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Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

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Yale law professor Amy Chua presents a harsh comparison of Chinese and Western ideas of child rearing in her essay entitled “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.” This essay is an excerpt from her controversial 2011 book entitled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and was published as an op-ed in a 2011 edition of The New York Times. In this essay Chua strives to challenge the readers’ idea of Chinese mothers and the way that they choose to effectively raise their children, and to present the reader with a comparison of child rearing techniques throughout the world. Chua’s other works include The World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (2002) and Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global …show more content…

She follows up this example by saying that, though her father insisted that she was garbage, it did not affect her sense of personal worth because she knew that her father thought highly of her. Chua furthers her point by discussing the top three differences in Chinese and Western parenting styles. Firstly, she draws attention to the fact that, in modern western society, parents are highly concerned about their children’s sense of self-worth and of damaging their self-esteem. Secondly, she touches on the subject of Confucian filial piety - the idea that parents have sacrificed for their children and are, therefore, owed respect and obedience in return- and its presence in Chinese culture. Chua emphasizes this point by commenting on the disagreements about child rearing that arise between her and her husband Jed, who is not of Chinese decent. Thirdly, Chua expresses the idea that Chinese parents are under the assumption that they alone know what is best for their child/children. She ends her essay with a summation of the essay’s content and expresses her viewpoint on the way that Chinese mothers are portrayed in today’s society.
The topic of cultural differences in child rearing behaviors is an increasingly relevant topic in today’s society. The members of modern society are fervently judgmental of ideas that oppose their own personal belief systems and are

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