Unnatural Selection

I could try and review Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection. Or I could just link to the WSJ review which says everything I want to say about it, but much more eloquently and succinctly. Because I'm lazy like that, and also trying to pull together an application for an honors program that's due in a week and a half. Hvistendahl is thought-provoking, although I was distracted from the thoughts she provokes by her left-wing/feminist bias, like trying to enjoy Bach with a mosquito buzzing in my ear. She realizes that there is this tragedy taking place, this "gendericide" of pre-born girls, but fails to connect the dots from the oh-so-sacred woman's right to choose (choose death, that is) and women choosing to abort female fetuses. If a woman can choose to abort because of Down syndrome, mental health or family size, why not gender?

Expect the Best

An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal comparing the parenting approaches between "Asian parents" and "Western parents". The author lays out a basic difference in the two views, namely that Asian parents expect the best and get it and that Western parents reinforce the idea that their children will be loved and accepted whether they succeed or fail, and then proceeds to champion the "Asian" approach. It's an unusual take, not least of all for the fact that it acknowledges, stereotypes aside, that there are two different cultures here, and they do have a crucial difference between them. I'm not actually sure what I think about it: I can see a certain appeal to refusing to accept failure as an option -- a you-can-and-will-do-it attitude that inspires the child to succeed -- and then ingraining that view; it certainly seems to have worked more than once in the past. But at one and the same time I think that it must be acknowledged that not everyone is cut out to be a chess master or a violin maestro, and refusing to accept this possibility could be devastating for that less-than-perfect child.

"A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

[...]

All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough."


Read the rest here.