Egå Gymnasium
3a18
28/03 2012
Engelsk A
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior
There are numerous different ways to raise your child, and there certainly seems to be a clear-cut
difference between the ethics of upbringing children in the dissimilar cultures of the world. One of
the more prominent and discussable ways of upbringing is the Chinese way, a topic which has
been written about in an article in The Wall Street Journal by Amy Chua.
“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” is the name of the article, published on January 8th in 2011, a
name that certainly calls attention to itself. The Wall Street Journal is a newspaper which is only
published in the Western countries and one must therefore assume that “Why Chinese Mothers
Are Superior” is a name that will cause outrage among the Westerners. Chua mentions the recent
focus there has been on Asian mothers and their inadequacy as parents: “There are all these new
books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, indifferent people indifferent to
their kids’ true interests.”1 This negative focus on Asian mothers combined with the title of the
article is reason for pause in many Western parents. The fact that the Asian mothers ‘retaliate’ in
the form of this article will surely cause outrage with the Westerners and therefore draw them in
and engage them in the debate, if only so they can disprove the article’s theories to themselves by
disbelieving it. She uses provocation to draw in the reader; just by naming the article something
which demeans the reader’s parenting skills. Once Chua has drawn in the readers she engages
them further by gaining credibility by using herself as an example. She has had firsthand
experience with both types of parenting as her husband is a Westerner and she, herself, is
Chinese. She weighs the Western and Chinese parenting arguments against each other and
elevates her own with the argument “The end justifies the means”. Their children will end up
successful, even if they have to suffer a little to get there.
But is that a valid argument? Does the end always justify the means? To a certain degree, perhaps,
but the methods the Chinese parents exercise are bordering on the limits to the extreme. Chua
uses an example with her own daughter, in where the daughter refuses to learn a song on the
piano and is denied water and even bathroom breaks until she gets it right, which does not
happen until well into the night. Many Westerners would most likely shake their heads in unison
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