Shanghaiist: A Shanghai mom's view of "Chinese Mothers" in the U.S.

Healthy happy Successful

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:25:14 +0700

I agree that blind comparisons harm children, actually blind comparisons harm anyone, anything. Different culture has different value wants to pass to their children, so do different parents. What is Family Education for you?

gdolniak

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:29:33 +0700

Let's face it. The woman is living in a foreign country, has a little culture shock (as do many foreigners living in China) and expressed herself by writing this article. Nothing bad, maybe except is a bit nationalistic (as for a new American citizen, i.e. "our [race]") and by comparing herself with "[American] white families" she completely ignores diverse number of other ethnic groups that make-up the American society. If she would do some soul searching and meet more people, she would find out, that her problems are not only her problems, many other immigrant families have exactly the same dilemma. I fully support her role as a mother and wish her good luck, but at the same time I think she should meet more people from outside the "Chinese circle of friends", get friendly with some local "white families" and travel the vast country. It is not easy to be an outsider in a foreign country, doesn't matter who you are and where you are.

eastman

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:44:51 +0700

american mothers are the ones their grownup children will split the coffee bills with. it's called culture.

EL JEFE

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:55:59 +0700

I've read this three times and still don't understand the point. All I understand is this lady a) cares what kids think about her b) has too much free time for mooning around, much like regular Shanghaiist commenters.

quantumcooney

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:54:00 +0700

I think it's pretty funny and definitely very "Chinese Mom-ish" that her idea of a subpar option that's only okay if her kid decides to take a useful major is UCLA. Oh? You only got into UCLA? Well okay then. Failure.

yu888

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:35:27 +0700

The Shanghai mom is just trying to justify her and the "Chinese mom" mentality through writing out a lot of what she sees and using it to do so. Nothing new as I grew up around all of that and find that "Jewish Moms" were also much like "Chinese Moms"... Sad this "Chinese Mom" who wrote this only shows she does not see the culture gap is a problem and probably cannot understand why many kids would react the way they do to their methodology. The "Chinese mom" intentions are good but... sigh.

taihanasie

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:19:45 +0700

Her essay doesn't make much sense. Chinese students feel their mothers are contradictory because they don't let the children structure their lives. At the same time, Western students think the mothers stifle independence. Um... both of these statements essentially say the same thing. This aside, the essay is basically a race-based justification of a cultural trait. There is nothing insightful in what she says and she doesn't seem to demonstrate any real understanding of the point of view of the children she is describing. This message could only be appealing to the set who thinks that everything Chinese must be better than everything Western.