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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Ladies have you seen this article?
That Chinese mothers are better than Western mothers..... Whats your take?
http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/01/13/chinese.mom.superior/index.html?hpt=C2
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Re: Ladies have you seen this article?
Interesting is about all I can say about that.
I would like to ask the Dr. that I used to work for what his childhood was like. He is Chinese, they moved to America when he was 2 or 3.
There are 4 children. 2 Doctors, a CPA & a Laywer.
I read this article the other day and was teasing DH that he's a "Chinese mother". His mother is Korean, but she was not like this at all when he was growing up. His parents were definitely firm (Korean mom and military father), but they did not have such a high level of involvement in his school work.
We are hoping to strike a balance with our kids. We really encourage DD's creative side and want her to develop a sense of individuality and have the freedom to explore her passions. At the same time, we will not accept mediocrity from her in school because we know she is capable of more.
We are very involved with her homework, read to her, have her read to us. In addition to her school work, we work on accelerated math concepts that she is not learning in school and have her practice writing more at home. We have some great workbooks for these exercises.
To me, I want to keep her focused on working hard. DH and I both had parents that didn't push us academically. They only commented on the objective results (i.e. what grades we got) not how much we learned or how much effort we put in. Because of that, we both acknowledge that we were able to skate by in school. I'm not saying we didn't work hard, but we certainly had potential to work harder and achieve more. We want our kids to reach their full potential, not just settle for gleaning the minimum it takes to get an A.
As an aside, this is part of the reason that we are passionate about having our kids attend international schools with an IB curriculum. We read blogs of other FSO and one family has four kids and just moved to Taiwan. Their kids were all A student in the U.S.. Now that they are in a school that is 95% Taiwanese, their kids are all in remedial classes! That's how far behind our public education system is in this country.
I agree with Jessica on this. I am not Chinese but from the Philippines. I was not allowed to sleep over at any of my friends house and I believe my parents reasoning are more for safety than anything else. I must say I didn't' feel that I missed out on anything at all.
Most traditional Asian mom's are stay at home moms while the dad's are the providers and culture wise it is a given that their role as a mom is to make sure the kids are growing up properly in a way they know is best. I don't believe all Asian mom's are the same though, just like how no American moms are the same. My parents would never use "you are garbage!" sentence in our household if we come home with a B in our report card. No parents should ever use those words, regardless if they are doing it to make their kids best. I believe in reverse psychology but not like that, that's just plain MEAN. Then again that happens to American households too.
One thing I can say is if you grow up in a third World country (I moved here when I was 12) you're goal is to have a better life. Not that we were living in poverty, but seeing others live in poverty, its almost mandatory to strive harder to have a higher education and have higher standards, because you want to make sure you and your future family don't have to go through the same thing.
If we were still living in the Philippines until now, I wouldn't have to start working until I finished my masters degree and wouldn't have to move out until I'm ready to have my own house regardless if I'm already 18 or married with kids (usually the husband moves in) and that is just the norm, very strong family ties. When we moved here I started working at the age of 16 after I graduated in high school, which I am not complaining about, I enjoyed earning my own money.
I have to say I like the fact that we are able to combine our culture with the western culture it balances everything out. It helps that we already share it even before we moved here thanks to the American Settler's that came in the islands many many years ago, as well as the Spaniards and the Japanese and every one else. That's probably why most Filipinos adjust faster when moving to other countries compared to other foreigners, because we share a little bit of every culture from different nations heheheh.
Sorry so long : )
The original article by Amy Chua is controversial for sure. But I can't help admiring a lot of what she says. No, I would never want to be as tyrannical toward my kids as she comes across, but I agree that there is a lot of lazy and passive-aggressive parenting in the "Western world". I cannot for the life of me imagine denying my kids any and all sleepover or play date, but I do think it's a good idea to push kids to their full potential, and oftentimes a parent will need to get "mean" to make this happen.But I don't pretend to know a lot about all this, these are just my thoughts as a person without children.
I also agree with Kendra, regarding the slowness of the public education system here. I remember having to review for an exam, digested my text book to learn every detail only to find out that the practice test we received the day before is pretty much the test we had the next day only the numbering were scrambled lol. So, all my hard work was really not necessary, could have just memorized the answers and questions.
Also, back home every school year you worry what class section you will be in. Typically there's 5-7 sections (7 classrooms per school grade) First section being the top/STAR section, all 40-50 students in that section have an overall grade of 95-100, 2nd section would have students with 85-94 overall grade and so on and so forth. Meaning if you're on the very last section your grades arent that good. So each student have a tendency to really strive harder to get to the top. Cruel? not really it was a challenge and that IMO was missing here in the states. Are there students who just don't care? yes definitely like any other countries. But that system is known to best motivate students to strive harder back home. Might not work here but it works there.