The first part was sarcasm which I thought would be apparent from the fact that hacking is a very nerdy thing. I'm actually planning to go ROTC so both a spine and a brain are very much good things.
Why Chinese Mothers are Superior
- Thread starter Japanrocks12
- Start date
The first part was sarcasm which I thought would be apparent from the fact that hacking is a very nerdy thing. I'm actually planning to go ROTC so both a spine and a brain are very much good things.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2006
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After reading the first post, I kind of hoped that it misrepresented chinese mothers. But after reading yours too... this is really the norm? It looks like chinese parents regard their children as property to build up in order to later exploit for as much as they can!
Both optional for junior officers, dear boy. If you want to fit in in the mess, don't bother with any of that - after all, you're commissioned, you outrank these squaddies, how can they know better than you? - just focus on drinking and reducing your polo handicap.
Right, serious advice: Second Lieutenant is the lowest rank in the army, believe me. You will have a platoon of thirty men or so to command, but most of them will be more experienced than you, most will be older, and a fair few will have seen combat. None will have any respect for you on day 1, especially not those who have seen new platoon commanders before. While in command of your first platoon your platoon sergeant is god. Don't question anything he says, because he's got the experience to know what's going on and the respect and trust of the men. It's his platoon at least until you've been together a while and you've got a rapport with the men. If you get a reputation, make sure that it's one for complete integrity, that you'll try anything once and if possible you want to be spoken of as 'that nutjob who doesn't feel pain'. Avoid at all costs a reputation for arrogance because the minute you've got that the respect of the entire platoon is gone. If someone above the rank of private fails to salute you, salute and say 'thank you for saluting, corporal' at the most, don't insist on one or you will be seen as arrogant. Keep your kit in at least as good condition as your platoon sergeant does, seek regular advice from the Adjutant and RSM - and enjoy it. It's one of the highlights of your career. Good luck!
I was already think about all of the serious advice.
So basically be a paragon of justice and respect.
So how I see it:
Respect is not given it is earned.
If the platoon fails, take the blame, on the other hand if it succeeds credit the platoon.
Make sure the platoon is well taken care of.
Behave stoically.
The good news is that cyberwarfare/security is rather new so I wont be that far behind.
Basically. The most important lesson is humility - recognise from the outset that you're not worthy of any sort of respect until you've earned it, and that if you have to demand respect you'll never get it. Basically, listen to your platoon sergeant and remember, always, not to confuse rank with authority - your Lance Corporals (or PFCs for you, I think) have already been promoted once and no doubt will feel you should still be fed off a bottle.
I was once platoon sergeant to a bloke (not a bad officer then, actually) who was until recently CO of my former battalion. He told me that he had called in one of his platoon commanders on his first day, and told him "from now, until we meet again in this office in three months' time, you will not say a word. Your platoon sergeant is your god, do not contradict or question anything he says. If someone salutes you, you are to repay the compliment but on no account are you to say a word. If we meet again in three months' time and I find that in that time you have said a word, I will personally remove your balls and stick pins in them. March him out, Sergeant-Major!
The other major lesson, from no less than Field Marshal the Lord Harding, is that you need to be able to do anything that you ask a soldier to do better than he can. When inspecting your men, you must always be able to point to your own kit to tell him how his should be. When running, you should be able to chat with the PTI and yet choose to run in the middle of your platoon, encouraging the weaker ones and making sure the stronger don't slack off. You'll learn on the job, and as I said it'll be a highlight of your career.
Brian Shanahan
Permanoob
The father was right about Milwall though, playing for them does bring shame to all your family.
Brian Shanahan
Permanoob
And most importantly of all, "how much money is your father willing to pay towards our new science building?" Why do you think privilège (literal translation: Private Law) is the most important determining factor in the type of systems, like the US and British ones, where "outside influences" are supposed to be taken into account?
Better to have an objective but flawed system (i.e. straight academic achievement measured by standardised test based on a universal curriculum) than one which is literally designed to have massive back doors for those with money and connections (I won't even insult this one by using the and/or).
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Happiness hasn't been decreasing for a few decades http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/hap_nat/desc_qt.php?qt=1 (search "united states" in your browser)
By successful neighbor I meant being "better" in a measured, superficial way when compared to those around you. By being a happy citizen I should have written "happy; and a good citizen". Real success is, of course, happiness, but real happiness comes from many sources most chiefly loving relationships which that style of parenting does not encourage. Don't like Amy Chua fool you, all children seek love and validation from their parents no matter how cruel and abusive. That she can turn around and show conditional affection is not evidence of true familial love.
Western parenting goals have been evolving with psychology to promote American values in our children, which are actually good values. Self confidence, team playing, hard work, creativity, happiness, trust, integrity, team playing. Discipline, honor, dominance are not there. There are other problems with our society, some of which is parenting but a lot isn't, which counteract these good things, but the speartip of American parenting is good and is heading in the right direction.
This week's The Economist has a column article on this subject:
http://www.economist.com/node/17959516?story_id=17959516
Yay for "exam-deprivation anxiety"!
http://www.economist.com/node/17959516?story_id=17959516
Yay for "exam-deprivation anxiety"!
Narz
keeping it real
I got it mixed up, happiness has stayed stagnant despite economic improvements.
http://www.sustainablescale.org/attractivesolutions/understandinghumanhappinessandwellbeing.aspx
I suspect though that people had higher standards for happiness back in more idealistic times (60's & 70's) but I can't prove that.
Well that Chua woman is an extreme but I do think kids will get more out of learning about discipline than platitudes. That said I tell my daughter "good" about 20-30 times an hour & never call her bad (though I tell her occasionally her actions are not a good idea). That said, she's only two. Seems like a lot of parents treat even 4 & 5 year olds like they're two & they act accordingly.
lol, since when are those exclusively "American Values"?
Don't really know enough parents to comment, we're kind of isolated.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Well happiness kind of caps out monetarily once all your needs are taken care of. Once you start adding in luxuries, it's a matter of how you spend your money-$6,000 for a long trip to Belize with a backpack is gonna go a lot further than adding $6,000 dollars to the cost of your commuting tool, and even more than adding $6,000 to get designer furniture. America capped out a while ago. So if making more money isn't helping, why is the stereotypedly* Chinese mother trying to get her kid to make 6 figures when all the extra stress is not translating to happiness. Oops.
The 60s and 70s were hardly better times than today. Full of social unrest, discontent, threat of Soviet nukes, rights movements and reactionaries, etc. There were good things about the era, like perhaps more optimism.
And let's not kid ourselves, Chua isn't merely extreme but abusive. I agree with setting high standards, and I even agree discipline is a good value. I think the culture of raising your kids to be financially secure above all else was smart for immigrants coming from relative poverty to make sure they as a group didn't fall into a bad cycle (I would argue disciplined conservatism is a good way to catch up from a bad place in a short amount of time. otherwise I wouldn't argue in favor of conservatism). But the Asian American community is on solid ground and doesn't need that anymore.
*one of those stupidly precise words an author uses to avoid using more conventional words with slightly different meanings
Narz
keeping it real
I agree that the Chua woman went overboard & I would never treat my kid that way, I'm just saying I think the "American way" (or maybe it's just my in-laws) of treating kids like little princes & princesses (mostly princesses) is also bad.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Oh, yeah, that's bad too.
ParkCungHee
Deity
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- Aug 13, 2006
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That accounts at best, for a portion of students at a handful of Ivy league schools in the United States.
Brian Shanahan
Permanoob
Far larger than you would like to think.
However prevalent it is, the point is that it does occur. I don't really think that's the major issue, though. It's more to do with the invariably discriminatory subjective selective process. If you translated this system to a Sydney context, USyd would end up with a hell of a lot more North Sydney people (i.e. rich WASPs), based on university culture that is rooted in traditional socioeconomic differences.
ParkCungHee
Deity
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I'm sure if it's universal, then you can produce some evidence of it being an issue in the United States.
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
If many Chinese mothers are like the one in the OP, then there is no wonder why Chinese students get good test scores. Do we really want to move up the international rankings in test scores by adopting such parenting tactics?
There is this guy who writes a column in the paper and although sometimes I agree with him, most of the time he is too........Well, I guess I'll use draconian since he says that is the word most often used to describe him.
He discussed the article in the OP, and I would have thought he would stick up for the Chinese mother more than he did.
http://www.rosemond.com/91509.html
Some highlights:
I don't agree with him often because he is too extreme, but at least he isn't the worst. For example he says you should never 'high five' your kid. Asked why not he'll ask you would you rather have the kid view you as a best friend or as a father. Well, who the heck said you can't be both, why must it be one or the other? And just giving a high five once in a while doesn't automatically make one a 'best friend' either.
My wife is Chinese and we have a first grader (from her previous marriage) and now we have a newborn.
First thing I had to tell her to do differently 'over here' in America compared to the way things are in China is the punishment of children when they do bad things. At least where she lived in China, you were a 'terrible' parent if you didn't beat your kids when they were bad. And I am not talking simple spankings here, I'm saying making sure you leave a mark so find something hard to use if you need to. So I had to get her to 'ground' and take away privileges to punish rather than getting physical. She really did not think it worked (grounding for a few days here and there) until the kid was caught lying to her mother and we grounded her for 16 days leading up to Halloween (she wanted the punishment to include Halloween, but I put my foot down to say she can't miss her first Halloween and 16 days should be ample punishment). John Rosemond would probably have suggested grounding for 6 weeks, and any minor 'breaking of the rules' would have resulted in the grounding being reset over again for another 6 weeks.
My wife isn't as strict as the woman in the OP, she makes sure the kid does her homework, but doesn't 'pull out her hair' if the grades aren't perfect and doesn't go over the work hundreds of times. She was shocked that kids don't have homework in Kindergarten. She does limit her to TV watching of about one hour per week (of course the kid likes to try to sneak in more), we let her play soccer and we signed her up for dance class (which was much harder for the mother to agree to since it costs much more $ than soccer does).
She is allowed to go to the neighbors kid's house, but pretty much only on weekends during the school year (part of that is because by the time school is over there is only one hour or so before it starts getting dark), so during the summer she can see her friends on most days. But my wife tries to ground her for almost everything and the excuses for grounding gets really bad leading up to christmas and birthdays so she can try to take those away from her.
'Western' parenting is too soft (not John Rosemond parenting, but the 'My kid is perfect, and I will let my kid get away with alot of crap' parenting), but the 'Chinese' parenting is too strict. I think the answer is somewhere in between.
There is this guy who writes a column in the paper and although sometimes I agree with him, most of the time he is too........Well, I guess I'll use draconian since he says that is the word most often used to describe him.
He discussed the article in the OP, and I would have thought he would stick up for the Chinese mother more than he did.
http://www.rosemond.com/91509.html
Some highlights:
I don't agree with him often because he is too extreme, but at least he isn't the worst. For example he says you should never 'high five' your kid. Asked why not he'll ask you would you rather have the kid view you as a best friend or as a father. Well, who the heck said you can't be both, why must it be one or the other? And just giving a high five once in a while doesn't automatically make one a 'best friend' either.
My wife is Chinese and we have a first grader (from her previous marriage) and now we have a newborn.
First thing I had to tell her to do differently 'over here' in America compared to the way things are in China is the punishment of children when they do bad things. At least where she lived in China, you were a 'terrible' parent if you didn't beat your kids when they were bad. And I am not talking simple spankings here, I'm saying making sure you leave a mark so find something hard to use if you need to. So I had to get her to 'ground' and take away privileges to punish rather than getting physical. She really did not think it worked (grounding for a few days here and there) until the kid was caught lying to her mother and we grounded her for 16 days leading up to Halloween (she wanted the punishment to include Halloween, but I put my foot down to say she can't miss her first Halloween and 16 days should be ample punishment). John Rosemond would probably have suggested grounding for 6 weeks, and any minor 'breaking of the rules' would have resulted in the grounding being reset over again for another 6 weeks.
My wife isn't as strict as the woman in the OP, she makes sure the kid does her homework, but doesn't 'pull out her hair' if the grades aren't perfect and doesn't go over the work hundreds of times. She was shocked that kids don't have homework in Kindergarten. She does limit her to TV watching of about one hour per week (of course the kid likes to try to sneak in more), we let her play soccer and we signed her up for dance class (which was much harder for the mother to agree to since it costs much more $ than soccer does).
She is allowed to go to the neighbors kid's house, but pretty much only on weekends during the school year (part of that is because by the time school is over there is only one hour or so before it starts getting dark), so during the summer she can see her friends on most days. But my wife tries to ground her for almost everything and the excuses for grounding gets really bad leading up to christmas and birthdays so she can try to take those away from her.
'Western' parenting is too soft (not John Rosemond parenting, but the 'My kid is perfect, and I will let my kid get away with alot of crap' parenting), but the 'Chinese' parenting is too strict. I think the answer is somewhere in between.
onedreamer
Dragon
Not sure if being sad about the OP or just laugh at it.
I know something about parenting and I can tell you that what you said actually means that those parents know exactly what they are doing. Parents who listen to TV talk shows, medics of various specializations, parents who make lists like the one in the OP, who ask God knows whom what to do to grow their children, those parents are parents who don't know what they are doing, not the other way around. After millions of years of evolution, those parents are doing what someone else or worse what a list tells them to do, you think they know what they're doing?
I know something about parenting and I can tell you that what you said actually means that those parents know exactly what they are doing. Parents who listen to TV talk shows, medics of various specializations, parents who make lists like the one in the OP, who ask God knows whom what to do to grow their children, those parents are parents who don't know what they are doing, not the other way around. After millions of years of evolution, those parents are doing what someone else or worse what a list tells them to do, you think they know what they're doing?
