The Tiger Nanny: The Missing Link in the Parenting Debate – TIME Healthland
With all the fuss over the harshness of Amy Chua's unrelenting "tiger mother" parenting style — the discussion, which was sparked by a Wall Street Journal excerpt of Chua's new memoir about motherhood, made its way onto the cover of TIME this week — few have commented on one simple fact. This tiger mother had help.
Chua says that she often spent three hours a day ensuring that her children completed their violin or piano practice, and hours more supervising their homework or otherwise snuffing their desire for a normal social life (no sleepovers, no playdates, no school plays, no sports and certainly no computer games or TV). Since Chua also has a day job as a professor at Yale Law School — hardly a part-time gig — and since she fails to indicate that she's been taking speed to stay awake 24/7 to keep up with her duties, something doesn't add up. That missing piece is her Mandarin-speaking nanny.
That's right, the full-time growling Tiger Mom didn't raise her daughters herself, or even in a simple partnership with her husband. She isn't a stay-at-home mom, she isn't a middle-class working mom, she is a rich woman. And although she insists that her recently published book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Penguin Press, Jan. 2011), is not meant to be taken as parenting advice, its message is widely being read as suggesting that the "Chinese" mothering style is superior to the more lenient "Western" way. In any case, the truth is that for mothers who don't have her resources, following her lead would be impossible. [...]
I don't have a problem with her having help. I think everyone should have help caring for their kids when they need it (even when we want it). I totally agree with the author of the article when he says we might want to shift our focus when it comes to child-rearing.
Comments
Post a Comment