What I’m about to say may be taken wrong, but before everyone clicks the X at the top of your screen, have patience and hear me out.
I was catching up on my Real Time with Bill Maher episodes this weekend, and I saw a brief but enlightening interview with Tiger Momma Amy Chua. I have only heard horrible things about her. Things like she calls her children garbage. Which is a lie. In fact, Kevin’s mom released a fiction novel into the Asian community at the same time that the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom was released. Majority of her press revolved around Amy Chua questions in which she hated and ran from. In my opinion she probably would have sold more books if she answered those questions and maybe it was even a cosmic way of the world telling her she needed to read that book. ANYWAYS… There is something to be said about her outlook on raising a child. I’m not saying it’s “right” or the “only way” but I’m saying that I agree with her in the aspect that children of this generation seem to have an unwarranted amount of self-confidence and self-esteem. They are beyond proud of themselves before they even accomplish something. That is assuming they actually find it necessary to accomplish something at all. Achievement needs to come before self-esteem. I’m not sure if it’s the guilt of a dual working parent situation or if it’s just people afraid of their kids crying but it’s a freaking mess. Yes, a FREAKING MESS! Her point was eloquently put when she said something along the lines of “you can’t play Mozart if you can’t play in tune”. There has to be a balance between letting your children be creative and “who they are meant to be” and be disciplined. They have to learn respect, manners, and work ethic. Otherwise what kind of world will we have in 30 years? Not one that I want to live in.
As you all may know, I spend my mornings with a 5 year old, and every day before 8am I “hate” at least 4-5 things. Today I couldn’t even bare to speak in the child’s home because I was nauseated by how the mother was allowing her daughter to treat me. When she finally got to school she was rude to the teacher, who was trying to be as nice as possible. I took Catherine aside and said “Look, that was mean. You can’t ignore people. If you want to be known as the sweet, nice, polite girl you actually have to act sweet, nice, and polite. You can’t ignore people and be rude.” I told her to spend the day working on saying please, thank you, and no thank you and to think about treating people the way she wants to be treated. I really wanted to walk out of the job and never ever come back. In fact even my beloved Lily will say "Look KiKi! I'm so good at this! I'm so good!" all day regardless of what she is doing or how she is doing it.
My mother used to say things like “I love you but that doesn’t mean I have to like you.” and “If you don’t like me it means I’m doing my job.” I HATED her for those comments but now I see how right she is. I’m picking up a copy of Amy Chua’s book this week.
I included the interview below in case any of you are curious. ☺
I was catching up on my Real Time with Bill Maher episodes this weekend, and I saw a brief but enlightening interview with Tiger Momma Amy Chua. I have only heard horrible things about her. Things like she calls her children garbage. Which is a lie. In fact, Kevin’s mom released a fiction novel into the Asian community at the same time that the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom was released. Majority of her press revolved around Amy Chua questions in which she hated and ran from. In my opinion she probably would have sold more books if she answered those questions and maybe it was even a cosmic way of the world telling her she needed to read that book. ANYWAYS… There is something to be said about her outlook on raising a child. I’m not saying it’s “right” or the “only way” but I’m saying that I agree with her in the aspect that children of this generation seem to have an unwarranted amount of self-confidence and self-esteem. They are beyond proud of themselves before they even accomplish something. That is assuming they actually find it necessary to accomplish something at all. Achievement needs to come before self-esteem. I’m not sure if it’s the guilt of a dual working parent situation or if it’s just people afraid of their kids crying but it’s a freaking mess. Yes, a FREAKING MESS! Her point was eloquently put when she said something along the lines of “you can’t play Mozart if you can’t play in tune”. There has to be a balance between letting your children be creative and “who they are meant to be” and be disciplined. They have to learn respect, manners, and work ethic. Otherwise what kind of world will we have in 30 years? Not one that I want to live in.
As you all may know, I spend my mornings with a 5 year old, and every day before 8am I “hate” at least 4-5 things. Today I couldn’t even bare to speak in the child’s home because I was nauseated by how the mother was allowing her daughter to treat me. When she finally got to school she was rude to the teacher, who was trying to be as nice as possible. I took Catherine aside and said “Look, that was mean. You can’t ignore people. If you want to be known as the sweet, nice, polite girl you actually have to act sweet, nice, and polite. You can’t ignore people and be rude.” I told her to spend the day working on saying please, thank you, and no thank you and to think about treating people the way she wants to be treated. I really wanted to walk out of the job and never ever come back. In fact even my beloved Lily will say "Look KiKi! I'm so good at this! I'm so good!" all day regardless of what she is doing or how she is doing it.
My mother used to say things like “I love you but that doesn’t mean I have to like you.” and “If you don’t like me it means I’m doing my job.” I HATED her for those comments but now I see how right she is. I’m picking up a copy of Amy Chua’s book this week.
I included the interview below in case any of you are curious. ☺
I think you are right, the hardest thing is to be a parent.
ReplyDeleteThere is no right or wrong way, but kids do need to respect others.
Don't give up on her and quit, be kind and teach her "please" and "thank you"
You might be her only hope. The sad part is tough love is best delivered by someone that loves the child and that should be the parent.