A Non-Parent's Opinion on Parenting

I'm not a parent yet.  Not even close.  I don't even have a dog.  But I don't think you have to be a parent  to have a reaction to the recent articles in the Wall Street Journal that commented on parenting styles.  The first was written by a Chinese mother who very boldly, profoundly and confidently stated the reasons why Chinese mother's most often produce highly successful children. And she bluntly meant more successful children than Western mothers.  She started out the article with a list of things that her children were never allowed to do: "attend a sleep-over, have a play-date, be in a school play, choose their own extracurricular activities."

Me as Alice

I had an instant reaction to the writer's words.  I was allowed to do every single one of those activities.  In fact, I was proud I had assumed the role of Alice in the fourth grade for my elementary school's production of The Trial of Alice in Wonderland.
I attended many sleep-overs where we stayed up too late, watched far too many movies in one sitting and ate more candy than was ever allowed in my household growing up.  So in reading the WSJ article I can say that my blood seemed to boil a little and I felt enrage at the suggestion that because of those things, this mother would have assumed I would turn out less than perfect.  Okay, I'll admit I'm not perfect, but I doubt attending sleep-overs and participating in school plays lowered my grade point average in the fourth, fifth, sixth grade or made me a less successful kid.

During my
ballet days (hard work!)

I can flat out say that I couldn't really agree with anything the author stated in her article, in fact, most of it just made me cringe.  But there was one line that especially stood out to me as being true and rather thought-provoking: "What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it."  The lady has a point.  I think as humans we are all inclined to like an activity, a subject in school, a musical instrument if we are good at them.  However, becoming good at something takes hard work, determination, dedication and I believe that initially to have the desire to work that hard at something, you have to like it, at least a little bit, far before you are any good at it.


You have to read the article to gain the full depth of this discussion.  If interested, I've made it easy, just click on the link below:
Why Chinese Mother's are Superior  


Clearly, I was not the only Western American that was riled up by the Chinese mother's article.  The rebuttal came only a few days after the first article, again in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.  This time, it was by a Jewish mother and outlined her antithesis to parenting which included letting her children decide what activities they wanted to partake in and when they wanted to quit said activities, the copious amounts of TV and computer games they were allowed to partake in and the fact that even though her kids were allowed to do these things, they too received good grades in school.  I had a problem with this article too.  The mother seemed to be almost too far on the other end; not pushing her children to excel when the opportunity was there and allowing them to quit when it seemed things got a bit hard.  I finished this second article with the feeling that both extreme points had been made but that I agreed with neither of them.  I suppose that's what these types of commentaries are meant to do...


Rebuttal article:
In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom


I hardly ever read the Wall Street Journal so I appreciate both these articles for making me pick up the paper and become interested in what each author had to say.  Since reading both pieces, I've thought about each message and the points that were made in the black and white letters typed out on the newspaper pages. Here I am, not even a parent, and I became a bit enthralled with the ongoing discussion of what was the "correct" or more "successful" way to parent is.  What I realized is that this discussion reaches beyond the boundaries of parenting.  I know I'll face all these decisions one day when I am a parent and frankly, I haven't really thought about how much TV my kids should watch or how many sleep-overs I will or won't let them attend.  But right now, as an adult, I need to just focus on the kind of person I want to be.  What new boundaries and new challenges will I set for myself.  I for one, think my western parents did a very successful job raising me so now it's time for this western grown up to live successfully.

"The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences."

~ Eleanor Roosevelt