Fluff....
Haven’t done Fluff in a VERY LONG WHILE.
First the Readers.
Sint Marteens…..I assume this is an island, but all the
same, thx for showing up. You were
probably on holiday while checking me out, which is a bit
scary/weird/abnormal….but you give me another name to add to my list all the
same.
Burma…..Portugal….welcome back! Burma….it’s been awhile!
Good to see old friends….Finland, Hungary and Saudi
Arabia(yep).
Don’t know about you, but it always tickles me when I see
the Arabs in a club. Trust me…..The
Arab Men LOVE China.
Russia is probably one of the larger visitors to my blog,
and I’ve seen an uptick from my readers there.
(Is it you guys that scared off Ukraine?)
Still waiting on North Korea to make an appearance….
Newsblur and Feedly
Technology has surpassed me.
I’m getting quite a few hits from these sites, and I’ve only now taken
the time to check these sites out.
Glad to see my blog is listed.
Newsblur doesn’t seem as user friendly as Feedly, however. Feedly is rather straight forward. Newsblur made me think. And like a good movie, I don’t wish to
“think”. I’d rather just be able to
instinctively navigate around. One’s
instincts are usually a bit faster than one’s Brain. Thus for me, Feedly seems a bit more
“instinct friendly”.
No Cats for You!
Frequent readers of the Blog will know that I’ve in the past
spoken of Tiger Mom, and yes, I’ve even dared to give a few examples of
such. You will remember one in
particular was very methodical and coy(so she thought ) in her approach. Checking off all the boxes one needs for her
child to get into a good college, such as “volunteering and community service”,
etc. For her it was basically Harvard
or bust. Well, it was a big fat
bust.
Harvard has a lot of experience now with Tiger Mom, and I
guess they have wised up to all the tricks. Still, Tiger Mom is just playing
the game by the rules the Ivy Leagues themselves have encouraged. One day though, something big will happen,
and the Ivy Leagues will (gasp!) perhaps even Ban the use of the SAT for admissions
purposes. With no solid metric to fall
upon for comparison, methinks Asian admittance will probably take a short term
drop. At least until the Tiger
Moms(never to be underestimated!) figure out yet again how to game the system.
Now it’s time to talk about Tiger Mom and pets.
You will remember they had caught a rabbit previous summer,
and starved it to death in a cage, in the backyard, and then cooked it. (I’m pretty sure this will be a story her
daughter never tells her friends at school)
Well, a short while back, Tiger Mom went to the pet
store. She wanted to adopt a cat. Nowadays pet stores actually give interviews,
before allowing a person to adopt a pet.
(I guess it makes sense.)
Well,
the first question the shop assistant asked Tiger Mom was
“Why would you like to adopt a cat?” (I’m sure the assistant was smiling when she
asked this.)
Naïve, Smiling
Response:
“I want to keep the cat outside to scare away the
squirrels.”
Adoption request denied.
Tiger Mom in 30 seconds practically eliminated any chance of
any Chinese adopting anything from that Pet Store for the next 6 months.
Food Assimilation
A rare comment. I put
up a post a few years ago on the lack of Chinese I see in local ordinary
establishments. Chinese would rather eat
at home, with their home cooked meal, or invite over several friends for
potluck. It can be fun. Yet when we do go out to a local place,
either a pizza joint(a damn good one at that!), or our local Italian eatery, we
see lots of things. Lots of red
wine. A guy singing Sinatra in the
corner. Plenty of family chatter. And not one Chinese. This past week it was my wife that pointed it
out to me. I looked around and she was
right. First generation Chinese simply
have no interest assimilating within their new countries. It makes it harder for their children to do
same.
My Daughters Friday
Night Schedule
Back from school by 4:30.
Off to evening high school prep class.
Back at 7pm. Practice for the following day’s piano class. Again.
And again. And again. Chinese homework exercises. Evening is finished at 9:30. Ok, time for a movie. 30 minutes.
Bedtime.
And this is Friday.
When I “try” and put me foot down, my own Tigerwife just
blurts out the usual line in self defense:
“You are the one who wants to watch a movie!”
Her assumption of course is that Friday Night has nothing to
do with leisure for children. The
inference she makes about me is that I’m selfish for wanting the kids to watch
a movie on Friday Night. (actually I
usually just read online, or exercise) It
is a well worn tactic of my inhouse Tigermom.
Any suggestion I have for the kids to do something is only because I
want to do it.
“Shall we go to the park?’
“Only you want to
go to the park.”
Cutting the kids some slack on a Friday Night is a ticket to
the local Community College rather than an Ivy League program. And I’m a bad father for daring suggest
such a thing.
Actually, it’s not about the type of Dad I am. Rather, it’s about Tigermom losing face on
Saturday during piano practice. And if
her kids cry until 10pm the night before while on the piano so be it. Kids got to get it right. Tigermom needs to maintain that Face. The Tears, the Screaming, it’s all worth
it.
More again on Tigermom….
Results, results, results.
I can see this freight train coming a mile away. When my kids grow up they will not force
their kids to play music. They will be
somewhat easier on their own kids. And
their mom will be unhappy with them.
She’ll wonder why her grandkids are “wasting” their talents. The kids will know full well why that
is: their own memories of playing music
will preclude them from forcing their children to do the same.
Tigermom hasn’t figured out yet that not all kids can be
talked to the same way, preached to the same way, yelled or criticized the same
way. Each child is different. Yes, the mom and dad are the same.
The simplicity of Tigermom’s approach, upon
reflection, is rather astounding. It is
a uniform approach towards all children.
There are no adjustments made for the “individual” within each
child. Thus the tension, and the
screaming. Tigermom does not
“encourage” as much as “cajole” or simply utter “you can do better”. And this breeds resentment of course.
A Tigermom screaming at her kids is nothing but screaming
without purpose. It’s just noise as a
tactic to scare the child into submission.
There is neither tact nor sophistication to the method.
“Play it again! You
missed the crescendo!”
And when “finished”(you know she’s not), Tigermom will ask:
“Do you think you played well?”
Child of Tigermom knows by now the answer is “No”. An answer of “Yes” will only create another
nonstop 3 minute diatribe from Tigermom:
Why can (insert any name of any Chinese kid here. Hell, make one up. Just don’t forget it has to be someone from
the neighborhood. Or for creativity
sake, just create a Chinese family from thin air.)
“Why can….Vicki Lu play this piece?”
“Her mother doesn’t let her watch a movie.”
“Aren’t you embarrassed you’ve played this piece so long and
still cannot memorize it?”
Ahh….the FACE CARD. We
simply call it by other names in the West.
Shame, Embarrassed, “Mad at yourself”, etc.
(Asian kids will handle performance reviews in adulthood
nicely. They’ve been having them since
they were children.)
When I was a younger man and came across Asian Americans in
my hometown they were all modest, and quiet.
Not a one of them possessed even an iota of self confidence. And they were of course all A Students. I often thought they were being falsely
modest, which is worse than being cocky.
So where was the swagger?
Simple, Tigermom nipped it in the bud.
Ripped it out like a weed as soon as it broke the surface. Not a
single one of them thought they were smart.
Or even put their efforts in context.
Once it actually dawned on me these cook classmates of mine actually “believed”
they were not smart, I felt sorry for them.
There is no journey with Tigermom, only the result.
Tigermom misses the point. The Journey is as important as the
Endgame. It adds context to the end
result. There is no reflection with Tigermom. No nuance.
It’s either black or white. You succeed
or you fail. You humiliate your mother,
or you do not. Her friends think she is
a good parent, or they do not.
Let’s drag the obvious out into the sunlight:
If Chinese are so damn smart and so damn talented, why is
the country such a basket case? Or is
that even the point? I may or may not
write about that sometime. It’s a well
worn topic, though.
Husband of Tigermom
It’s all about the moods.
To maintain harmony in a household with a Tigermom, Dad must do two
things:
One is give complete and utter control to the raising of the
children to her, no questions asked. In effect,
surrender. Especially if your child is a
daughter.
Believe it or not, this is what almost all Chinese Men
do. They are happy to do so. While they may be great delegators I find
many of them to be emotionally absent.
The house is quieter, no doubt.
But reneging on a basic duty, which you as the Dad have a right to
express only encourages and emboldens Tigermom. Especially if the kids are all girls.
The other thing the Husband to a Tigermom must do is
completely and with full confidence be able to both read and anticipate the MOOD
of your Tigerwife/Mom. This is the essence of harmony within the
household. I see my job as maintaining
the harmony within the household. It my
chief task to bring as much “balance” as possible to the life of the
children. Essential to this is
continuously teaching and telling my children how to respond to their mother,
when she is in full “Tigermom” mode.
In essence I tell them not to say anything. Silence is the best defense. It allows the dark clouds to pass. Any resistance will simply allow the dark
clouds to linger.
“Bite your damn tongue, and this too shall pass.”
Husband of Tigermom must contain
Tigermom.
The goal of Husband of Tigermom is for his children to grow
up normal. Beyond the screams and angst. This means with confidence. A sense
of worth. Without fear. My children cannot grow up thinking they are
dumb, or not good enough, compared to other people on this planet. Above all, the children must develop a high
EQ. I have found when a Westerner
marries a Tigermom, one of the children will without question resent her or her
Chinese culture. The discipline of a
Tigermom inadvertently instills a resentment in everything Chinese, from the
child’s perspective. This is very
difficult to change. The role of
Husband of Tigermom is therefore to instill a positive appreciation of both
cultures within your children.
One of my children has a personality more akin to Janis
Joplin than that of any classical Chinese pianist. And she does not look Chinese. Tigermom risks incurring within her children a
“shame” of being Chinese. Further, her grandmother has already caught on
to this “resentment”. The perception
will not change. Any argument with
mother in law always begins with the all knowing accusation,
“I know you are embarrassed to be Chinese”!
I ask, how can a child caught between two cultures
cope? Don’t know ‘bout you, but this is
a bit too much drama for a child still taking a school bus to endure. And this is where Husband of Tigermom comes
in. For one’s child to grow up normal,
without emotional guilt, Dad must be constantly aware of what is going in the
household. Tigermom cannot be allowed to
run amok. For Tigermom will imprint not
only her knowledge of algebra upon the child, but her emotional imprint as well. Letting Tigermom alone to her devices is a
recipe for raising in my view a fucked up kid.
Kids growup with neither compassion nor empathy. And if Husband of Tigermom steps aside, it’s
your fault, too.
I feel sorry for your kids. Your wife sounds like a monster. However, I knew many Caucasian mothers growing up in a pretty wealthy area of the East Coast who acted the same way. It is not exclusively Chinese.
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