Amy Chua
Amy Chua
Amy L. Chuais an American lawyer and author. She is the John M. Duff Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She joined the Yale faculty in 2001 after teaching at Duke Law School for seven years. Prior to starting her teaching career, she was a corporate law associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She specializes in the study of international business transactions, law and development, ethnic conflict, and globalization and the law and is noted for her...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMemoirist
Date of Birth26 October 1962
CityChampaign, IL
CountryUnited States of America
What the Chinese parent is conveying to the child is not that 'you've got to get A's or else I won't like you.' On the contrary, it's, 'I believe in you so much, I know that you can be excellent.'
Some people are just self-motivated - my husband was. I also believe there are many children for whom parental involvement is key.
My children grew up with one Western parent. My husband doesn't believe in raising his voice with the kids and we don't spank. They were really raised in a half-Asian family.
The Chinese model calls for giving your kids very little choice - and I've come to see that you can go too far with that. On the other hand, I also believe that Western parents sometimes give their young kids too much choice.
There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.
Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything.
I do believe that when your child does poorly on a test, your first step should not necessarily be to attack the teacher or the school's curriculum. It should be to look at the idea that, maybe, the child didn't work hard enough.
Western parents try to respect their children’s individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they’re capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.
China is doing lots of things right. It's investing in education and R&D, it's opening up, it's more cosmopolitan than it's ever been. I think it's very likely that China will continue to explode economically and certainly become a superpower.
I'm willing to be different than other parents and go against the mainstream.
You know, I think it's so ironic that we're calling hard work, striving for excellence, don't blame others, you know, don't give up, that we're calling these, quote, 'Chinese values,' 'cause I always thought of them as American values.
I really feel that most things are difficult at the beginning and they become fun, something you love, only after you've worked at them. Making children do something hard can, in the long run, be a great parental service.
When my children were young, I was very cocky. I thought I could maintain total control.
You can coddle your child and tell them, 'You're the best no matter what.' But in the end, when they go out into the real world, I think it's pretty tough out there and other children are cruel.