Let's put the whole east vs. west thing aside and cut it down to this:
Work
vs.
Play
Go!
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"Did you force your kid to drink water until she died? No? Then you are a good mommy today."
6 comments:
There is good to be learned from both. Either extreme is... well, extreme.
It's what I try to do not just with my parenting...but in choosing my "culture", as I am both.
But then again, I have a trampoline in my living room and we do not spank, hit, kick, etc... our children. Which, when I tell pepole there is no spanking of any sort... shocks people.
I had that kind of thing growing up. I refuse to let it be a part of mine, or my kids' life.
If anyone does spank, etc...- they will be kicked to the curb on my orders.
I have too much to say in this little space. ;-)
I agree it needs to be a balance, but the first similarity I noticed in both was cutting down or a lack of screen time. It really does rot the brain. I think you can do play time, but also through example show effort, follow through, and the value of hard work without resorting to empty threats and over stressed high schoolers pulling all nighters for calculus tests. I felt so bad for some of my fellow classmates who had "work only" parents.
Same thing for me--moderation in all things. My kids are little, so I only let them do one (non-church) extra-curricular activity. They need time to be kids.
That said, when my kids get home from school they immediately to homework and then practice piano (the one extra-curricular the two oldest have chosen this year). After that it's free time--reading, coloring, crafts, legos, dress-up, nerf gun wars with daddie, etc.
We resort to carefully controlled screen time (Wii, PBS or mom approved DVD's) if I must get something done.
It works for us, and I feel like my kids are becoming well rounded--good students and creative.
I couldn't access the second article (need a sign-in? I'll try later), but as for the first, something came up: is there a different idea of what 'best' means for western vs. eastern cultures? Because how - no, really, HOW - can every kid be expected to be The Best? I can see every kid being expected to excel, to get straight As, to do the best that is possible to be done (even exceeding doing their personal best), but The Best? It's a contradiction in term to apply this to multiple people. Is something lost in translation? Is 'best' the closest English word for a concept for which there only exists a word in Chinese?
Also, are we having the t.v. talk again? Because my television is on ALL THE TIME.
I think sometimes we get too caught up in culture wars and what is "right" or "wrong" parenting. Because there is good (and bad) to be found in many cultures and lifestyles, we want to cling to one way of doing things as the "right".
I guess I see things as most of you have stated here....take the best (ideas from each) and leave the rest.
At the risk of sounding cheesy, our Heavenly Father gives the best examples of parenthood. I could babble on about this. But that about sums it up. Being Christlike as well as following examples from my Heavenly Father say it all. He expects things from us that require incredible diligence and work, yet he also desires that we have JOY and blesses us with many joyful beautiful things.
I just read the article about Chinese mothers and I found it fascinating because of its assumptions that success is so important. I was incredibly academically successful in high school...it didn't and hasn't made me a happy person.
And I while it's true that you can't let children do whatever they want, the battle of the wills that she described with her daughter just sounded so incredibly contentious. And terrible.
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