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IELTS Topic: FAMILY
Reading 1
Who sets the agenda: parents or kids?
Original source: The New York Times, The Guardian
Battle hymn of the tiger mother
Amy Chua says there’s a reason why Chinese parents raise stereotypically successful kids.
Despite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes, there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable differences between Chinese and Westerners when it comes to parenting. In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that “stressing academic success is not good for children” or that “parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.”
… Chinese mothers believe … academic achievement reflects successful parenting
By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be “the best” students, that “academic achievement reflects successful parenting,” and that if children did not excel at school then there was “a problem” and parents “were not doing their job.”
Tiger parents believe that if their children do not excel they have not done their job.
Source: PR Image Factory/ Shutterstock
Some might think that the American sports parent is an analog to the Chinese mother. This is so wrong. Unlike your typical Western overscheduling soccer mom, the Chinese mother believes that (1) schoolwork always comes first; (2) an A-minus is a bad grade; (3) your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math; (4) you must never compliment your children in public; (5) if your child ever disagrees with a teacher or coach, you must always take the side of the teacher or coach; (6) the only activities your children should be permitted to do are those in which they can eventually win a medal; and (7) that medal must be gold.
The kids get the final word. Every single time.
Joanna Moorhead reflects on a valuable insight about rearing children.
Those of us who were shocked by the hardline, “Chinese way” of raising children revealed by Amy Chua in her book ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’ aren’t surprised by its follow-up – the news that a pair of schoolgirls in Beijing, driven to despair by their mothers’ desperate drive to force them on to success, have fought back with the online publication of a guide to how savvy but wrung-out kids can retaliate when they’re being driven to the edge of the cliff of over-ambition.
The ‘Complete Book of Combat With Mum’, written by Chen Leshui and Deng Xinyi, describes how to cope when you’re being over-parented. It’s the latest in a fascinating saga about two of the oldest debates the world has ever known. Number one, what happens when eastern values meet western ones; number two, how does a wise parent raise his or her child?
But here’s the thing. However wildly different parents seem to be in the way they do their bit to raise the next generation, the one thing they all care about is how it all turns out. How they go about getting that best differs enormously, and how some parents choose to do it may seem harsh or uncaring. But who’s to say that, for those children at that moment, that wasn’t the right way forward?
The Beijing story nails another truth about parenting. Because first we heard Amy Chua’s story, and now two teenagers are getting to tell their side of a similar tale. And that’s the bottom line on parenting: our kids get the final word. Every single time.
Children and teenagers can rebel against unrealistic parental and societal pressures in a variety of ways.
Source: Craig James Smith/Shutterstock