In her January 8th, Wall Street Journal essay, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, Amy Chua presents an all-too-familiar problem every parent faces. Kids left on their own lack the self-motivation to do anything beyond what comes naturally or with hardly any effort. The solution she claims is Tiger-Mothering, her version of how conventional Chinese mothers raise their children.
There are many aspects to Tiger-Mothering which Chua packs into her essay. Her memoir provides even more detail but also discloses how she does not always hold to her own ideal. Nonetheless, the Chua essay has generated a significant amount of debate. How much should parents permit their children to follow their natural impulses? How much pressure should responsible parents put on their children to overcome their inertia? And more importantly, what tactics should responsible parents use to ensure their children do not fall victim to their own lazy nature?
Chua accuses those she describes as conventional Western parents as being “lazy” whenever they do not push past their children’s resistance. While parents who never push their children are lazy, Chua and those who follow her Tiger-Mothering principles are also lazy. By creating a zero-tolerance zero-exceptions policy, Chua and others like her bypass an uncountable number of interactions with their children that take time, thought and effort at the expense of their kids’ emotionally healthy development. In the most simple terms, an extremist position like the one Chua advocates takes very little thought and only occasional time and effort.
Additionally, Chua applies little to no moral or ethical compass when it comes to pursuing her narrow objectives. She threatens to take back gifts and cancel celebrations. She denies her daughters bathroom breaks and advocates any use of fear, shame, guilt or manipulation. She never appeals to her kids’ own sense of values. She simply stands upon her own totalitarian parental authority. Perhaps the only thing Chua does not do to achieve her ends is give her daughters physical beatings.
My own position is not the opposite, but relies heavily upon my own moral and ethical compass. So to begin with, fear, shame, guilt and manipulation are toxic. Leveraging these toxic drivers is a counterfeit producer of desired behavior because the desired behavior is either short-lived or soon joined by a different set of undesired behaviors that are the fallout of physical, emotional and psychological abuse. And this kind of abuse is generational. Adult children of such abuse are inclined to inflict the same kind of abuse on their own children, and justify that abuse to themselves and those around them by the subset of outcomes that are desirable.
But I do not advocate the opposite extreme. While I do not behave in a manipulative manner or manufacture fear, shame or guilt, I do not completely shelter my children from normal life situations in which these kinds of feelings could in theory come into play. A very emotionally healthy person can feel these emotions, especially guilt, when they violate their own moral or ethical compass. And while my kids are still living under my roof, I put a lot of effort into ensuring they build their own moral and ethical compass and have the tools to continue doing so long after they leave my home.
A key part of the equation is goals. Successful, emotionally healthy adults set challenging goals for themselves. Left on their own, kids won’t set challenging goals for themselves. But to merely set goals for them is a fallacy of Tiger-Mothering. This is where negotiation comes into play. Chua insists her kids play either the piano or the violin. In fact, it looks like she chose the piano for one and the violin for another. Either way with so few choices, Chua’s girls did not get to set or even negotiate their own goals. They had to either pick or have one chosen for them. The correct thing is to drill down into the actual objective. Perhaps Chua wanted her each of her girls to excel in something artistic that required physical action with concentration. If so, nearly any musical instrument except perhaps the kazoo would suffice. Certainly, it would be more than two. Once an instrument was selected the exact goals with that instrument in question could also be negotiated. These are the kinds of interactions lazy parents bypass.
In our family, sports was one such subject of negotiation. We wanted both Philip and Chloe to be physically active, to gain physical confidence and develop some team skills. When Philip got sick of baseball, we required him to find something else and we helped him find lacrosse. When Chloe got sick of soccer, we required her to continue with basketball and to find a replacement for soccer which turned out to be volleyball.
But once a goal is selected, kids will still resist whenever the going gets difficult. It is here where Chua is willing to use whatever means necessary to ensure her kids’ inertia gains no foothold. But is there another way that is better? I believe the answer lies in consequences. Consequences play a large role in how I have dealt with both goals and behavior. Because kids are naturally sheltered from nearly all of life’s consequences until they are adults, parents need to create consequences that are more immediate. The consequences must be situation-appropriate, be clearly stated in advance if at all possible, and most importantly the consequences must actually be carried out.
I am amazed at how many parents threaten huge consequences they would never deliver upon and for such a small infractions. Chua told her daughter that she would have “no birthday parties for … four years” if she did not learn how to play a piano piece called The Little White Donkey “perfect” by the next day. In my home, I deliver on all my threats and as a result I rarely need to deliver. I can only achieve this by making threats on which I would actually deliver. At one point before Philip was even ten years old he was fascinated by my grandfather’s fraternity paddle from the 1930s. As such when a particularly egregious behavior manifested I told Philip that if he ever did that again, he would get one firm slap on his bare buttocks with the fraternity paddle, and ensured he agreed in advance that it was an appropriate punishment. It turned out to be the biggest threat I have ever had to carry out. When the behavior repeated itself, I looked at him in astonishment. But I had meant what I said. I asked him if he wanted the punishment immediately and he did. It hurt. Philip cried and I held him and told him it was over. And it was over: On both sides. Philip never manifested that behavior ever again.
Working with your kids to set their own goals and to set consequences for failures and wrong behavior takes work and requires several adjustments as they age. It requires delivering on all threats when necessary and making sure every threat is something a responsible parent would actually deliver upon. It has taken a lot of work and we are still not done. Sometimes, I can see the appeal of the zero-tolerance zero-exceptions policy. But I’ve learned there is a better way and in this last stretch of parenting, I plan to stick to it.
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