{"id":504,"date":"2011-01-18T08:55:09","date_gmt":"2011-01-18T08:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2011\/01\/why-i-dont-want-to-be-a-chinese-mother-or-an-american-mother-for-that-matter.html"},"modified":"2011-01-18T08:55:09","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T08:55:09","slug":"why-i-dont-want-to-be-a-chinese-mother-or-an-american-mother-for-that-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/01\/why-i-dont-want-to-be-a-chinese-mother-or-an-american-mother-for-that-matter.html","title":{"rendered":"Why I Don’t Want to Be a Chinese Mother, or an American Mother, for that Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a new post on her.meneutics in response to Amy Chua’s controversial essay in last week’s Wall Street Journal: “Why I Don’t Want to be a Chinese Mother<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

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It begins: <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Amy Chua’s essay for The Wall Street Journal<\/em>, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,<\/a>” sprinted across media outlets and the blogosphere, prompting responses at Motherlode<\/a>, The San Francisco Chronicle<\/em><\/a>, and Slate<\/em><\/a>, among many others.<\/p>\n

\"1117Chua_L.jpg\"<\/a><\/div>\n

The essay spawned an interview<\/a> on the Diane Rehm Show<\/em>, not to mention nearly 5,500 reader comments on The Wall Street Journal<\/em>‘s website and over 100,000 comments on Facebook. Many of the comments — from Caucasian and Asian American readers alike — express criticism or dismay. Why the uproar?<\/p>\n

Chua makes extreme statements about her parenting style throughout the essay (an excerpt from her memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother<\/a><\/em>). She begins with a list of things her two daughters were “never allowed to do,” including “have a playdate,” “watch TV or play computer games,” and “get any grade less than an A.” She describes calling her daughter “garbage . . . when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me.” Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, explains, “the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child.”<\/p>\n

Chua’s statements and the anecdotes from her parenting experience come across as harsh and extreme. She couches her approach in the language of love and belief in her children’s abilities. But she includes stories such as losing her voice from shouting at her 7-year-old daughter until she can play a piano piece correctly.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

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To keep reading, click here<\/a>. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And I’m curious not only why people agree or disagree with the parenting styles espoused, but more so why this essay has produced such a firestorm of responses. What do you think?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a new post on her.meneutics in response to Amy Chua’s controversial essay in last week’s Wall Street Journal: “Why I Don’t Want to be a Chinese Mother.” It begins:  Amy Chua’s essay for The Wall Street Journal, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” sprinted across media outlets and the blogosphere, prompting responses at Motherlode, The San Francisco…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-faith","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy I Don't Want to Be a Chinese Mother, or an American Mother, for that Matter - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/01\/why-i-dont-want-to-be-a-chinese-mother-or-an-american-mother-for-that-matter.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why I Don't Want to Be a Chinese Mother, or an American Mother, for that Matter - 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}