Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)
A contrary viewpoint:<p>After studying a number of different cultures and backgrounds and histories, I'm generally an admirer of the school of parenting laid out by Chua. Well, I think some of the more insulting/demeaning/negative-reinforcement isn't so great, but the overall focus on achievement and duty as superior to having fun... I do respect that. I'll explain why -<p>I used to think the opposite until I read Andre Agassi's autobiography, "Open" - Agassi was one of the top tennis players in the world, hit #1 multiple times, and generally achieved tremendously a lot. He's now married to Stefi Graff, the top women's tennis player of all time, and they have two kids and seem like a really healthy and happy family.<p>In his book, Agassi talks about hating tennis. He really does. His father, an immigrant to the USA from Iran, <i>drilled</i> tennis into him obsessively from a young age, constantly telling him he's going to be #1 in the world.<p>Agassi was miserable a lot of that time.<p>So, why do I think it's a good style of parenting?<p>Because people from the driven overachieving backgrounds don't realize that people with more normal lives go through their own sorts of miseries. If anything, I think Western culture leaves people directionless and in angst and miserable through their younger years more often than not.<p>The kid that just follows the minimum program, hangs out, drifts around, gets high a lot, and then wakes up at age 42 with no professional success, no real social circle, no accomplishments, no family, no skills, working at Starbucks...<p>...y'know, it's socially acceptable to criticize people for overachieving and striving at the expense of other things, but it's not really socially acceptable to criticize people for mediocrity. It's kind of taboo to put down that people who spend their youth chasing pleasure frequently break down into full-on existential crises and madness later in life.<p>The vast majority of people don't self-actualize and don't achieve real meaning in their lives. Most people ascribe this to their background and external things. So you sometimes see people people who grow up under intense parenting styles say, "Well yes I tended to achieve more, but I was unhappy" - maybe, but remember that the grass is always greener on the other side...<p>I'll say one very real downside of the intensive parenting style - it has a much higher variance/standard deviation of results. You're likely to make it very professionally successful, or completely break down under the pressure. That's the downside. But overall, would someone like Andre Agassi have been happier if he'd just farted along and been a middle manager at some warehousing/shipping company in Nevada? Yeah, he often hated tennis and hated his father, but in the end he inspired millions of people, got to experience triumphs most people will never feel, achieved a complete mastery and harmony between his mind and body in competition, built a family with an absolutely incredible woman, and lots of other good things.<p>There's downsides, sure. But the grass is always greener on the other side. I could point out my opinions as to the flaws of any given parenting style, but I find the duty/achievement end of the spectrum to seem closer to overall well-being than the reverse.