 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2011-03-10 13:42
On another thread, Ed Palanker asked,
>>Did anyone see the news a few weeks ago about the book about the "Tiger Mom"? >>
Yes. The gist is that she claims she reared her children according to traditional Chinese methods of extreme strictness. Among other things, she reports that she forced her children to practice their musical instruments for hours every day and even threatened to burn all of a daughter's stuffed animals if she failed to practice diligently enough.
First of all, I'm having a hard time believing this "tiger mom" mentality really is traditionally Chinese. I was born during the Truman administration and grew up in a California neighborhood that was about twenty percent American Chinese. Some of my classmates came from families that were completely American, with Chinese ancestors. Others immigrated from China in early childhood when their parents brought them here shortly after the 1949 Communist takeover. Some of the immigrant parents or those who'd spent their youths in the Chinatowns of Oakland or San Francisco spoke limited English and therefore certainly had a genuine Chinese upbringing themselves. They weren't "tiger moms" to my friends. If anything, I was surprised at how *familiar* those families seemed to me, compared to all the nonsense I'd seen in old movies and TV shows with racist caricatures of Chinese people played by Caucasian actors.
My college roommate was American with all three parents (mother, father, stepfather) second generation from China. My husband went to high school with her, was one of her closest friends (she introduced me to him) and knew her family almost as well as his own. We became (still are) good friends. Her folks, too, fit right into what I'd consider normal American parenting values. They disciplined their kids and expected good grades (reasonably so; these were bright kids), but didn't engage in anything remotely similar to the dictatorial behavior of "tiger mom." We think her parents are more typical than "tiger mom."
And then there's my experience in tutoring English as a Second Language in San Francisco's Chinatown when I was an undergrad at UC Berkeley. My roommate got me involved because that night-school ESL program needed some teachers who couldn't speak any Chinese, so that the students would have to use their English. Those kids weren't traumatized, high-pressured victims, either. I'd say their upbringing fell on the stricter side of the bell curve, but it fit on the bell curve. It wasn't off-the-charts, as what tiger mom describes.
As for the issue of how much discipline is good for the kids, how to (or whether to) enforce practice schedules or force kids to learn instruments and so forth, surely there's a happy medium. I think a kid who hates lessons ought to be allowed to quit. I think a kid who does want to learn music needs a practice schedule.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
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Post Edited (2011-03-10 13:44)
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Author: Philcoman
Date: 2011-03-10 14:02
I recently heard an interview with the author. She says the story is really about her own upbringing and what a fiasco it was when she tried to impose the discipline she'd received on her own children. It's more a (sometimes humorous) memoir of her own discovery about what's important and useful in raising children than a "how to" or a dissertation on a particular culture.
Or so she says. I haven't read the book.
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2011-03-10 14:19
These things are embellishments of reality or stories of very unusual situations that are mistakenly generalized as normal.
It is perpetuated more by the fantasy that Westerners have about Asians than by the Asians themselves.
I have known some people with "Tiger Moms" about practicing, but I could not say that it was the norm. I think I have met only 1 or 2 people like this- not at all the norm.
Post Edited (2011-03-10 14:20)
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Author: SteveG_CT
Date: 2011-03-10 14:47
Most of the readers of this board will be predisposed to disagreeing with the "Tiger Mother" since she states in the book the the only acceptable musical instruments for a child to play are "Violin or Piano".
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