Paper Tiger Mom

It’s easy to hate Amy Chua right now. If her intention was to garner publicity for her book by writing a controversial article for the Wall Street Journal, she has succeeded.

Her article has spawned several follow up WSJ articles. From “Western mothers” like Ayelet Waldman and Hanna Rosin to interviews with mothers in Hong Kong, the response has been negative to gently understanding. Amy has also ignited the blogosphere (Asian American and beyond) through heated posts and comments about her article and book. Cynthia Liu’s post at Rice Daddies lists some of the other bloggers with something to say about Amy’s article.

Like Cynthia I’ve been writing about “this” for some time now. While I am not a fan of “free range” parenting as advocated by educator Alfie Kohn, I am also not a fan of what has been stereotypically depicted – and widely accepted – even by Asians - as “Asian parenting” by people like Amy Chua and the Kim sisters. Bullying and denigrating your children are not acts exclusive to Asian parents - Just as academic success is not exclusive to their children (or are they immune to academic failure).

I shudder when I am reminded of how close I was to becoming “Chua Chinese” (Please Note: I am using Chinese as defined by Amy) – a Chinese parent so obsessed with controlling the ends there is no thought given to the consequences of the means. Despite my background as an educator and having actual classroom teaching experience, once my eldest entered Pre-K I fell easily in line with what I perceived as the tenets of being a “proper” parent molding “proper” and successful children.

I would be a full Chua Chinese parent if I hadn’t just by chance seen Jack Neo’s movies: I Not Stupid and I Not Stupid Too. There is a scene in the former where a mother on the advice of her coworkers beats her son with a switch because he failed to score to her satisfaction on a test. The crying boy begs, “Please mommy don’t hit me anymore…” The scene is particularly poignant because the actress playing the mother does a good job of conveying her confusion at her actions. She is not sure it is the right way to parent but her peers seem so confident and judge her poorly for not doing it (so she does it).

The latter film is poignant because it begins by putting the following question up on the screen: When was the last time you told your kids you loved them? I read that Jack Neo, the film’s writer, director, and actor, was deeply affected by Zhou Hong’s philosophy of Appreciation Education when he was writing the sequel’s script. It shows. It overtly restates Hong’s descriptions of Appreciation Education.

What Chua Chinese parents don’t tell you is the fate of those children whose wills prove too hard to break. I Not Stupid Too touches upon it but it is Royston Tan’s 15 that explores it. Royston Tan’s 15 takes a close (though overly stylistic) look at gang life in Singapore, a country that identifies the cognitive capacity of its citizens as its greatest natural resource.

There are Chinese who exist and thrive outside of the harsh world of the Chua Chinese. Asian students whose wills may have been broken by their parents but who as a result did not fall into the next buckets their parents have set out. Instead these broken wills found healing ointment in street gangs and other subcultures.

The "Chinese" that Chua refers to no longer exists as she understood them. China is changing. The Chinese are changing! And that impacts both Chua Chinese parents and "loser" (Chua's words) Chinese parents like me who seek a connection with an ethnic heritage from which to build and evolve our children’s sense of themselves.

It’s easy for me to point fingers. It’s easy for me to blame Chua and her disciples for perpetuating social stereotypes and ignoring the truth of the matter. But it is not right. I have confessed to my own “coercion." Like Ayelet I feel guilty about it sometimes but that doesn’t always stop me. When all is said and done, I'd like to believe that all parents want what's best for their children. The challenge is putting our egos aside and getting out of our comfort zones to really understand why we tell our children what we do. Parenting is like teaching – to excel and become successful at it means you - like your children - do not stop learning.

Dear Asian America: Forget Chua’s Book, This is Our “It Gets Better” Moment

Guest post by Cynthia Liu, originally published at K-12 News Network

Dear Asian America,

As so many have pointed out through gut-wrenching personal testimony and the horrible statistics surrounding high suicide rates among young APA women–and a high rate of untreated mental illness in our community overall–Amy Chua‘s book hit a nerve. Big time.

But, let’s make this flood of commentary and outrage NOT about Chua’s book, but about the damage a certain kind of patriarchal, homophobic, and authoritarian, high-stakes parenting can do.

Yes, I said homophobic. The narrowness and rigidity of what makes for the Right School, the Right (Ethnicity) Mate, the Right Job…you don’t think it ends there, do you?

Let’s face it, if a parent feels no limits on yelling, belittling, and coercing a kid into high achievement because the ends justify the means, what’s to stop that parent from issuing beatings in the name of the greater good? Because many who harshly discipline their kids say they use corporal punishment for the same reasons–out of love. I’m not saying everyone who experienced corporal punishment is permanently psychically damaged. No. But I am saying that as with any parenting method that is harsh to begin with, extremes of emotional and physical abuse cannot be far behind.

And let’s also face this fact: many in our community may be book smart, but many also have a low Emotional Intelligence Quotient. This ranges from a lack of expressiveness, to parenting that is bullying and insensitive, to social awkwardness and a failure to know how to shmooze.

There’s a dark side to Asian Pacific America. The intensity of immigrant aspiration can feed it just as much as it feeds our other sides.

And there’s also a highly functional, balanced, warm, demanding, and nurturing kind of enlightened APA parenting. One that focuses on each child as a unique person and that is lovingly demanding of that’s child’s best, whether it’s at school, at a sport, in the arts, or as an ethical, caring human being.

Many of us, having had tough adolescences or periods in college where it took a while to sort things out, are now parents. And we’re resolved to improve upon the good and the bad that we inherited. So what does that enlightened APA parenting look like?

I’ll tell you a secret: I agree with Amy Chua on a couple of things. We don’t watch tv in our household. (Dvds, yes, but no tv.) Homework comes first. Pay attention to what the teacher asks for, because you will have to deliver according to the standards they set. You WILL learn a second language. But otherwise? Have fun. Read for pleasure. Go outside and climb a tree, or something. Enjoy traveling when we go to new places, because whiny kids can just as easily sit at home. Don’t you want to draw or paint? Stick with the guitar for at least a year–you’ll thank me when you’re 15. Pick something and excel at it. Pick something you love, and do it regardless of how good you are at it.

If Amy Chua’s failed experiment in implementing 1960s Confucian parenting methods isn’t the way, what is?

I’ve been blogging about this since 2003, when my son was born. At that time, after lots of discussion with my spouse, also Asian Pacific American, we decided that we would try non-violent parenting. So far, it’s worked out well for us. Our son is extremely close to the both of us. There’s a tremendous sense of trust. All our physical contact (including my husband with my son, of course) is hugging, kissing, and other warm expressions of affection. And I really like this. Hands are for Hugging, don’t you know? (Granted, he’s 7 and the teen years are ahead of us yet, so I’ll let you know how that goes.)

But I’m asking you–affluent parents plotting how to get your kindergartener into Stanford, working class parents wondering how to get your kid into Bronx Science–how will we all encourage our kids to excel at being themselves? And do it without breaking them?

We’ve all heard President Obama’s warning that the country that out-educates us tomorrow will out-perform us tomorrow. (I’ve always maintained he’s the first Asian American president, much in the same way that Bill Clinton was the first black president.)

But let’s not go nuts trying to respond to President Obama’s observation.

Here’s our chance to raise our Emotional Intelligence Quotients. This is our “It Gets Better” moment, so to speak. How can we widen what we understand as excellence? Achievement? And happiness? And still equip our kids with whatever skills they need to not only survive, but thrive in an unpredictable and fast-changing world?

Go. (You don’t have to be Asian American to leave a comment.)

Other APA blogs on this subject:

Betty Ming Liu

Rice Daddies: Keith Chow

Big WoWo

Ray Kwong

Christine Lu

Shanghaiist and here

Resist Racism

Racialicious

ChinaHearsay

I'm a Chinese Parent, Raised by Chinese Parents...

...and I think Amy Chua's book is full of crap.

Wow! There are so many things I want to comment on after reading that excerpt... I'll just do it stream of consciousness because there are so many things to unpack in Chua's book and in the reactions of the APA blogosphere over the weekend.

First off and full disclosure, while my parents were first gen immigrants, my upbringing was decidedly not the result of stereotypical "Chinese parenting." My parents always encouraged me to get good grades, but they never discouraged me from choosing my own activities. For instance, I never even touched a piano or a violin growing up. In fact, when it was time to pick an instrument in a fifth grade music class, I went for the drums so I didn't have to learn to read sheet music!

The first thing that struck me after reading the excerpt published in the Wall Street Journal was that Chua seems to have a whole lot of time on her hands if she's spending all those hours being such a hardass. My parents worked such long hours everyday that, even if they wanted to chain me to a piano, there was no way 1) we could afford a piano, and 2) that they had enough free time to worry about me practicing the piano.

See, I grew up in a small rural town in the south and my parents worked 14 hours a day, six days a week at the family restaurant. So I grew up in a working-lower-middle-class home. My memories of parental pressure didn't involve hours practicing scales or memorizing elements of the periodic table. Instead, their expectations primarily revolved around me helping out at the restaurant if I had any free time. This isn't to say that I was a bad student. I was an okay student. In elementary school, I was part of the Gifted and Talented program, and I took honors and AP courses throughout high school, but I was also encouraged to play sports, make friends and enjoy life as well. I even brought home the occasional C (mostly in math and science, go figure) and the house didn't crack in two.

I actually look back on my childhood warmly and fondly. I was surrounded by uncles and cousins and grandparents who all had a hand in helping to raise me. I remember sitting in the restaurant's back office watching "Wheel of Fortune" with my grandmother and great grandmother (neither knew a lick of English, but loved watching the contestants react to winning or losing on the TV), play basketball with my uncles and football with my cousins on the weekends, even, god forbid, had sleepovers at friends' houses! In fact, the first time I encountered the stereotype of the overbearing Chinese parents--probably in something written by Amy Tan, I couldn't relate at all. The idea was foreign and exotic to me. Which is probably why people love reading about it so much.

So, three-and-a-half years ago, I became my own "Chinese" parent when my daughter was born. Early on, my wife--who came to America from Japan when she was a high school freshman--agreed that we would provide our daughter opportunities to be successful, but that we'd never force them on her. And in her first three years of life, she's already taken more "lessons" than I did my whole childhood! Most recently, she's been enrolled in a Developmental Dance class for toddlers at the university where my wife works; she takes soccer lessons at her daycare, and took infant swimming lessons her first two summers. A few months ago, her daycare started giving her homework--which usually involves coloring something or tracing a letter or two--once or twice a week, and occasionally my wife attempts to help her recognize hiragana. All of these activities do not come at the expense of playtime, or trips to the library, or eating meals as a family, or just spending quality time together.

Ironically, I was having dinner with my father a few weeks ago and the topic of my parenting skills came up. Believe it or not, my dad thought that I was a little too strict. His reasoning? I didn't let her watch television. "That's not exactly true," I told him. My dad was basing his conclusion on the fact that the television is usually off when they come over to visit. And to be honest, what's the point of visiting your grandkids if they're preoccupied with the tube the whole time?

Even when YeYe and GaGa (that's what my daughter calls her grandmother. It has nothing to do with the meat-dressing pop star) don't visit, it's true that we limit the amount of TV she watches, because trust me, she could definitely stare at Kai-Lan or Dora for hours if we let her. Heck, that would probably make it easier on us too. Ya know, Nick Jr. is a heckuva babysitter. Instead, we have a pretty standard routine: after she gets picked up from school, she usually spends the early part of the evening playing with her toys with one of us while the other gets dinner ready. Then, when dinner's served, we all sit together and talk about her day. After dinner, she picks up her toys before we sit on the couch and fire up an episode of Dora the Explorer or Micky Mouse Clubhouse (thank god for DVRs). After that, and a discussion about what she just watched--usually facilitated by her--it's upstairs for a bath, a book (actually two), and bedtime. Plus, hugs, kisses, and "I love yous" before lights out.

See, my Chinese mom and dad think that's "strict." And "Chinese mother" Amy Chua probably thinks that I'm incompetent. I like to think that it works. Our daughter's healthy and happy. What more could we ask for?
____________

FYI, this is cross-posted at my own site.

The Santa Cause: Imagination

Listening to my children play superheroes:

My eldest says to my youngest: You can’t do that! He doesn’t have that power!

My youngest responds: We can pretend he does.

My eldest responds: That’s silly then it wouldn’t be real!

It sort of stabbed me in the heart. I was raised on the Isle of Can’t -

Don’t be silly! You can’t be a writer! Chinese aren’t writers! Be an accountant!

Don’t be stupid! You can’t be a baseball player! Chinese aren’t baseball players! Be smart! Be a lawyer!

I worked hard to instill “possibility” in my children. So where did I fail? When did they move onto the Isle of Can’t?

Two of my favorite holiday movies are Miracle on 34th Street and Bass and Rankin’s The Year Without a Santa Claus because they address issues of the imagination - What we tell our children they are too old to do anymore.

In parenting, because I believe we would rather be safe than sorry, our kids hit a certain age and it seems the very same make believe world that made them adorable makes them frustrating, impractical, and possibly impossible.

Somewhere along the course of our maturity, we devalued a vivid imagination. My favorite example of the power of a great imagination is the Wright Brothers, who without formal scientific training did what the many experts in their time could not – or worse believed was impossible! They flew. Something we take for granted today.

I think this time of year in particular it is important to cherish a really good imagination. In this season it’s easy to get lost at the store or the mall. So many people you need to buy for. It’s easy to confuse what’s really valuable about getting together for the holidays.

Church’s words to Virginia remain poignant despite the progress we’ve made through the years:

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Fatherhood: Imagine 30 Years on Today

Writing about the 30th Anniversary of John Lennon’s murder I came across a somewhat snide Bloomberg article by Mark Beech who asked his readers to “imagine there was no shooting.”

Imagining John Lennon was never shot is a good thing – Imagining nobody getting shot is even better -  But Beech’s imagination belittles John for choosing fatherhood over the music business.

He writes:

On the sugary “Double Fantasy” LP, he told his son Sean “I can hardly wait to see you come of age,” a line now heavy with irony -- at the time just cringe-worthy.

The best hope is that some headline or another would have shaken Lennon’s complacency and fueled feverish bursts of music.

I am reminded of something I heard Jessica Hagedorn say years ago when asked how motherhood had impacted her writing. I forget the exactly how the question was phrased. However, I remember how she replied. She said it made her much more conscious of time and how she spent it. It made practical sense back then when I was single and childless. Now a parent myself still wanting to pursue my own writing her statement becomes much more meaningful.

A good friend reminded me when I bemoaned self-pityingly about how I’ve let my own artistic pursuits fall to the wayside that being a good dad is probably the most challenging but definitely the most rewarding artistic pursuit. And I’ve come to learn just how right she was. I haven’t felt anything as exhilarating as when my children take my hand.

Beech is right. John might have fallen out of the public light. But he is wrong in assuming that John would have given up his writing and his music. Fatherhood changed the paradigm I use to assign value to things - including the grudges I keep and those I abandon. I imagine it would have done the same for John. Holding my children’s hand to cross the street or staying up with them when they’re sick gives life new perspective and meaning.

I know Sean isn’t his first child but his life as father to Sean and his life as father to Julian are quite different. The main difference being he was older and more experienced when Sean was born. So I concede to Beech that John had “mellowed” at the time of his death.

Most enticing was the prospect of a Beatles reunion. Paul McCartney, carrying a guitar, showed up at the Dakota during Lennon’s “househusband” years and was turned away. John was baking bread and looking after the baby.

Like Beech it’s easy for me to imagine John as a “househusband” but in my scenario he doesn’t turn Paul away. He invites this very important person from his past in and they bake together and play a song for the baby afterwards. They talk about the past, the chores of the present, and the potential in the future.

I imagine John drawing from the best interpreted influences – European, American, and Asian. I imagine he would have pioneered the current real world social trend of empowered Stay-At-Home dads.

The Today Show ran a series of stories on Stay-At-Home dads in their Parenting section. One of the reoccurring messages is that Stay-At-Home fathers are as able to raise their children as the Stay-At-Home mom. And that it isn’t a novelty. It’s natural. Like Rice Daddy Jason Sperber says in his Today Show segment: “It’s not babysitting. It’s called parenting.”

Just a dad celebrating time with his son.

Holiday egg rolls

Shanghai style eggrolls under construction

Happy holidays, Rice Daddies!

It’s that time of year already, and its been a while since I’ve blogged about my favorite rice daddy topic: great food!  After all, nothing connects you to a culture more than eating your way through it.  Also, an old high school friend recently emailed me for a recipe (hi JS), so I thought this would be the best forum for sharing it.

This recipe almost, almost brings me all the way back to family holidays when I was a kid, where the table was always loaded with an overfull plate of my Shanghainese grandmother’s eggrolls.  I didn’t get this recipe straight from her, but its fairly close to what I remember, and good enough where we have them on special occasions in the thisislarry household.  I invite you to enjoy some this holiday season, and bring a little bit of Shanghai to your table:

    Shanghai style eggrolls
    Makes around 2 dozen

    1 package egg roll wrappers. Thin kind is the best
    2 lb pork, julienned
    1lb shrimp, coarsely chopped, can be precooked
    10 shitake mushrooms, destemmed and thinly sliced, can be dried mushrooms resoaked
    1 medium head of napa cabbage, julienned
    4-8 oz glass noodles, soaked to soften, then drained, and very coarsely chopped.
    Salt, garlic salt, pepper, soy sauce to taste.   

    1. Sauté the pork & shrimp together until both are cooked, drain the liquid.
    2. Sauté the napa cabbage and mushroom until the cabbage is cooked.  Press out ALL the liquid.
    3. Toss together the meats, veggies, glass noodles.  Drain any remaining liquid.
    4. Season to taste.  I use about 1t salt, 1t soy, 1/2t pepper.
    5. Wrap em up, fry em up, eat em up!  I like mine with sambal olek & soy, or mustard! 

    Note: draining the filling is crucial, otherwise the eggrolls will leak and come apart while frying.

Alright, get your holiday eats on, everybody!   And, please, if you've got some holiday recipes that would make my grandmother jealous, let me know, I'm hungry already!

So I Must Kill You!

While cleaning the house, I found this book that my parents brought back from a trip to Asia as a gift for my kids. Either something's lost in translation, or children's stories in Hong Kong are just straight-up hardcore:

"In a hot summer day, there was a little thirsty lamb drinking water in the river."

"A wolf was passing by the river, too. He felt so happy when he saw the lamb."

"The wolf said to the lamb: 'I can't drink clean water because you make the river dirty. So I must kill you!'"

"The frightened lamb explained: 'Can't you drink clean water as you stay at the upper stream?'"

"The wolf replied angrily: 'I know you always spoke ill of me last year. So I must kill you!'"

"The little lamb argued: 'Mr. Wolf, I was not yet born last year!'"

"The wolf said impatiently: 'Your master and friends all want to kill me. Isn't it true?'"

"The little lamb still wanted to argue. But the fierce wolf had already pounced upon and ate him."

THE END.

The moral of the story: Lamb is super-tasty.

Faith

I had dinner with someone recently who complained that her mother was not supportive of her life decisions. I pointed out that everyone else around her (personally and professionally) believed she was making smart strategic decisions about her life. She said something to the effect of: “I know but it would just be nice if she (her mother) supported me too. After all she is my mother.”

I was reminded of an incident between my eldest son and me. It happened several years ago at a Christmas party. Without reliving the uncomfortable details, it was a situation where I took someone else’s word over his. The incident is a poignant one for me because as it turned out my son was right and I realized the devastating impact my doubts can have on my children.

I have since ceased believing in absolutes and my own infallibility. Being a parent does not automatically validate advice as being good or opinion as being informed. It does however stress the necessity of open minds and open ears for both fathers and their children. I failed as a father that Christmas. I failed to listen as I’ve often told my son to do. And I forsook the fact that my children “know” things too. In fact, they might just know more than us “Grown Ups,” as their unfettered minds absorb the many new and exciting experiences from the burgeoning world around them.

When did it happen? When did we become so dull, gray, and “grown up”? I can’t help wondering about the tipping point. When was it where I became so “Grown Up” and closed up and stop considering the infinite possibilities of living and just settled for the simply finite ones tethered to the observable world? And what pushed me over that edge?

I remember it was somewhere around high school/late middle school my father became obsessed with telling me I had “to respect the reality.”  I remember how stubbornly I clung to my dreams – my beliefs – my idealism then. The Christmas incident showed me just how misplaced my values had become. I valued the grown up notion of being right over listening to someone important to my very being itself.

Digging around the Web and Googling, I couldn’t find anything on the direct impact of parental doubt on a child. However, there were several resources on addressing self doubt and if you liken to parental doubt to failure there was an abundance of information on that. Most articles on failure that 'I’ve come across focus on the restoration of confidence like this Parent Zone article, “Handling Fear Of Failure in Children,” and this Associated Content article, “Help Your Children Deal With Failure.” I even found this video on the On the Ball Parenting Blog:

I couldn’t find any direct advice on when a parent is wrong or the impact of parental doubt but I would imagine a post on the subject would offer the same advice on restoring confidence as the articles on failure. It might also offer advice on restoring trust.

“If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived” that’s the closing statement of the video. After I learned I was wrong I apologized immediately to my son that Christmas night. I told my dinner companion what I wish I would have said to my son.

I told my companion that sometimes as parents we get so caught up in the ways we’ve been seriously hurt that we’ll do anything to keep our children from having even remotely similar experiences (even though quite rationally there is very little we can do to control the experiences our children will have).

I told my companion that regardless whether her mother understood the decisions she has made, I am certain her mother is proud of her regardless of the path she’s chosen.

My Swearing In

I am Nels. Some of you may know of my web site, AArisings. I'm a father of two children - a son who is 7 years old and a daughter who is 4 years old. This is my first entry on Rice Daddies.

During the summer, the big buzz in the music world was Cee-Lo Green's song "F**k You." I shared the catchy song and video via YouTube with my wife because I thought she would get a kick out of it. We were in our home office watching the video while the kids were playing together in the living room. Every so often the kids would pop into the office to see what we were doing and my wife would quickly stop the video so that the kids' virgin ears would not be exposed to the F-bomb. Little did we know that our son would be exposed to the F-bomb in other ways, however.

Last month my son and I were sitting on the couch when he declared, "I know a bad word."

I replied "oh really? What is the word?" thinking it would be something like the word "stupid" or "idiot" or even "fat" (which we had declared a not-so-nice word when referring to people).

He said "it starts with F," to which I was sure he was thinking of the word "fat." But then continued spelling the word with "U-C-K."

For a moment, I was speechless but then put my eyes back into their sockets and immediately reacted with a "that really is a bad word! You should not say that word." My son shelved that discussion away quickly after that, as if he had never spelled the word.

Since that time I've thought about the moment and thought about my own moment when I first dropped the F-bomb in front of my mother when I was 10 years old. My mother's reaction was to yell and scold me verbally for using the word. That made me fearful of using the word at home but surely did not stop me from using the word at school with my friends around. In fact, it encouraged me to use it even more outside of the home. There was a time between when I was 10 and 18 where I probably dropped the F-bomb many thousands of times. But something around the time when I finished high school made me realize that I was really using the F-bomb much-too-much and since then I've used it quite sparingly, opting for other less incendiary words to express my own frustrations.

I doubt my son, all of 7 years old, will have that same sort of enlightenment any time soon but I do wonder if he'll end up using the word more now that I've told him it is not appropriate to use. Ultimately, it is a word and really I think the lesson to teach my son is that the word is fraught with meaning and emotions which often make it a word best used, if at all, sparingly.

As a father, the simple response is always to tell a child not to do or say something, but really does a child ever really listen to that warning? The way I see it, my responsibility doesn't end there. I have a duty to, at the very least, share the lessons I've learned with my children and to teach them the value and meaning of words, even if it is the F-bomb.

Like a 4-Banger

Quick plug to a thing I did for KQED yesterday. It's a "Perspective" on the Far East Movement and the song "Like a G6." It's about waiting our lives to experience this moment to see Asian folks on the charts but being too damn old to appreciate it fully. :)

On a side note, it's inspiring how our kids will grow up in a time when it's completely normal to have a black president and to see Asian folks on the top of the charts. It definitely wasn't like this during my youth, let alone five years ago.

Speaking of, an old family friend phoned my mom after hearing it. I haven't heard from the friend in like 35 years! Take that new media!

Enjoy! And don't autotune me! :)

UPDATE: The Original Rice Don Dada and homey Poppa Large weighs in on FM at the LA Times.

SD