All's fair in tough love parenting

Think state fascism transposed to the level of ordinary family household. Then think ordinary family household run like your worst nightmare. You’d have: no sleepovers, no play dates, no school plays, no TV or computer games, no freedom to pick your own extracurricular activity, no grade lower than A or perfect, no learning of instruments other than violin and piano, no losing, and no being anything other than No. 1. In short, no fun.

And if you think these no-no’s are harsh, Amy Chua, Chinese-American author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Yale law professor, and the self-proclaimed Tiger Mom herself, would say that this is just the tip of the iceberg. After all, there’s still the insult flinging (calling her older daughter Sophia “garbage” at a party due to disrespectful behavior), instrument practice drilling (making her youngest daughter Lulu practice a piano piece for six hours straight without any dinner), and birthday-card-rejecting (returning a birthday card that Lulu made her because she found it mediocre) to contend with.

Small wonder, then, that Chua and her totalitarian parenting methods have been the center of many a ferocious coffee shop discussion. More so online, where Chua’s excerpt in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” has generated comments as diverse as (and I quote):

 “I loved this article… I appreciate the hard work that you put in for your children and wish them all the very best in life” (From Ypschita Guha) 

To:

 “Doesn’t she know a lot of us trying to escape from that kind of environment so we emigrated here (to USA)? …So that our children can grow up in a ‘western’ way with freedom and individuality. Now her book throws all our purpose out the window. That alone made me very angry with her.” (From Mandy Wu)

To:

“If Amy Chua live in China, she must be a wife of Mao…

If Amy Chua is my mother, I will kill her when she is old.” (From Occasionally When)

Go figure.

The point is, Chua’s account of unflinching ruthlessness in the realm of maternal love has made most parents, especially Westerners, question the efficiency of their own child-rearing methods. Naturally. I mean, what parent wants to be told that the way she’s been raising her kid sucks? But aside from her parenting reports, it’s Chua’s essentialist pitting of Chinese parenting versus Western parenting that’s got people so riled up. Basically, she says that Chinese parents are stricter and more demanding while Western ones are more lax and permissive, citing studies and statistics to bolster her claim. And, as if in anticipation of the diatribe that was sure to follow that assertion, Chua manages to issue a disclaimer first, saying, “Despite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes…”

Tiger lady, indeed.

You have to admire how unapologetically sure she is of herself, considering she’s tackling a subject as touchy as the why’s and how’s of parenthood, and with a parenting style like that, no less. Personally though, and from the little I’ve gleaned from the excerpt, while I find her binary division of the East and West to be somewhat crude, I don’t think Chua’s methods are all that monstrous. Notorious, sensationalized, and a bit cruel at times, sure; but I’d wager there are kids out there who’ve had it a whole lot worse than Sophia and Lulu. For one thing, Chua doesn’t seem to have lifted so much as a finger against her daughters, and that’s something to be said for the number of heavy-handed parents with beaten-up kids all over America and the world. For another thing — and this is a point most of us seem to have glossed over — it’s not that Chua drills her kids incessantly just for the heck of showing who’s boss; her toughness is actually founded on a little thing called love. After all, why else would she bother spending all that time and effort? Not to mention money? Of course, one can’t totally ignore the fact that there’s a bit of vanity involved in it too, what with children being a reflection of their parents and all that jazz, plus Chua’s social standing as a professor in Yale, for that matter. However, if clocking your kid with a stopwatch every night for a week just to make sure she perfects her multiplication table isn’t love (or even a manifestation of it), then I don’t know what is.

Think about it: the only reason Chua’s getting this much attention and debate in the first place is because her story is actually published. Who knows? Unbeknownst to the world, your next-door-neighbor might just be Dinosaur Mom, or whatever comes next on the food chain. Granted, Chua could take a leaf out of Plato’s book and practice a bit of moderation in her parenting duties, but one has to try to understand where she’s coming from. For me, it’s not so much because she’s Chinese but the fact that her parents were US immigrants. That in itself already says a lot — having to contend with racial discrimination, societal pressure, and the adjustment to a new environment… the only way to find a comfortable niche and be respected was to make sure you thrived. While the Chinese, if we adhere to the stereotype, have always been associated with tradition, hard work and discipline, in Chua’s case, I’d say it was her parents’ immigrant status that served as the extra push to have her brought up in such a stringent way. In fact, Chua credits her parents for the success she’s achieved, and has consequently resolved to socialize her children in the same way. Well, if it works, right?

In the Philippine context, I’d like to think the parenting approach here lies somewhere between the Western and Chinese styles which Chua has infamously outlined. Our US colonial history aside, most Pinoys have never really managed to absorb the über-liberal slant which Americans (perhaps incorrectly) are generally known for, but neither do they subscribe to the totalitarian parenting method (again, perhaps incorrectly) which has come to be associated with the Chinese. Is it because of our time under the Spanish? The influence of Christianity? Could be. I myself, as a Chinese-Filipino, would characterize my upbringing as strict with a healthy dose of liberal, and never once did I feel like I missed out in life (awesome parents to thank for that). But generalizations can never really give the clearest picture, whether you’re American, Chinese, or Filipino; which is why I say, to each his own. 

And in the end, doesn’t it all boil down to one thing?

Love, actually.