Growing up in a Chinese Household

Week 9

Qimin Li

Section 2

                Amy Chua’s article “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” she compares the different parenting styles between Western and most Eastern countries and how effective it is towards the growth of one’s children. She uses her own personal experiences to validate many of her actions and beliefs. I first read this article when I took UWP during my fall quarter. My initial reaction when I read the article was something similar to disgust. However, when I started thinking about my own experiences of growing up in a Chinese household, I agree with a lot of Chau’s points. I had instances where my mom threatened to take away my personal items or even calling me names (the word “useless” was used in my case). I’ve experienced many of these incidents throughout my childhood and can see the similarity between her and my mom. However, I don’t see myself doing this to my own children. I believe a part of this stems from being “Americanized” or even identifying myself as an Asian American. There are something things I would hold onto from my culture, but becoming a tiger mom isn’t one of them.

So my question is, how do the children of tiger mom’s feel about this parenting style?