Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

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Not one family is the same as the next. Whether you are comparing two families that live next door to each other or two families from completely different cultures you will find unique differences in every family dynamic. You will also find that parenting differs in each household. In this paper I will discuss these differences; such as: the effects of culture on parenting, the different roles parents play, and the changes in parenting over the generations. The point that Amy Chua stresses the most in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is the difference between “Chinese parenting” and “Western parenting.” It is clear that in her opinion Chinese children excel more than American children because they are constantly being pushed by their mothers to be the best at everything they do. There are even studies Chua quotes that suggest the same thing: In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that ‘stressing academic success is not good for children’ or that ‘parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.’ By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be ‘the best’ students, that ‘academic achievement reflects successful parenting,’ and that if children did not excel at school then there was ‘a problem’ and ‘parents were not doing there job.’ (5). Whether this study and her book proved that Chinese parenting is better than Western parenting is not the point to be made. However there is much to be said for parents encouraging their children to strive to do well and not give up. A child who grows up to have poor work ethics and a track record of laziness will typically come from an upbringing where they were neglected or never pushed to do much of anything. This is one thing that American parents could learn from Chinese mothers. An even

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