Why Chinese Mothers are Superior. Homework Help

Discuss   Why Chinese Mothers are Superior………………………

Introduction

Parents any where in the world have one wish for their children; the best. This wish has made parents have different ways to go about it.  Amy Chua wrote an essay in the Wall Street Journal explaining that Chinese mothers are superior moms. The article has sparked debate with people questioning the authenticity of her claims. As she argues tough love as they key to raising all round children, other parents argue the opposite. Her assertion that Chinese mothers as superior has been disapproved by Western mothers to be unsubstantiated. This essay is going to address this issue and try understanding where such sentiments originate from and weigh their effectiveness. Should children be brought up in a tough environment or should they be allowed to choose what they want to do and parents be expected to go along with their children choice? Or should the child be guided by the parent?
Children have been known not to respect all commands they get from their superiors (adults). The concept of authority that children have consisted of complex social cognitive judgements.  They usually make evaluations depending on the nature of the event, they consider the nature in which the command is given and they focus on how the command is given. Children treat violation of justice and other’s welfare and rights as more serious offences as compared to how they view issues like bad manners.
According to a child, parents and teachers have the authority to prohibit them from bad engaging in bad morals (Yau & Metzeger, 2009). Parents have had to adhere therefore to parental goals; parental beliefs and they have adopted different parenting style. Chinese mothers have embraced the Guan parental beliefs, harmonious social relationship and goals of filial piety (Wu, 1985). A young child’s socialisation is influenced a great deal with the parenting style.

Chinese parental beliefs
Guan –meaning training- involves ‘governing’ the child. It has the elements of controlling and restricting. However, it has also got the positive side of love and care. Therefore, the Chinese believe that the firm control of the kid actually portrays deep care and great involvement by the mother. This parenting concept of loving and caring by governing and controlling has a measurement scale. Recently this scale has been modified to also include measuring parental behaviour. However, originally, the scale was meant to measure Chinese parental beliefs. It took into consideration the ideologies on the child’s development and learning and the ideologies surrounding the mother-child relationship. In a deeper perspective, the two categories dealt with how the child learned through their efforts, self-discipline and modelling. It also made it very clear that the responsibility of caring of the child is placed solely on the mother, and as such she should try her level best to help her chid excel even if it includes making as much sacrifice as possible. Therefore parents have to be absolutely devoted but also cordial.

Chinese parental beliefs
How parents put parental beliefs into practise is affected by parental goals. Parental goals are the outcomes that parents hope to achieve with their children (Chan & Wyver, 2009). In practise different cultures have different values that relate to their children and hence a different in socialisation goals. That is why filial piety is an important goal in Chinese culture. Obeying and respecting parents and superiors is vital and important goals for Chinese mothers in the USA.  The belief in guan and filial piety has made parents devote their time in raising their kids, it emphasis total submission of the children to their seniors in society. As a rule however, harmonious social relationship is emphasised as an important parental goal.

Chinese parenting style
Parenting style is the sum of attitudes towards a child. These attitudes shape the emotional relationship and emotional contour between the parent and the child. There are different parenting styles, authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and neglecting parenting styles exist. The Chinese have focused on authoritative parenting style (Chen & Zhou, 1997). Chinese parents do not spare the rod, they are very restrictive and punishment is never out of the question. Moreover they tend to be more controlling when compared to American-European mothers. Filial piety plays a big role as it requires the parent to control their children.  Chinese parents may be controlling however they are warm and caring.  Their controlling nature is not based on asserting authority, but it reflects an affectionate attitudes the child.
What has been negative of Chinese mothers is their use of psychological control which effects the emotional development of the child (Ho, 1996). This affects how the child thinks, expresses themselves and their emotional attachments to their parents. Sometime it has had a negative effect on the parents as the parents sometimes become possessive or are over protective.
Chinese mothers have adopted a parenting style that has helped them secure parental status in a delicate which has gone a long way to ensure their control over their children. It has acted as a motive for making sure there is obedience amongst the children.

Success rate
            So far, the Chinese mother has been able to achieve most of what is expected of her.  Amy Chua’s essay in the Wall Street Journal clearly depicts this eventuality. The method chosen by Chinese mothers has made them nature their children to great success heights the children nor the parents never comprehended. In the Western world, authoritative parenting has never been encouraged. Children have always been left to decide what they want to do. This approach is commendable as it allows a child to self discover most of the issues. The independence granted to the children has lead to demand of total self independence by the children age notwithstanding. The fundamental role of the parent has changed to that of a spectator in their child’s life. No control is advised amongst the western world. It seems a little naive to me how a person with much experience in life can stand and watch comfortably as their child goes down the wrong path.  To me that’s where Chinese mothers score highly against Western mothers.

Conclusion
Training has never been a bad issue after all. Perfection requires training and constant revision on issues surrounding perfection. I do not think that training a person is wrong provided it is done within the confines of the acceptable rules. We train Olympic champions and other notable athletes and no one has an issue with that. Chinese mothers become more superior to Western mothers because they understand the impact that training has got on the life of their children. After all society has got strata and the position of a parent is that of a guide and not a bystander in their child’s life as is common amongst the Western world.

Reference

Chan, S. M., Bowes, J. J., & Wyver, S. S. (2009). Chinese Parenting in Hong Kong: links among Goals, Beliefs and Styles. Early Child Development & Care, 179(7), 849-862.

Ho, D.Y.F. (1996). Filial Piety and its Psychological Consequences. In M.H. Bond (Ed.),             Handbook of Chinese Psychology (pp. 155–165). New York: Oxford University Press.

Kelly, M., & Tseng, H. (1992). Cultural Differences in Child Rearing: A comparison of     immigrant Chinese and Caucasian American mothers. Journal of Cross-cultural        Psychology, 23(4), 444–455.

Wu, D.Y.H. (1985). Child Training in Chinese Culture. In W. Tseng & D.Y.H. Wu (Eds.),            Chinese Culture and Mental Health (pp. 113–134). New York: Academic Press.

Yau, J., Smetana, J. G., & Metzger, A. (2009). Young Chinese Children’s Authority Concepts.     Social Development, 18(1), 210-229.

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