Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Free Play or Tiger Mother? Can't be both...

Like dieting, parenting has trends.  You can point to different eras and see the trends of each era.  I remember my mother calmly putting my brother, ten years younger than me, into time out.  "What on earth is time out?"  I asked sullenly.  I had been spanked for the same offense.  She explained the process to the sullen tween in a time before the term tween was even thought of.  Now, I understand time outs, tweens, naughty chairs and spots, positive discipline, point systems, I could go on.  Parents embraced Ferber as quickly as a dieter threw away their bread and fried their bacon to join the Atkins revolution.  There is always a new trend, and it's impossible as an informed parent to not be effected by them.  This is not to say that all parents change their lives based on the next parenting craze, but I think all of us are aware of them and gravitate to the trends that have something in common with the parenting style we have, or maybe even wish we had.

So what do you do when trends that make sense to you conflict?

Just a few days ago, the New York Times printed an article entitled The Movement to Restore Children's Play Gains Momentum.  Many parents (myself included) said "Yes!  An excuse for my messy house!" and "Of course children should play!"  Now, a book entitled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua discusses the opposite parenting strategy.  Amy Chua has written a memoir of parenting of her daughters, now teenagers, in which she has harshly driven them to be the best.  At 14, her older daughter played piano at Carnegie Hall.  Both daughters get A or A+ in everything.  An A- is a failure.  Yet in order to do that, each day they practiced their instrument for 3 hours, there were no play dates, sleep overs, or any extracurricular activities of their choice.  (Wall Street Journal article here)  While many of Amy Chua's techniques are beyond what we would do, our house also values excellence.  My husband and I work hard and we expect our children to as well.

The problem I see with these two differing views is not necessarily that there isn't room for a degree of both in a house but that our education system seems to push between these two views as well.  There are so many questions when thinking of this: How do we have both?  Should we have both?  How do we push our children toward excellence without turning the school district into Chinese mothers?  Should we expect the schools to be Chinese mothers (as many Charter schools are) and frown upon the free play parents?  Or, should we change how we measure excellence to include happiness and life satisfaction?  The list of questions could go on...

Where do you see yourself in this spectrum?  Do you see yourself moving in the spectrum as your children get older?

2 comments:

  1. Great post! As my dad likes to say, "Balance is always the answer." But how? We're balancing more than the tightrope can actually hold at the moment. I believe kids absolutely need some free play everyday. So, I'm wedging it between school, nourishment, homework, exercise, and sleep. Sometimes it feels like I'm anxiously setting a timer, saying, "You have half an hour to be a kid before the next item on the agenda, so hurry up and relax!"
    One thing making me an extremely anxious parent (which can't be good for the kids) is that we've been told childhood is the ONLY chance for so MANY important aspects of life! What pressure! Birth to 5 is key for a whole host of developmental enormities. Well, that ship has sailed, so I've already downgraded myself to a B-! Because, though I tried really hard, I still feel like I could have done a LOT better. That's parenting, though, right? Too important to be done by fallible humans!
    Then there's reading, learning a language, beginning a musical instrument, doing a sport or dance. We're told these all have to begin early or it's just too late. Then the really BIG one! Childhood is the only time they get to be kids!! To be irresponsible, to explore and be unstructured. But how? When? With all the pressure to not wait until it's too late to develop them in all those important ways?
    Lately, out of necessity, I've been thumbing my nose at all that "wisdom." Why can't you hope to have free, unstructured fun at age 45? Why can't you learn to play an instrument at 28? How can deadlines and anxiety be good for a developing 5 year old or her mother? If you've got just half an hour with your child out of your busy schedules, it can't be good to spend the whole time battling over homework he doesn't want to do. Better to get just some done by padding it with fun and hugs.
    I wonder what Amy Chua's children will say about their upbringing when they are 40. My best friend in HS was the child of immigrants and had a (Greek) Chinese mother. She graduated valedictorian, went to Harvard, and went straight through school, not missing a year, until she became a neurosurgeon. The last time I spoke to her, I was still a bike messenger and she had an esteemed career and two kids. She envied me because I'd taken the time to discover myself. I envied her because she could pay her bills.
    Early in high school, I had been at the top of the class with her. But I burned out. I’d been a very early reader, was an extremely diligent student, had parents who expected no less than A’s, played two instruments, did 3 sports, was expected to act like an adult, and was too busy for a social life. By the time I was 16, I was ready for the childhood I’d missed. I seized it, angrily, and refused to “grow up” until I was 30. I blew off an expensive college education, and will be paying on those loans forever. Now, at almost 40, I’m finally trying to piece together a career.
    With that in mind, when my son was 5 or 6 and would scream whenever I suggested we do some reading, I let it go. Let him wander freely, be a kid, now, I thought. More important that he be into reading when he’s 16 than now. As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait that long. Once his peers got into reading, he got into it too. And it didn’t take long for him to catch up with them. Perhaps I inadvertantly did something right?! Time will tell, I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great post! As my dad likes to say, "Balance is always the answer." But how? We're balancing more than the tightrope can actually hold at the moment. I believe kids absolutely need some free play everyday. So, I'm wedging it between school, nourishment, homework, exercise, and sleep. Sometimes it feels like I'm anxiously setting a timer, saying, "You have half an hour to be a kid before the next item on the agenda, so hurry up and relax!"
    One thing making me an extremely anxious parent (which can't be good for the kids) is that we've been told childhood is the ONLY chance for so MANY important aspects of life! What pressure! Birth to 5 is key for a whole host of developmental enormities. Well, that ship has sailed, so I've already downgraded myself to a B-! Because, though I tried really hard, I still feel like I could have done a LOT better. That's parenting, though, right? Too important to be done by fallible humans!
    Then there's reading, learning a language, beginning a musical instrument, doing a sport or dance. We're told these all have to begin early or it's just too late. Then the really BIG one! Childhood is the only time they get to be kids!! To be irresponsible, to explore and be unstructured. But how? When? With all the pressure to not wait until it's too late to develop them in all those important ways?
    Lately, out of necessity, I've been thumbing my nose at all that "wisdom." Why can't you hope to have free, unstructured fun at age 45? Why can't you learn to play an instrument at 28? How can deadlines and anxiety be good for a developing 5 year old or her mother? If you've got just half an hour with your child out of your busy schedules, it can't be good to spend the whole time battling over homework he doesn't want to do. Better to get just some done by padding it with fun and hugs.
    I wonder what Amy Chua's children will say about their upbringing when they are 40. My best friend in HS was the child of immigrants and had a (Greek) Chinese mother. She graduated valedictorian, went to Harvard, and went straight through school, not missing a year, until she became a neurosurgeon. The last time I spoke to her, I was still a bike messenger and she had an esteemed career and two kids. She envied me because I'd taken the time to discover myself. I envied her because she could pay her bills.
    Early in high school, I had been at the top of the class with her. But I burned out. I’d been a very early reader, was an extremely diligent student, had parents who expected no less than A’s, played two instruments, did 3 sports, was expected to act like an adult, and was too busy for a social life. By the time I was 16, I was ready for the childhood I’d missed. I seized it, angrily, and refused to “grow up” until I was 30. I blew off an expensive college education, and will be paying on those loans forever. Now, at almost 40, I’m finally trying to piece together a career.
    With that in mind, when my son was 5 or 6 and would scream whenever I suggested we do some reading, I let it go. Let him wander freely, be a kid, now, I thought. More important that he be into reading when he’s 16 than now. As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait that long. Once his peers got into reading, he got into it too. And it didn’t take long for him to catch up with them. Perhaps I inadvertantly did something right?! Time will tell.

    ReplyDelete