To judge Amy Chua’s approach to parenting, it is necessary to ask - is the approach successful? Is the approach replicable? It is obvious that Prof. Chua’s approach has failed on both accounts.
Prof. Chua takes great pride in the fact that her elder daughter performed at the Carnegie Hall after enduring years of practice and pressure from the “tiger mom”. It is also worth pointing out that now both of the daughters are now accepted by top universities. However, it is too early to declare her approach has had any meaningful success. Performing as a child protégé is far from being a musical maestro. Similarly, enrolling in an Ivy League school is merely a small step towards one’s future achievement and career – one can even argue this is a rather insignificant step given the experience of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and countless others.
True success is not measured by income and status, but by one’s contribution to society, which often is the results of passion, leadership, ingenuity, and creativity. Prof. Chua’s results oriented “tiger mom’ approach aims at producing well trained and skillful followers who are best suited for a high salary professional job or “meet a nice guy” – perhaps this is Prof. Chua’s definition of success – nevertheless, being forced to be purely results driven in one’s early age is hardly any way to build leadership or promote creativity.
Prof. Chua clearly would like others to adopt her parenting approach as she believes many parents are not pushing their children to fully realize their potentials. Although arguments such as “Everything valuable and worthwhile is difficult” and “Most people stink at the things they love, unless you work on it” are quite salient indeed – her approach can easily lead to strained family relationship and damaged personality if not implemented carefully. One might argue that her approach worked because her family is financially well off and she, as a university faculty, has ample free time to spend on her children. For a busier parent who is less financially resourceful, Prof. Chua’s virtuous cycle is more likely to turn into a vicious cycle where parental pressure can lead to excess rebellious moves from the children, which in turn intensifies the parental pressure and strains family relationship. The fact that Prof. Chua has to tune down her pressure to her younger daughter actually suggests the ineffectiveness of the so called “virtuous cycle”.
Prof. Chua’s approach is less likely to be successfully replicated because it has yet a reasonable strategy to address failure, which is inevitable to everyone at some point. She assumes that the parent always knows better than the child in terms of what is best for the child -ironically, she did not do a particularly good job calling her younger daughter’s talent for tennis. Most importantly if the path the “tiger moms” chose for the child failed, the responsibility of failure would fall squarely onto the parents, who are naturally incapable of being responsible for the child’s whole life. Allowing each individual to taking responsibility for his/her own decision is precisely why the modern society thrives.
It would be understandable if Prof. Chua intended the book to be controversial to sell more copies, but justifying a full set of parenting beliefs based on one family’s experience is far from right.
Is Amy Chua right?
《我在美国做妈妈》热门书评
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[zt] 柏蔚林 - 虎妈教育方式:中国传统的荣耀还是悲埃?
117有用 16无用 将来 2011-01-24
虎妈教育方式:中国传统的荣耀还是悲埃?作者:柏蔚林 | 评论(5) | 标签:所见所闻耶鲁大学法学院华裔教授蔡美儿,最近在其2011年新书《虎妈战歌》中称,以强迫压力为特点的中国传统子女教育方法,远优于西方式的教育方法,为了使子女顺从家长的意愿,通过长时间训练使学业达到完美的状态,可以不惜使用精神威...
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逼比放还难呢
79有用 5无用 胡天翼 2011-02-07
【这是掐头去尾的洁版,为的是少走一遍豆瓣娘的程序。完整的在此:http://hutianyi.net/?p=2272】有道是“盛世出国虎,虎啸振国威”。上个月,一个叫蔡美儿,人称“虎妈”的耶鲁法学院终身教授因为写了本带有自传性质的育儿书《虎妈的战歌》(Battle Hymn of the Tiger...
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看完《我们的孩子足够坚强吗》之后,再来看看 《虎妈战歌》吧
51有用 2无用 沃若晨夕 2015-09-15
最近看了BBC的《我们的孩子足够坚强》吗,首先这不是一部完全客观的纪录片,所以你不可以以它为蓝本得出中国教育是这样,英国教育是那样的结论。它有着明显的西方的视角,将中式教育打造的略显狰狞,以迎合本国观众(顺带说一句,当你读上两段或看上几分钟就能分辨出这是CNN,VOA或是BBC的时候,大概也是西方媒...
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中国式父母的精神病历范本
48有用 10无用 爱的战士猫小球 2011-04-13
其实我原本想的标题是这样的:你妈逼你妈逼,你是大傻逼!!!伤不起啊伤不起!!!年度伤不起!!!是的,野蛮人傻逼母亲你伤不起啊好嘛亲!!!!!!尼玛的哈佛耶鲁到底是神马地方啊!!!尼玛的怎么就能让这种傻逼混迹在那里呢!!这种人居然还是美国生美国长的,就是朽木一截啊有木有!!!尼玛的人类文明发展了几千年...
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你看到的还是只有表面。
24有用 6无用 欲三更 2011-01-31
声明:以下是我跟别人讨论这本书时的回帖,我觉得说出了我的想法。贴在这里供大家讨论。=======================为什么就没人正视,想要成才必须艰苦训练。 而人的天性是好逸恶劳,俗语称,有懒筋。不艰苦训练如何克服懒惰,达到成功,成为人上人??? 社会是残酷的,这个母亲很强悍。对女儿足够...