Re: Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

On my Facebook feed, my cousin (who is a mom) posted this article Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior by Amy Chua a while back and I decided to give it a read. It wasn't surprising to me as I grew up with a lot of the rules and upbringings of the typical Chinese household. But, I was lucky enough that my parents were also adaptive of the Western culture.

As I was growing up, a lot of my friends associated me with being the stereotypical Chinese, which is partly true. Like the article states, I wasn't allowed to sleep over at a friends house, my parents didn't really like me being a part of school plays, and they always expected me and my sister to get As in school.

However, that didn't always happen. I didn't play the piano, I didn't play the violin. I wasn't a math whiz, but I was relatively good at sports. So would that be veering away from the typical Chinese upbringing? (Especially the math part) Maybe a little bit. It was strange for my parents, they said and I quote/translated "How could you have a such a big head and no brain?" or a saying that they always say "Big head, no brain, big head grows grass." Yes, that sounds harsh, but to my parents, those words shouldn't affect my self-esteem. As the article states "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."

My parents didn't seem to understand that as a kid growing up, those kinds of words did affect my self-esteem (I had a period in my life where I was major depressed because of it). But when I cried, they would tell me to stop crying because it was a sign of weakness. As a kid growing up in Western culture, how do you stop yourself from crying and understand that? While seeing other kids parents being nice?

But as I grew older, I started to see that my Chinese upbringing wasn't so bad. I still have a lot of strict so-called-rules that I follow (not exactly by the book though), in respect toward my parents. But I am also thankful that my parents are adaptive to Western culture and not too too strict like Amy Chua.