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.