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The enormous flak over Amy Chua's book, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," serves to fuel, not only a debate, but also the stereotype of immigrant parenting. As a staunch defender of only children and their parents who are maligned with regularity, I am not surprised.
Incomplete or misinformation "travels" faster than light, leaving a residue which labels a group, often erroneously. I am not defending Chua's parenting methods; they have been rehashed and argued endlessly. Instead, I am examining the collateral damage left in its wake-the stereotype of the relentless, strict, deprecating, depriving Chinese/immigrant parent.
As in only children labeling, the attention paid to and the misinterpretation of her book, particularly in an early Wall Street Journal article, will be its only remnant. Like most negative stereotypes, they leave long lasting scars, in this instance on Chinese, Chinese-American and other immigrant parents-whether or not they adhere to some or all of Chua's methods. The uproar feeds the stereotype of what most Westerners view as harsh parenting practices. erin Khuê Ninh put it this way on Huffington Post:
"Whatever we may believe of Chua now -- however much we may wish that she had at least seen fit to issue a counter or qualifying message to contest the sensationalism of an unscrupulous ad campaign -- the damage is done. And it will continue to be done, in the months and even years to come, as this spurious piece of parenting wisdom surfaces again and again in fragile families..."
What has been omitted from the critical barrage is Chua's retreat, and more broadly the fact that her book is a memoir, not a parenting advice book or scientific evaluation of parenting styles, a topic David Brooks discusses in his New York Times column. Nonetheless, in terms of image, in terms of East vs. West parenting, and in terms of how the population looks at Chinese, Chinese-Americans, and other immigrant parents and their offspring, the harm has been done. The stereotype of strict Chinese parenting practices and the anticipated high level of children's success, even superiority, will prevail.
Like G. Stanley Hall's solo faulty study of only children in 1896 that "defamed" only children, the Wall Street Journal's story and interpretations of Chua's book serve to infuse the stereotype and feed the controversy for decades to come. Immigrant parents who adhere to a "Chinese" style of child rearing will defend it; others will bash it. Similarly, mothers of only children will defend their choice and their expectations for their children insisting that their children's outcomes are no better or worse than children with siblings. The myth of the prodded only child, like that of the "Chinese mother," will persist because the essential ingredients to perpetuate any stereotype are in place:
- Facts matter very little.
- A thought or idea is reinforced by repetition.
- Once someone believes something, it is very difficult to change his or her opinion.
My question: Do you think the "Tiger Mom" irreversibly damaged the Chinese parenting stereotype?
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Copyright 2011 by Susan Newman
