China Overtakes Japan as World #2 Economy

Here's a good reason to learn Chinese. And here is one place to learn it.

Suzuki Piano

I want to make good citizens. If a child hears fine music from the day of his birth and learns to play it himself, he develops sensitivity, discipline and endurance. He gets a beautiful heart.

—Shin'ichi Suzuki

Much to my joy, Paige, Laura, and Emma have decided to return to piano:-) Jennifer, our wonderful strings teacher, will be teaching them using the Suzuki method. I'm so excited that I'll be learning too -- Emma and I are going to take lessons together! I dropped by the music store today to pick up the books and CDs. Being a beginner and largely self-taught, I've developed the method of scrutinizing the score and then simply trying to plunk out the notes in correct sequence with little regard to tempo, phrasing, dynamics, or even rhythm. The Suzuki method emphasizes playing by ear rather than by "eye" and has some similarities with natural language acquisition, so I listened to one of the songs on the CD several times. It sounded quite different from my initial rendition and gave me a model to imitate. 'Thrilled to have this opportunity!

Sloth Mothering

       I've been reading some fun articles about sloth mothering (as opposed to tiger mothering.) In The Lullaby of the Sloth Mother, the author confesses to finding grades irrelevant and allowing her children to play with flour and pretend it's "pixie dust." In The Surrender Hymn of the Sloth Mother, the author just admits we Americans are all spoiled brats and that it's easier to let one's kids run free than it is to, you know, control them or encourage them or something. "I am Sloth Mother, hear me snore," she concludes. And in The Battle Hymn of the Sloth Mother, the author suggests that loving one's children so much that one cannot assess them with "dispassionate objectivity" and accepts them just as they are is more important than constantly evaluating them, critiquing them, and pushing them to their limits.

       While I have a definite affinity for sloth mothers, of which I am one, I think I've been too hard on Amy Chua. In her book, she says she gets accused of pushing her kids for her own sake, rather than theirs. "Do you do this for them or for yourself?" people ask accusingly. She says she always wants to turn that question around and ask whether others neglect their kids for their children's sake or for their own. She makes a good point. It can't be easy to dedicate hundreds of hours of one's life to supervising instrument practice sessions, to attend one's children's music lessons and take notes and draw diagrams so one can guide them to improve, to research and select the top music teachers (as opposed to the closest or cheapest) and spend hours each week driving one's children to lessons with them, etc., especially when one is employed full-time as a Yale law professor. There does seem to be an element of self-sacrifice there, even if Chua's methods are not those I would recommend. 

       Also, she's being judged by members of a culture so very different from her own. She says she "has a family name to uphold and aging parents to make proud", concepts quite foreign to our cheery, relaxed, optimistic western culture where "the pursuit of happiness" is enshrined as a human right. 

       Well, now that it's after 11:00 A.M., this sloth mother should probably try to round up her sloth children, who have spent most of the morning playing with their pets (I think one sloth child is still asleep,) and plead with them to do a very modest amount of schoolwork. It seems I have to agree to having a puppy in bed with us if my youngest is to condescend to do some history.

Yet More on Tiger Mothering

       I finally got my copy of Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" from Laura, who read it with absolute disgust. I've finished reading it and am still sorting through it in my mind.
        Amy Chua doesn't come across as quite the monster she appears to be in the Wall Street Journal article, Why Chinese Mothers are Superior. She has made it clear that she didn't select the title for that piece and that it is misleading, which is partially true. 
       In the book, she reaches an epiphany after her younger daughter, tough little Lulu, then 13, publicly melts down at a restaurant in Moscow. She screams at her mother, throws a glass on the floor, and embarrasses Amy so severely that her mother is shocked speechless and runs from the scene. As Amy runs sobbing across Red Square, she realizes that she is going to lose her daughter unless she modifies her approach. She realizes that she has been too demanding, particularly in her insistence that Lulu become a violin prodigy. For the first time, she questions her own omniscience and considers the situation from Lulu's viewpoint. She begins to understand that Lulu sees the violin as a symbol of oppression. She eventually returns to the restaurant and announces, "Lulu, you win. It's over. We're giving up the violin" (note the use of the first person plural:-O).
       This is the climax of the book and a turning point in the relationship between Amy and Lulu. Lulu decides to continue with the violin, but on her own terms, and makes the decision that tennis is to be her chief interest. Amy accepts this reluctantly at first, but soon starts up her "Tiger Mom" antics as Lulu proves herself a talented tennis player and begins winning tournaments. This time, however, Lulu is forewarned and forearmed. She firmly communicates to Amy that tennis is her world and that she needs to keep it free from maternal interference.
       I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for Amy Chua. Yes, she seems nuts, but look at her own background. She grew up never being good enough. To come second was to shame her family. When, in eighth grade, she came second in a history contest, her parents attended the award ceremony, where someone not named Amy Chua won the prize for best all-around student. Her father's response was to tell her, "Never, never disgrace me like that again!" As a result, she became a perfectionistic over-achiever. 
       She went to Harvard as an undergraduate and then a law student, but felt she then became trapped in a high-status career she didn't enjoy and that she found unfulfilling. She admits to having a hard time enjoying life. She seizes on her young children as a way to fill the emptiness in her life. Through them, she decides that she will achieve, so she starts them on piano and violin at the age of three and then pushes, pushes, pushes.
        In his article, Beyond Chinese Mothering, David Shenk quotes psychiatrist Peter Freed as saying, "The parent beams when the child performs well and then withdraws love when he's underperforming. The kid becomes addicted to pleasing the parent. When he doesn't live up to the parent's expectations, he feels his parent go cold, which of course is totally devastating. That on-again, off-again feeling about how love works sets the stage for narcissism."
       Amy Chua describes being raised with just this approach, which, right on cue, appears to have produced a narcissist. She basks in the reflected glory of her children's achievements and depends on their success for her own happiness. She sees her children as extensions of her own ego. When Sophia, her elder daughter, comes in second (oh, the shame!) on a routine math facts test in fifth grade, Amy is so personally wounded that she has the poor child doing 2,000 timed math problems per day until she starts coming first again. Amy writes in triumphalist tones that Yoon-seok, the offending math competitor (she insists on pointing out that he is Korean), eventually returns to Korea. The unwritten sentiment seems to be that he retired in defeat from "the battle field," leaving ueber-competitive Amy fully vindicated and dancing in gleeful triumph.
       In the early days, with both Sophia and Lulu excelling, she received many compliments about her girls. She describes those times as "some of the best days of my life." Problems began as the girls improved and began competing against other top music students, meaning that they started to hit walls. When Lulu, after years of psychotically intense coaching and a brutal schedule of lessons and practice, was not accepted into the Juilliard pre-college program, Amy was devastated. It was thereafter that her struggles with Lulu became unbearable.
       In many ways, Sophia and Lulu were and are incredibly privileged. They had traveled all over the world before they reached their teens and had been taken to see the cultural highlights of many major cities. Their parents must have spent tens, possibly even hundreds, of thousands of dollars on their music lessons, and Amy gave enormous amounts of time and energy trying to accelerate them and extract every last drop of musicality from them. They go to one of the most expensive private schools in the country. However, as Lulu kept telling her, Amy appears to have done most of this for herself. 
       Family therapist, Jane Shua, in her response, Why You Shouldn't Follow Amy Chua's Parenting Advice, suggests that parents can choose "power and control over another to boost your ego, or connection and closeness built upon encouragement and respect." Another response, Paul Buchheit's The Two Paths to Success, suggests either finding ways to make achievement fun or finding ways to do something else. 
       I love this advice. An english professor once advised me never to finish reading a book I was not enjoying. His justification was that there are too many books I would enjoy to be able to read them all in one lifetime, so why waste times on those that aren't fun? So too, I think, with all endeavors. I think that was the lesson of Chua's book -- a lesson that she, with some ambivalence, ultimately came to accept.