Tiger Mums - do Chinese mums have it right?
Last night I watched with interest, the BBC documentary on "Tiger mums", strict British Chinese mums who raise their children with a schedule of revision, extra curricular hobbies and study and little time to play. This was not the first time I'd heard the term tiger mum. Last year, a friend tweeted an article about now famous tiger mum, Amy Chua, an American born Chinese woman who had written about how she brought up her children the Chinese way. Her daughters were not allowed play dates, watch TV, play computer games or choose their hobbies and were expected to get nothing less than an A grade in every subject at school. Her methods for ensuring her girls achieved these high expectations resulted in her receiving death threats and being accused of being cruel and extreme. But their approach gets results. Chinese children achieve the highest grades out of all ethnic groups in the UK, and Amy Chua's daughter has just been accepted into Harvard and Yale.
BBC 2 last night showed a documentary on British Chinese tiger mums, and their methods and reasoning for pushing their children so hard academically, expecting nothing but 1st place. The show's synopsis states:
In terms of academic achievement, British Chinese children are the most successful ethnic group in this country, and behind each success story you will usually find a formidable Tiger Mother. Play by her rule book, and you get hours of homework and music practice, strict discipline, and not too much time for play. But you are also more likely to get A grades.
Is this the way forward? What is life like in such households? In Hannah Berryman's film, we meet three British-based Chinese mothers doing their best to make sure their children do not pick up the slack habits of their Western counterparts. Do these children lose out in other ways, or are the Tiger Mothers right in simply expecting more from their To quote Sally, mother of six-year-old Matthew: 'He only does about three hours homework a night - plenty of time to play!'
So exactly how pushy were these so called tiger mums? Each mother sent their children to Mandarin Chinese classes at weekends, expected their children to learn an instrument, made their children take out of hours additional tuition in subjects such as maths, and stuck to a rigid schedule of homework, revision, practice, with time for play and fun given little priority. They explained that they thought that the UK was going downhill and with UK league tables declining, their children needed to be able to complete globally. This, mixed with the expectation of academic excellence that comes with being Chinese, results in what could be perceived as an extreme pushiness at the expense of their children's' childhood.
It was interesting that each parent recalled how their parents pushed them heavily to achieve at school, that they had no happy childhood and perhaps lacked social skills and confidence growing up, but when asked if they feared they were doing the same to their children, they were confident that their children were perfectly happy and the timetabled slots for play and fun were sufficient.
It all sounds very extreme, but really... is it? Ok, I admit perhaps these parents go to the extreme, forcing their children to practice an hour of maths a day on holiday and even quizzing one son whether he got all his maths homework correct whilst sat in a restaurant at his birthday dinner... but I also think that the basic concept is maybe not far off right. Yes, I do think that children need time to be children, and these parents are too strict. It's important to allow time for your children to play, visit friends and have fun... but I think children in the UK possibly spend far too much time stuck in front of a TV or playing computer games. Tiger mums are one extreme, UK parents perhaps the opposite end. Perhaps somewhere in between is where I'll aim for when I have kids.
When I was growing up, my mum made me learn the obligatory musical instruments. I took piano lessons and violin lessons. My sister took clarinet lessons. We went to tap and ballet lessons... kung fu classes, we even attended a couple of Chinese classes... but neither of us stuck to any of it... ending up a kind of jack of all trades, master of none. Now, I don't blame my mum for not forcing us to stick to these hobbies. It would have been a battle to force me to do anything as a child, I was so argumentative, but now that I am older I am definitely under the impression that when I have kids, they won't be given a choice. They WILL attend and stick to the activities I choose for them. Because a child can't know the value of these activities and giving up because something is hard results in laziness. I coasted through school (luckily getting all A's and 1 A* in my GCSEs without revising) and college (which was harder and my laziness cost me the grades I know I was capable of). Even at university I didn't apply myself as well as I could have... and that was lazy. Maybe if my parents had been stricter, and pushed me harder, I would have tried harder and achieved more. That's not to say I haven't done well! I have a good job, a home, a husband and a good life BUT I know if I had really tried, and been pushed, perhaps I'd be in a much higher earning profession and wouldn't have spent the past 10 years saving every penny I earnt.
The other interesting thing was watching the documentary with my husband. I expected to be a little incensed by the extremes the tiger mums went to push their children. On the flip side, I knew that my husband would probably agree with every sentiment. Growing up in Hong Kong, my husband had a typical Chinese upbringing. His parents were of the opinion that if you praise your children too much, they'll stop trying to strive to be the best, resulting in him growing up with a feeling of failure. Nothing he achieves can be good enough. But he also felt that his mum wasn't strict enough, allowing him to quit if things were too difficult.
Watching the BBC show, hubby kept on looking at me and nodding with a *humph*, as if to say, that's how we're bringing up our kids! Personally, I think we'll settle for a happy medium. Plenty of study and extra curricular activities, definitely attending Mandarin lessons (and sticking to them!), but also plenty of praise, hugs, affection and FUN!
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