I was reading this article that's flying around the internet about "Chinese Mothers" and I was, as many other commenters have been, horrified by much of it.
I'm not saying I should write a book about parenting, but I'm pretty sure that you gain nothing by calling your child "garbage," I recall thinking to myself, smugly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We were talking to our three year old about proper manners, about not whining and about the way to get a positive response from your parents---or anyone.
Because . . . a few night before, at the dinner table, I asked her if she was enjoying her chicken. She held up her plate, looked me square in the eye and said, "GET. ME. MORE. CORN!"
She was instead offered a large helping of ABSOLUTELYUNACCEPTABLE from her otherwise usually-placid Dad.
In the aftermath of my quick outburst and the icy silence that followed, my wife and I have been gently, but more explicitly than ever, making clear the lines of what behavior is appropriate, and what is not.
Whining is a major topic. Three year olds can be whiny and demanding. Especially if you let them.
After a perfectly pleasant and well-mannered dinner, she started to whine about wanting dessert.
Though my child is not British, something about the way she delivered her line made me think of: "I want an Oompa Loompa NOW!"
I'm not sure why she whined. We explained that she'd had a good meal, and had behaved wonderfully, and if she simply asked nicely, we'd be happy to give her an ice cream sandwich.
We started talking about Veruca Salt, and how she whined and demanded and how she was a rude and unpleasant child.
To YouTube!
We found this scene from Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, where Veruca demands a golden goose and a bean feast and whines and whines and whines (in song) until she winds up on top of the Chocolate Golden Egg Sorter Machine, and is declared to be a bad egg. And then she abruptly disappears into the floor.
"What happened to her?" my daughter asked.
"Well, uh, she was rude and bossy. So she went away."
"But where did she go?"
"Well, uh, she went down the chute."
"Why?"
"Because she was a bad egg."
"Where does the chute go?"
"Uh . . . Um . . . The garbage."
Yes, while trying to share some fun childhood pop culture morality with my kid, I inadvertently instructed her that bossy, whiny, rude children would end up in the garbage.
Amy Chua, feel free to be smug.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Haha, that's pretty funny!
ReplyDeleteWhy is the art of music required to endure the ill-informed antics of such inartistic imbeciles as Amy Chua? Her lust for fame as an old-fashioned stage mother of either a famous violinist (yet another mechanical Sarah Chang?) or a famous pianist (yet another mechanical Lang Lang?) shines through what she perceives as devotion to the cultivation of the cultural sensitivities of her two unfortunate daughters.
ReplyDeleteDaughter Lulu at age 7 is unable to play compound rhythms from Jacques Ibert with both hands coordinated? Leonard Bernstein couldn’t conduct this at age 50! And he isn’t the only musician of achievement with this-or-that shortcoming. We all have our closets with doors that are not always fully opened.
And why all this Chinese obsession unthinkingly dumped on violin and piano? What do the parents with such insistence know of violin and piano repertoire? Further, what do they know of the great body of literature for flute? For French horn? For organ? For trumpet? Usually, nothing!
For pressure-driven (not professionally-driven!) parents like Amy Chua their children, with few exceptions, will remain little more than mechanical sidebars to the core of classical music as it’s practiced by musicians with a humanistic foundation.
Professor Chua better be socking away a hefty psychoreserve fund in preparation for the care and feeding of her two little lambs once it becomes clear to them both just how empty and ill-defined with pseudo-thorough grounding their emphasis has been on so-called achievement.
Read more about this widespread, continuing problem in Forbidden Childhood (N.Y., 1957) by Ruth Slenczynska.
________________________
André M. Smith, Bach Mus, Mas Sci (Juilliard)
Diploma (Lenox Hill Hospital School of Respiratory Therapy)
Postgraduate studies in Human and Comparative Anatomy (Columbia University)
Formerly Bass Trombonist
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York,
Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra (Carnegie Hall),
The Juilliard Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, etc.
There is a recurring theme without solid core that continues to recycle on the question of Amy Chua and her style as a mother. J.G. (unfortunately anonymous, as are most of the endorsements of Professor Chua) has written
ReplyDeleteI think it’s easy to take cheap shots at Chua, but it’s hard to argue that the average American child needs less discipline, less direction or less respect for others.
It might seem amusing to mock her (her “cushy job” and “hottie husband”), but harder to actually consider the points being made in a non-defensive way, without trying to paint yourself as the “cool mom” who prefers three martini playdates?
p.s. It seems ironic that an Asian-American female who went to Williams (fulfilling a fantasy of Chinese parents everywhere) would paint her parents as laissez-faire and herself as moderately motivated.
Posted by: J.G. | January 18, 2011 at 02:31 PM http://thecareerist.typepad.com/thecareerist/2011/01/chinese-moms.html
I, for one, have no interest whatsoever in her “cushy job” and “hottie husband.” Nor do I have any objection to her having become a millionaire from the sales of her book and that she will be well on her way to becoming a multimillionare once the planned translations of it into thirteen of the world’s languages have been completed. My uncompromising objections to Professor Chua are two-fold: her abuses of young children pursued to further her own narcissistic urgencies and her deep commitment of abuse of the art of music – of which she seemingly has no knowledge whatsoever – for reasons having nothing to do with that art. My shots at her are far from what J.G. calls “cheap shots.” They do in fact go to the heart of the problems with her that remain my chief concerns.
J.G. and most of his fellow travelers in their tepid defenses of Professor Chua continue to focus on her inherited emphasis of the sorry state of public education in The United States. What else is new?
As with most of the ringing endorsements of Amy Chua, those from J.G. are clearly from a mind not wholly engaged. He has written ” it’s hard to argue that the average American child needs less discipline, less direction or less respect for others. In his tangled syntax I’m quite sure he means – at least I’m hoping he means – it’s hard to argue that the average American child does not need more discipline, more direction or more respect for others.
J.G. has written further, “p.s. It seems ironic that an Asian-American female who went to Williams (fulfilling a fantasy of Chinese parents everywhere) . . . “ Again, but this time TWO thoughts from nowhere! What has Williams College to do with Amy Chua (Harvard, A.B. ’84)? And since when has Williams even been on the “fantasy” palate “of Chinese parents everywhere?”
Professor Chua usually receives the quality of defense she deserves.
____________________
André M. Smith, Bach Mus, Mas Sci (Juilliard)
Diploma (Lenox Hill Hospital School of Respiratory Therapy)
Postgraduate studies in Human and Comparative Anatomy (Columbia University)
Formerly Bass Trombonist
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York,
Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra (Carnegie Hall),
The Juilliard Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, etc.