Speaking of child rearing (or stoning if they’ve got it coming) check out this new conversation starter of a parenting book:

As Maureen Corrigan put it:

In her new memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Chua recounts her adventures in Chinese parenting, and — nuts though she may be — she’s also mesmerizing. Chua’s voice is that of a jovial, erudite serial killer — think Hannibal Lecter — who’s explaining how he’s going to fillet his next victim, as though it’s the most self-evidently normal behavior. That’s the other gripping aspect of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. . .

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/11/132833376/tiger-mothers-raising-children-the-chinese-way

citizenschallenge.pm - 12 January 2011 03:17 PM

Speaking of child rearing (or stoning if they’ve got it coming) check out this new conversation starter of a parenting book:

As Maureen Corrigan put it:

In her new memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Chua recounts her adventures in Chinese parenting, and — nuts though she may be — she’s also mesmerizing. Chua’s voice is that of a jovial, erudite serial killer — think Hannibal Lecter — who’s explaining how he’s going to fillet his next victim, as though it’s the most self-evidently normal behavior. That’s the other gripping aspect of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. . .

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/11/132833376/tiger-mothers-raising-children-the-chinese-way

Yea, this is why alot of them enter society as emotionally under-developed adults. But I guess that doesn’t matter when the chief goal is not the child’s overall health, but the village’s reputation -shrugs- I still take this culture over that one….

The definition of success is individually determined.
Success for me will be if my children live happy self-fulfilled lives. If that means they end up driving a truck as long as that makes them happy, so be it. I don’t need to raise a math whiz.

Did anybody ask if the children were happy?

I read the article “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” the other day on The Wall Street Journal. She is nuts. And a racist. She wants to raise her kids the Chinese way instead of the Western? Maybe she should dress her kids in a silk robe instead of the Western clothes, and have them play the zither instead of playing Chopin on a Western piano.

I just ran across an article which people who read Chua’s nonsense might find interesting:

Chinese students’ high scores in international tests come at a cost
By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times
January 13, 2011

“We have seen the advantages and the disadvantages of our education system, and our students’ abilities are still weak,” said Xiong Bingqi, an education expert at Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University. “They do very well in those subjects the teacher assigns them. They have huge vocabularies and they do math well. However, the level of their creativity and imagination is low.

“In the long run, for us to become a strong country, we need talent and great creativity,” Xiong said. “And right now, our educational system cannot accomplish this.”

Is it true? Is their creativity and imagination low? Or is it only low when trying to produce “Western stuff”? I imagine there must be (now and in the past) many music composers in China composing Chinese music, but it’s probably more difficult for them to write a suitable music for piano than for a zither. The same can be seen in, for example, the car industry, where even though the Japanese cars may be one of the most reliable, the large portion of pioneering is still done by Mercedes. (Buy a Benz if you like novelty, but be prepared to spend a lot of time at the dealership, as novelties often need to be “tweaked”.)

Chinese kids are smarter not because their “tiger” mothers make them study more, but because they are born smarter. Let them be tortured by their tiger mothers into playing at the Carnegie Hall, but let’s see if they can torture them into composing music to be played at the Carnegie Hall. I doubt it.

Education is our salvation (secular rule #1)!!! Here in the U.S. it seems that education is directionless, half hearted, and needlessly repetitive (I took english 12 times).

My happiness today is from my confidence that I can learn anything I apply myself to. How hard is it to give students successful learning experiences?

Learning is not a race. Slow developers/learners are ‘geared’ that way and it’s been shown that they live longer..

Music can thrill our entire being but this mother has made it trappings to a prison camp…

I think that if kids watched movies twice a week in school, it would motivate a lot of them to be better readers, goal makers, etc..

A lust for life implies a high energy level.  How many biographies of famous peoples have you read where you come across a phrase like “He/She had two sets of secretaries,, one for the first eight hours and one for the second eight hours”. Many of our presidents Carter?, Eisenhower, Lincoln, etc. were high energy people. Some of them innately others used drugs,,, Halsey drank coffee and smoked cigarettes non-stop. Hefner took dexidrine for 20? years (look where it got him).  JFK had addison’s and it wouldn’t surprise me if anphetamines weren’t part of his regimen.

I absolutely agree that it would be a wonderful world if the biggest arguments between folks were about which diet/health regimens were best for energy levels and long lives.

Please tell me of some more famous hyperactives..  T. Roosevelt?

I would think that ‘bad’ people would be self indulgent to the point where they’d be drunk all the time and not be much of a bother to the world,,,?.....

A little bit of perspective may be in order:

http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-explains-Why-Chinese-Mothers-Are-Superior-in-an-op-ed-in-the-Wall-Street-Journal/answer/Christine-Lu

UPDATE: I emailed author Amy Chua
this evening (1/9). Expressed my disappointment about the WSJ piece and
pointed to this Quora thread. To my surprise I received a prompt reply
from her that said:

  Dear Christine:  Thank you for taking the time to write me, and I’m

  so sorry about your sister.  I did not choose the title of the WSJ

  excerpt, and I don’t believe that there is only one good way of raising

  children.  The actual book is more nuanced, and much of it is about

  my decision to retreat from the “strict Chinese immigrant”

  model.

  Best of luck to you,

  Amy Chua

Wow…
Christine Lu’s piece makes me want to retreat into my cynicism.

I just listened to the author being interviewed on NPR and she and he sound like real smart people and sound like disciplinarians. I have been thinking hard lately about the ‘giving and taking of orders’,,,, obedience. There’s the ‘work setting’ and the ‘family setting’.  Can ‘team’ be a metaphor for family, can everyone coach/support one another? And do so simply by an ongoing intimacy with each other. I’m thinking a happy vivacious family would give the appearance of discipline busy people. I am thinking/hopeing the mom and pop in this book lead by example and that the rough/harsh appearing times occur argueing over scheduleing?

Poorly explained…

How about,, I would like to think you could carry on a family by “C’mon kids let’s play piano, c’mon kids let’s climb a mountain, c’mon kids let’s garden, c’mon kids let’s rebuild the Renault, c’mon kids let’s learn Spanish, c’mon kids lets build a patio,,,,................................not a lot of tv,,,,,,,...  But,, I’m lazy and I try to get away with just being empathetic and talk alot with them,, that’l get it…

And once more,,,, I recently became a g-daddy and it took me about a week to realize that I love that little girl more than all those other people and cat,,,, and dog.. I want to do as well as I can by this little girl. That is the center of my moral well being. I want the best for every little girl and boy. I reafirm this every time I see some little kid skipping alongside their parent while hold hands..

Sooo obviously the center piece of any secular ethic for me would be the well being of every little kid in the world. Those behaviors we undertake to improve on that goal are good,,,, and those behaviors that are detrimental to that goal are bad.

Amen

and why do them little ones need to be so dang cute and heart grabbing anyways…

ok, ok I know, I’ve read some darwinian stuff too, still it is a beautiful miracle

  enjoy