Professor Spratlin
ENGL 1010 L17
8 November 2012
International Module
Parenting: Strict or Lenient. Which is Better? Before even conceiving a child the parents of this future person are deciding the methods of parenting they are going to go by when they are raising a kid. Well that’s what we think is normal. With “Chinese” parents there is a mindset of the parent that there kid is going to succeed in everything he/she does, and if not they have failed in raising their children like they should. If you have been raised by “Western” parents most of us find that we tag the parenting strategies of “Chinese” parents as mean or taboo. Vice versa, “Chinese” parents believe that their parenting strategies are superior, and that any other way of parenting is obsolete and very unsuccessful. My parents raised me as “Western” parents and from my own experience I can say I have more social freedom and I am not expected to be the best, but the best that I can be. There are many things you can say about both types of parenting that say it is bad, but the positive attributes of each of these parenting methods outweigh the bad by a landslide. For me growing up with more social freedoms, more choices of my throughout my childhood, and the lack of a demanding push from my parents in my education have actually impacted me in a positive way. In Amy Chua’s essay, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”, she lists all of the things she never allowed her children to do.