I read the Coco the dog part just now and I had to laugh about how Amy Chua wanted her dog to be a violin virtuoso too (–well–you know what I mean).  I remember Eliana once saying something about Cole finally being smarter than the dog because he could turn on a faucet–or something like that.  I kind of feel that way about Isaac.  He isn’t much smarter than the cat, and in fact, is dumber than the cat in many ways.  But Ben thinks he’s trainable, like the cat (or Coco).  He kind of is but he’s kind of not, too.  He knows the routine for when I take a shower and get ready (he has to sit on the bathroom floor and listen to me sing “Little Bunny Foo-Foo” and “Old McDonald” a hundred times), he knows the routine for a diaper change (he lays in his room by his crib for an undefined period of time), he knows the routine for dishes (he sits in his high chair and gets splashed with water occasionally) but he doesn’t learn very quickly about things we don’t do over and over and over and over and over again.  In fact he doesn’t really learn unless it’s repeated often or unless he’s highly motivated.  Ben doesn’t understand this.  Ben has been reading about it just like Amy Chua would.  In fact, Ben’s parenting instinct/wisdom comes from books and the Internet.  Mine comes from experience.  It’s hard to argue with either of those and sometimes we just have to agree to disagree  (which means that I win because I’m the care-giver!)

Well, these ideas sounded articulate in my mind.  Maybe it’s the hour and the parenting day, I don’t know.

I don’t think Amy Chua is crazy at all. All this talk about her being a “monster?” I don’t buy it. I think she was a good mom. Yes, she pushed her kids hard. But, I think that, in today’s world, you kind of have to push your kids hard if you want them to be successful. Otherwise, there are too many temptations out there that just lead to massive amounts of wasted time. (I’m a bit guilty of the facebook trap myself, and I only have 54 friends! Sometimes I find myself looking at pictures of people from high school, then all of the sudden I think, “What am I doing? Why am I wasting all this time?) And I’m not even a KID! I think it’s a tough, tough world to raise our kids in. I actually loved Amy’s speech at the end about the Founding Fathers not attending sleepovers! I’m totally into that scene. I know I’m obsessed with the past, but I like raising my kids the old-fashioned way. And, I love love love Lulu’s comment about the violin, where she talks about how it makes her feel that she’s going back in time. Shoot, if that’s the case, I wish I could play the violin!

I kind of wish I had been pushed harder myself. I honestly feel (and this is a huge topic of mine), that I’m just coming into my own now . . . now that I’m in my 30s. I have a lot of new ideas and new ambitions that I’ve never had before. Is this normal? I don’t even know. I want to hear more from my lady friends . . . .

I also loved Sophia’s essay on playing the Romeo and Juliet song. That is excellent writing, eh? I don’t know enough about music to really judge the type of songs they play. But, I know enough about writing to know that Sophia’s essay is very good. So, Amy’s ambitions that her daughters be #1 in their classes seem to paying off there, at least. And, again, I don’t know anything about private schools, but I’m sure Sophia’s writing teachers have usually been quite good. I do admire Amy’s idea that, since she can’t force her children to be poor immigrants, she can at least force them to work hard on their music. So many kids (myself included, unfortunately) never worked that hard in high school. I always found it difficult to write about my experiences. Part of it was immaturity, but part was that I didn’t have a story about something I had overcome: my parents were happily married, we weren’t poor, there wasn’t anything really “different” about me, and I had never really worked that hard on anything. Now, age 33, I’m much more mature and able to see the bigger picture. Motherhood has helped, for sure. It’s something hard that I’m working on.

As an aside: this evening I was sitting outside my classroom at AWC while my students evaluated me. During that time, I saw several student athletes walk by, talking loudly. I saw only two students go into the “Student Success Center.” They were both Asian.

Finally, there’s a new book on my radar: My Korean Deli by Ben (ah, yes, Ben) Ryder Howe. I think this might be somewhat related to Tiger Mother. I definitely want to read it.

Some parents make their children excel at sports–Olympic athletes for instance.  There is also an amazing point guard on BYU’s basketball team (yes, Kate, that Y) and from what I’ve heard about his childhood, everyone in his family was willing to sacrifice so that he could be a great basketball player–and he spent his piano/violin/reading hours in the gym running dribbling and shooting drills.

For me, I want my kids to be workers.  I grew up with two philosophies–1) idle hands are the devil’s workshop and 2) you have to work for your whole life so you might as well learn how and how to appreciate work when you’re young.

My mom always made us be active in activities.  I think this kept us out of her hair but also she knew that if we were at an activity or doing a job, we weren’t getting into trouble.  And if we had constant activities and jobs, then we were too tired in our free time to get into trouble.

I’ve got plans for Isaac to start young–keeping his room clean, making his bed, putting his laundry away . . . followed by taking out the trash, emptying the dishwasher, taking care of the cat . . . followed by digging holes in the back yard and then filling them back in just to keep him busy–like a convict!

We read it aloud together, and I was afraid it was going to be a struggle–it’s probably a much longer article than most of my English 96 students are used to reading, and the vocabulary is pretty sophisticated. But, we went over some vocabulary before we started, and, turns out, my students were really into it! They were all following along well, and a few even had questions or comments as we were reading! For homework, they are going to type up a response to the article, and I’m interested in hearing what they have to say. I think that Tiger Mother is irresistible because everyone has an opinion. Many of us are parents, but we’ve all been raised by somebody, and we all have opinions on how we were raised. I even recommended Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (the book) to my students. It is easy to read, and it’s not very long, which are important qualities for English 96 readers.

It has NOTHING to do with Tiger Mother

This is an article that my tunnel-visioned, feminist professor had us read as we studied Frankenstein . . .

The author suggests that fiction is written for male pleasure because the plot structure resembles the male sexual experience (you know the little mountain drawing–rising action, climax, falling action).  I’ll just share the 1st paragraph.

“I would like to begin with the proposition that female orgasm is unnecessary.  I am not, of course, saying that it is unnecessary to any particular woman that she experience orgasm or, for that  matter, to any particular man that his female partner do so; rather, I mean that women’s orgasm and, by extension, women’s pleasure can be extraneous to that culmination of heterosexual desire which is copulation.  Women’s pleasure can take place outside, or independent of, the male sexual economy whose pulsations determine the dominant culture, its repressions, its taboos, and its narratives, as well as the ‘human sciences’ developed to explain them.  Considering the last decade’s preoccupation with sexual difference and the pleasure of the text, it is surprising that theories concerned with the relation between narrative and pleasure have largely neglected to raise the issue of the difference between women’s and men’s reading pleasure.”

On page 21-22 Chua talks about the generational slide into worthlessness.  ”Because of the hard work of their parents and grandparents, this generation will be born into the great comforts of the upper middle class. . . . They will have wealthy friends who get paid for B-pluses. . . . Finally and most problematically, they will feel that they have individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and therefore be much more likely to disobey their parents and ignore career advice. In short, all factors point to this generation being headed straight for decline.”

When I was young, I HAD to have a job or I didn’t get school clothes and mechanical pencils and make-up.  I got the cheap-o jeans and cheap-o, wooden pencils.  I worked my way through college because my parents couldn’t pay for it.  I had to share with my brothers.  I slept in the same bed with every single one of them because that’s all there was–at one point Kellen, Troy, and I shared a full bed because there were 5 kids, 2 parents, and 3 bedrooms.  My first car was a 1989 -station wagon but since I was the only one of my friends with a car, I was cool.  I got one-on-0ne time with my mom when I turned 25.  And yes, I did walk to school uphill both ways in snow up to my waist.  But all of these things made me tough and thankful and they gave me perspective.

Isaac will have more than I did.  He already has more in his college fund than I had when I was 18.  I’m worried that it will be too hard to make him do chores, have a job, go without because he’ll know that it’s artificially created suffering inflicted on him by his parents.  Like right now he’s sitting on my lap, playing with my hands because it’s too boring to sit on the floor and play with his toys.  The other day I thought, “I need to have six more kids RIGHT NOW so that I don’t ruin this one.”  That way scarcity will be real and we’ll all just have to learn to deal with it–but hopefully we’ll all be happy and have great perspective in the end.

BUT

The other day we had a moment that would have made Amy Chua and Eliana proud.  I was cleaning the kitchen and he was sitting in his high chair testing out his vocal skills.  Suddenly the tone of his screams changed to angry, shrill little bursts.  He’d shriek then look at me.  When I didn’t react or come play with him, he’d shriek again.  About two of those rotten little noises and I’d had it.  ”Oh no you don’t!” I said.  Then I grabbed him out of his chair and curled him into the you-will-go-to-sleep-if-it-kills-one-of-us position.  Then he got really really mad but I wasn’t going to be bested by a rotten child.  Finally he whimpered and gave in to sleep.  How else do you discipline a 4 1/2 month old?  The next day he tried his rottenness again.  I just gave him one look and he calmed down.  It was awesome.