Quote:
Originally Posted by genuinegirly
The author of the quoted article is fooling herself.
...
I would call my upbringing strict, borderline verbally abusive, but my parents were only driven by what they thought would be best for us. There was a definite drive for success. Everything I did was never perfect, there was always room for improvement. Even a report card with straight A+ grades left my parents with comments like, "you can do better." I responded relatively well to the yelling and focused all of my energy on school. My siblings? Rebelled.
|
This is what the mother in the OP is espousing. Methods may be marginally different, the motive is the same. But there was something else in the article as well. If kids are left on their own, they will seek out the easy/fun stuff. Nobody naturally wants to do the work. As parents, we have a small window of opportunity to ensure that the work & habits are achieved at this formative age. While I think the methods are a bit extreme (and I have a Chinese mother for a wife so I get a lot of the collateral) this mother is speaking pragmatically.
I don't play good cop to my wife's bad cop, I am totally on board with the parenting. What I do bring to the mix is support and while we don't spend the same kind of hours working on each detail as Ms Chua , we do have 3 sons who are well turned out, in university or university bound and eager to achieve. The also want to spend time at home with us, which I think validates the effort that we have gone through.