“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”

-Amy Chua

 

About the author

Amy Chua was born in 1962, in Champaign, Illinois.  She graduated from Harvard College in 1984 and Harvard Law School in 1987.  While at Harvard Law School, Professor Chua was executive editor of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, she clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C.

Amy’s first book, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, a New York Times bestseller, was selected by both The Economist and the U.K.’s Guardian as one of the Best Books of 2003.  She’s also the author of the 2011 memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a runaway international bestseller translated into 30 languages, and The Triple Package, a 2013 New York Times bestseller coauthored with her husband, Jed Rubenfeld.

In 2011 Amy was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, an Atlantic Monthly Brave Thinker, and one of Foreign Policy‘s Global Thinkers of 2011. She also received the Yale Law School’s “Best Teaching” award.

Summary

“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” is a comparison and contrast essay. In this essay, the author, Amy Chua, explains that Chinese children are more successful in their life than Western children. Chinese Children are more intelligent and smart. She also compares the different ways of raising children through short stories and gives examples from her life.

Chua claims that Western mothers have an attitude that “stressing academic is not good for children”. They think that kids need to develop the concept of learning different things because it is helpful to them. By contrast, Chinese parents think totally differently and they think that “academic success reflects successful parenting” (Chua).  If a child has any problem in his/her grades a Chinese mother spends plenty of time of her daily life to make his/her child “superior” in the class. In Chinese mothers dictionary there is no word for giving up, whereas Western parents do-not want to put pressure and force on their children to achieve or pursue things.

Chua says that when she was young her father called her “garbage” in their language when she misbehaves to her mother. She feels guilt from the bottom of her heart and agrees that she does something bad to her mother. She also thinks that her parents care about her and the word “garbage” is not going to hurt her self-respect. By contrast, she does the same thing to her daughter Sophia at dinner party in front of her other Western friends. Her friends think that Chua behavior is really bad towards her daughter and they leave the party. In fact, the only difference between the Chinese parents and Western is that Chinese parents can tell everything to their children and they never take it negatively. If the same thing happens to any Western children the reaction is going to be the opposite and they end up with getting “negative self-image”.

According to Chua, “Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything”. Chinese mother gives her full time and devotion to raise children. Chinese parents think that they sacrifice their life and time for their children therefore children need to repay and obey their parents in their whole life. By contrast, Westerners do-not have the same point of view. Chua gives an example of her husband, Jed, who says, “Children don’t choose their parents” (Chua). He is trying to tell her that parent wants children for their life and they raise them because they want them to get successful in their life. They teach everything to them for themselves; “Kids don’t owe their parents anything” (Chua). She was shocked and totally bold from his husband’s reaction.

Chua says Chinese parents want to train their children differently. Therefore, they restrict them in certain areas, so they can be more focused in their academic life. Chinese think that if children are not able to achieve their goals, then there is a lack of practice and effort behind it. She tells a short story in her article about her youngest daughter, Lulu, in favoring Chinese manner of raising children. When Lulu was 7 years old, she plays two instruments and she has to prepare a music piece “The Little White Donkey” on piano for her recital (Chua). The piece is very difficult to play on piano for a 7 year old child.  Lulu is not able to do it because “the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms” (Chua). She is really working hard over and over on it, but she is not able to do it. She gets frustrated and tears the book and says again and again to her mother (Chua) that she does not want to do it. Chua threatens her and tells her she has to do it anyhow and she is not going to give her any food, water and no permission to go to bathroom until she finishes the piece.

At the same time, Jed, Chua husband, is watching the whole scene and he takes her aside and tells to Chua, please stop threatening her. It is not good for her, but Chua thinks that by giving Lulu punishment she is motivating her to learn the piece perfectly. After a short discussion with Jed, she goes back to Lulu and uses every technique to convince her to practice more and more to learn the piece in a correct mode. Then, suddenly, Lulu does it and she plays it over and over to become stronger and play it faster, in a right tempo.  On the day of recital, she plays it really well and each person gives her compliments. Even, Jed agrees that by not giving up she makes Lulu much more self-assured and faultless in her work.

In conclusion, Amy Chua says Western parents also want their children to become more successful. They care about their self-respect, independence, and try to motivate them to make their own dreams fulfill; also they admire and respect their children decision. By contrast, the Chinese parents believe that they have a good sense of choosing right directions for their children. They prepare and help them to build up their self-confidence for the future, so they become more successful and no one can take away the confidence and success from their children life.