Students from a high school I observe as a student teacher were asked to compare Amy Tan’s short story “Two Kinds,” from her book “The Joy Luck Club” (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989) with different selections that share the central theme of parenting styles.
The story is about a tiger mom who demands excellence from her daughter, with different selections that share the central theme of parenting styles.
Tan argues that there are two kinds of daughters in the world: “those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind.”
Throughout the week, the students were divided into five groups and asked to read a different connecting text to later share with the class, otherwise known as the jigsaw method.
One group read Amy Chua’s “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” (Penguin Books Publishing, 2011) a memoir about a Chinese mother who juxtaposes the parenting style of Chinese and Western parents.
In the reading, Chua discusses the controversy she faced from Western parents for her strict practices with her children, such as calling her kids “garbage” in Chinese for not meeting her academic standards. In the memoir, Chua recounts a time when she threw her children’s Mother’s Day card back at them because she said she did not believe they tried their best.
While it may seem extreme to some, a few students were able to identify with Chua and believed that she was right to throw away the card because she knew her children’s true potential and would not take anything less.
Based on my experience, this tiger mom, or helicopter parent, approach is something that is synonymous with Hispanic parenting culture and is something many in the Rio Grande Valley experience.
I will never forget the time I was sitting at a round table with five other students for an intro to education course. As we introduced ourselves, we discovered that all of the students at the table, minus myself, were failed nursing majors. They all had the same reason for pursuing health care and that was that they were only studying nursing because it was what their Hispanic parents wanted.
Coming from a household where deciding on a major and, really, all my decisions, were mine alone, I could not understand why it took my classmates so long to go against their parents’ wishes.
Another group reading Adam Grant’s New York Times 2016 opinion piece “How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off” found that the best way to foster creativity in children is to allow them to explore their interests and to discourage conformity in a way that heightens the child’s ego.
This freedom of autonomy is what Grant attributes to Albert Einstein’s development of the theory of special relativity, or E=mc^2, which Einstein says he thought of when reading sheet music to play the violin. Grant writes that Nobel Prize winners are seven times more likely to be creative in the arts as well as genius in their inventions because of this freedom.
Is this to say that all of us who have hands-off parents will one day earn a Nobel Prize? No, but it seemed to have the majority of the students on board. Most agreed that a hands-off approach was the most effective way to raise a well-rounded child.
As I helped the students navigate through the readings, I found myself forced to reflect on my parents’ parenting styles and how their practices have shaped who I am today.
Growing up, I would often hear stories from my mother about how hard her father was on her and how much he expected of the family. My mother vowed to raise me to have an opinion and not be afraid of her, like she was of her father.
As a child, I recall always having a say in the clothes I wore, what I ate and even the way I played. My mother made sure I was heard and encouraged me to express myself in all the ways that a child can. The whole world was my playroom.
As I got older and started school, I was labeled as a gifted and talented student. My mother would praise me for my creativity and loved when my teachers would recognize it as well. She took great pride in my creativity because she said it was something she could not have because of her rigid upbringing.
While I never did badly in school, I was never No. 1, either. The responsibility of school was mine and mine alone, and I enjoyed that independence because it made me feel empowered.
Despite all my mom’s pride in me, I was never able to pass a single one of my AP tests, I scored average SAT and ACT scores, and when my senior year of high school rolled around, I only applied to one university.
I was disappointed in myself for a long time for not aiming higher and wondered if I had had a tiger mom, would I have passed the tests or had a different variety of schools to choose from? And if my mom was raised by someone like herself, would she be able to get in touch with her creativity? I am not sure.
As the week went on and the students began to further dissect the text, I wondered what kind of parenting style I would adopt?
Despite my mom’s attempts to raise me holistically, I still rebelled during my teens, a luxury she never had as a teenager for fear of the consequences. In retrospect, I had no reason to rebel. I was not oppressed in any way. Nothing in comparison to the strictness and lack of voice that my mom must have felt in her home growing up. If anyone should have rebelled, it should have been her.
So, I beg the question, is raising a child with the “back-off” mentality that Grant proposes a recipe for a spoiled and entitled child? And if so, is that better than raising a child from a tiger-mom perspective?
Do you believe children who are raised by tiger parents grow up to be conforming adults who struggle with individuality and identity? And if so, is that better than raising a child with a hands-off approach?
Is it best to be strict, stern and demand excellence from your children or is it better to let them navigate the world on their own and be there for them when they fall back? Both have their consequences, but I lean toward the latter.
While Tan argues that there are only “two kinds” of children, I believe there is a middle ground. However, for the sake of argument and my own curiosity, I wonder which style promotes the most success.
And so I ask, what kind of parents did you have growing up? Do you agree with the way you were raised? What parts of it do you disagree with? Do you think you are predestined to raise a child the way your parents raised you? And how will you parent your own children one day?
