Chinese Moms = Superior?

Joyce Wong
Section A01
Response #9

Growing up in a home with a strict Chinese mother, there are some things that I am grateful that she did but some things I completely disagreed with (my mother, though quite strict, is way nicer than Amy Chua in my opinion). One thing I disagreed with is the idea that failure is only caused by work ethic. As Amy Chua discusses in her article "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior", my mother believed that if I did not do well in something, "it's because the child didn't work hard enough". At a young age, I believed in this argument--however, now that I have experienced failures through my academic career, the fact that I didn't work hard enough is invalid. Many people suffer from testing anxiety or the stress from increasing pressure to perform well, and they do not know how to handle or balance their life around it.

Even though I disagreed with some of my mother's views, I am grateful for some of the things she did, even if they were not seen as ideal parenting. As Chua's daughter Sophia noted in "Why I love my strict Chinese mom", her mother allowed her to grow up a little when she went to high school. I remember how back when I was in middle school, my mother would not let me out of the house to hang out with my friends unless my older brother accompanied me or it was a close distance. However, my mother knew that as I grew older, she could no longer just make me stay in the house. I would usually lie to my mother about hanging out with a friend nearby, but I believe that she knew I was lying to her about my location. Though she did not call me out on my lie, she would let me hang out with my friends because she knew after all those years of warning of dangers outside in the world, I would be responsible enough to not do anything stupid and take care of myself. And she was right!