By Special Request

I was asked to tackle the topic of "Chinese" parenting as discussed in the article about a Yale law professor who is raising her two daughters the way she was raised, and catching no small amount of flak for it, when she published a book chronicling her rigid parenting practices.

Disclaimer and shameless plug...
Now, I am not a successful law professor and I haven't raised two children (14 and 18) who can play the piano and probably max out their SATs, so my discussion on this topic will be mostly in the form of questions. I always welcome feedback, so please feel free to email me at daddybythemoments@gmail.com, or send me a message on my Twitter page, if you have any responses to this post. Additionally, I'm drinking my first cup of coffee while writing, so chances are good that the article will end much better than it starts...

Now that that's done...
Chua, the Yale law professor and author being interviewed, refers to her parenting style as the "immigrant" style, saying "Millions of people raise their children this way. It’s not just Chinese people. It’s really an immigrant thing." From the article (I have not read the book...yet), the immigrant parenting style she employs - because she was raised this way - involves:


"academic excellence and a lot more rules so that kids grow up much more slowly. No boyfriends. No sleepovers. Total respect for parents. Daily drilling in math and Chinese when they’re little. Speaking Chinese at home." 


...but it's okay because:


"What the Chinese parent is conveying to the child is not that “you’ve got to get A’s or else I won’t like you.” On the contrary, it’s, “I believe in you so much, I know that you can be excellent.”"


...and...


"I was raised by extremely strict but extremely loving Chinese immigrant parents, so I experienced this as a kid and I had a lot of issues: “Why can’t I go to my friend’s house? Why does everybody else get to celebrate when they get an A-? Why do I have these chores? Why can’t I go to parties?” To this day I adore my parents and I feel that I owe everything to them."


So, how I understand it, immigrant parenting creates a rigid outline for the child's life and then expects them to fulfill the requirements of that outline while setting aside any personal development, and all that comes off harsh but that's okay because the ends justify the means.


Sounds like something I went through. Oh, not with my parents though...I went through that with a Drill Sergeant in the U.S. Army. They both produce results, but for what purpose and at what cost?


I can see how Chua feels that she is creating an environment that will give her children all the tools for success that they need: determination, discipline, appreciation for the arts and an academic arsenal worthy of an aircraft carrier. But what about the other important aspects to growing up like finding out who you are? Loving and losing? Emotional roller coasters that teach you how to handle yourself? Where do those fit in? As far as I can tell, they don't - and can't - fit into this model of parenting.


Now Chua does have a great point when she says that "although Western parents are the ones that worry so much about self-esteem – and Chinese parents don’t, they assume strength rather than fragility – I wonder if the Chinese approach isn’t better at creating self-esteem". Too many parents in America coddle their children and let their children walk all over them. Just watch a few Nanny 911 episodes and you'd have to agree that American parents do tend to be weak in the areas of structure and consistency. But isn't there a middle ground? What is the motivation behind raising your child like a good little soldier?


The only motivation I can see is fear.


Chua, and other parents employing this rigid system of parenting want to create strong academic soldiers because they are afraid that there is no other way their child will accomplish anything. They are afraid that their child will not be able to fit into the world the way they were built. They are afraid that their children do not come equipped with everything they need to tackle this world deep inside them.


Soon, I'll write a post about taking on your fears and issues so that your children won't have to. In the meantime, please Netflix the movie Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story so that you'll have some context.


Chua even says that, "If you give a [child] the choice to pursue his or her passion, it’s going to be doing Facebook for six hours. I don’t think it’s going to be playing the violin or doing any school work very seriously." Again I say, where is the middle ground? Why does it have to be Facebook or Violin? What happens when the child turns 40, realizes they don't have to play violin and that they might not like it but never had the chance to figure that out?


Personally, I can't subscribe to it. I feel that, just like the apple seed, children come to this earth with all the talents they need to tackle their corner of the world right there within them, and like the blooming flower's petals, each one will reveal itself when the time is right. 


But when you cut the flower out of the garden and stick it in a glass with color-dyed water, you'll never know what it would have looked like if you just let it grow naturally.


I've seen what a nurturing, free-range environment can produce. My sister has raised an incredible young lady by being her coach and providing her choices that were parent approved, and then letting her daughter make the decision on which way to go. 


That is, in my opinion, being a true leader for your child; being a coach and a guide for your child while they develop themselves emotionally, academically, physically and spiritually. Show your child what bad choices are, then show them all the good choices they can make and let them run wild! Let them explore themselves and discover who they really are and what their natural talents are, not just who you expect them to be! If you force your child into three hours a day of violin, or dance, or piano just because you think it's good for them but not because they asked for it, how will you ever know if they would have been a million-dollar painter, or guitarist, or the next great astronomer? Or who knows, maybe even the next billion-dollar social media innovator...




Special thanks to SR for the topic and to Amy Chua for showing me another choice!

From the 1st Moment...

**Happy Birthday Dad!**

From the moment my wife and I discovered we were going to be parents, I knew that I was going to be a good dad. I knew it because I wasn't going to accept anything less from myself.

No. Matter. What.

It was a blissful moment where I understood my place on this planet was to fulfill the ancient and sacred role of the patriarch, and that I would stand between my family and any harm that comes and when, as inevitably it will, some of life's difficulty gets passed me to my wife or children I will know that they are strong enough to battle it themselves because I have spent all of my time with them working to empower them and help them become their most powerful selves!

But I am blessed for that, because I have worked hard at building that mindset. It is a daunting task, to be a father. Even before your child arrives in this world, it feels a lot like Gandalf must have felt standing on that narrow stone bridge before the Balrog, the weight of all that is hard and scary in this world bearing down on you with fiery fangs and burning eyes.


But like Gandalf, our purpose as fathers is greater than ourselves and we can draw strength from that! Also, like Gandalf, our most important role is not to defend our family, but to strengthen them and empower them so that they can defend themselves.

With that in mind, here is my first entry and an example of how this blog will be written, and how I hope to share enough positive examples of being a good father that the good father in all of you will resonate with some of what I share and shine brightly as a guiding beacon for your family:

Daddy WIN: Tackling the Truck Monster!
My daughter of 19 months shows very little fear in her, something I know will prove challenging for me in the future. For now, I love it and I encourage it. I hang back when she wanders in the store, just enough that I can get to her when she trips before she realizes it stings, but far enough away that she feels independent. When she falls, I don't gasp, I tell her she's fine and ask her to smile for me. It works, trust me on this - she can now biff with the best of them and comes up laughing!

The one thing she has been afraid of though is the sound of the garbage truck; that noisy beast that rumbles by every week and wakes her from her nap was terrifying her for weeks before it finally came to me what I should do.

The first thing I remembered was "baby steps". Toddlers love to learn and explore, but one little step at a time.

So, one day the garbage truck arrived and stopped in a particularly noisy area of our apartment complex. My daughter ran up to my wife (also her mom), scared just shy of panic by this monstrous noise outside that she was just sure was about to rip our roof off and devour us all - or whatever it is toddlers imagine when they are scared.

I scooped my baby girl up and said, "We're going to go outside and see something new!" She looked at me with wide baby girl eyes and said, "Outside?" I carried her outside to where we could see the garbage truck and stopped just shy of where she would start freaking out again, then pointed, saying over and over "Truck! BIG Truck!" Then I pointed to the truck driver and said, "That's the man that drives it." He waved (thanks to him for being a good sport) and I continued, "It's just a really big car, a BIG beep beep!"

The look of surprise and wonder was amazing and totally worth the five minutes it took to run my little girl outside and do this! I waved to the truck, feeling a little stupid but in a good way. "Say, 'hi truck'!" I said. "Hi, tuck!" was her response. As the garbage truck drove off, I waved some more and said, "Bye, truck!" To which she mimicked, "Bye tuck, BYE TUCK!!"

Now, when she hears the loud noise, she gets excited and tells whoever is nearest, "Tuck! Hi Tuck! Bye Tuck!"

It took five minutes of my time to be my daughter's hero and forever banish that shapeless monster from her mind, replacing it instead with the friendly image of our local garbage truck. That's all it really ever takes though, just a few minutes to get involved and make a difference, to show them that it's not so scary after all, to show them that they are stronger than they think. But it takes getting involved, setting aside the remote, the newspaper, the game controller, the cell phone or the laptop, to show them that they are strong and how they can be even stronger. That is priceless, and worth all the time in the world.