Like many of you, I keep in touch with my family and friends using Facebook. Malaysia is a fairly “with it” country when it comes to technology (it is the only space the government has promised never to censor as part of its commitment to foreign investors and so far, it’s keeping its word) and as a result, Malaysians are pretty tech savvy.
This has its ups and downs. Before Facebook and blogs, the only way I could catch up with my friends was through sporadic mass-emails and the odd Chinese New Year exodus back to Ipoh, the little city where we all grew up. In the early 90s, the conversations would all be about the best clubs, the best boys, the best jobs. When we entered the new millennium, we started talking about the best (baby) cribs, the best (nursing) bras, the best job (which is, of course – snort – to stay at home with the kids). And then we’d go back to our lives, satisfied that we’ve managed to outdo each other in all the categories and all the sub-categories – or at least established that we’re too good for all that nonsense – for another year.
Not so lucky anymore.
You see, with Facebook and the blogosphere, the “updates” have become minute by minute. And while friendly competition among SAHMs is a universal phenomenon, I am fairly certain that “kiasuism” (click the link) only afflicts Malaysians and Singaporeans.
A friend of mine, for example, blogs about the math and Mandarin homework her – wait for it – three-year old gets from her preschool. Another, in Singapore, has her four-year old doing daily exercises of addition and subtraction in the hundreds. Another, a Malaysian living here in Seattle, is sending her five-year old to those Sylvan thingies.
Me? Because I’m so torn between being a true-blue Malaysian kiasu mother who wants to make sure her kids are up to speed with OTHER Malaysian kids, AND an increasingly Americanized one, believing that they will all learn to spell and count in good time, I am doing NOTHING. Which is very in keeping with my slacker mom philosophy.
Growing up, I remember the seemingly endless hours of scolding and caning and kneeling in front of my father reciting the times table. Then I turned 14, and my mother declared, “You’re too old to be caned anymore. You need to decide for yourself if you want to be useful or useless.” With that, I became an A student because I
1) didn’t want my mother to change her mind about the caning (Malaysian kids are subjected to corporal punishment until they leave home at 30 – kidding!).
2) wanted to prove that I could do it on my own
To a 14-year old, it must’ve been both the most liberating – and scariest – experience of my life.
Reading about the lengths my friends go through to tutor their kids at home to ensure they keep up with other Malaysian kids, wherever they may be, has made me think a lot about my children’s future here in America. While I want to be sure my kids are mentally ready for whatever academia that is thrown at them, I also do not know for sure where their true potential lies. I also do not know how much structure and DISCIPLINE I am to introduce to them at this tender age without destroying their interest in learning.
How do you find out these things (without reading entire books – told you I’m a slacker)?
Perhaps it all comes down to gut. I have a feeling my kids are smart and I know they have good genes and if I am observant and diligent enough (gulp), I will find out just how much potential they really have, and how I can gently urge them to go the distance with a little discipline.
Or perhaps I should just stop reading my friends’ blogs or hanging around Facebook so much!
Read more of Jennifer Tais writing atThe I’mPerfect Mom. If you have questions, anecdotes, or topics for Tea Leaf Journals, email jenn[at]theimperfectmom[dot]com.
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I’m sorry to hear how harsh you were treated growing up. It would be hard to love learning under those conditions.
We’ve allowed our children to be responsible for their own learning. They are now in 7th and 11th grades; both take great pride in their school work.
If parents apply too much pressure on academic achievement, children can get the message that they are only valued if they are a top performer. We want our kids to know we love them for who they are not for how well they do in school.
Allow me share with you something else:
My friends – many of whom were subjected to similar, if not worse, parental pressures, are now parents or in their 30s, and are happy, successful individuals who are not in the least depressed or oppressed or any of those things you’d expect to result from such a “stressful” childhood. We all seem to have “survived” the ordeal, so apparently, “tough love” works in our society.
I think it takes a few things for this approach to work. Firstly, you will need the village. Tough love, for example, will not work here in America because we just don’t have the “ecosystem” for it, mainly because we don’t condone such “techniques”. As a nation, we consider such punitive measures archaic and cruel and we have the studies to prove them.
However, in social systems such as Malaysia, cultures that have very deeply set traditions that have survived colonization and modernization and even science, certain customs and beliefs remain strong, such as respect for our elders and in turn, the belief that whatever our parents say is law, and that at the end of the day, they only want the best for us, whatever the means may be. Believe it or not, even as children, this is entrenched in our value systems.
The other tradition Malaysians hold dearly, especially the Chinese, is the value of hard work. The fable of the hare and tortoise is a popular one here, because all things being equal (smarts, build, money), the person who is hungrier, works harder, who is more willing to suffer, will always go further faster. Hence the famous (or infamous) Asian work ethic.
Combined, these traditions create a society where obedience will, more often than not, yield a “better” life. Even as I felt the pain for getting my times table wrong, my dad would always sit my sis or me down after the ordeal, to remind us why he was tough. Firstly, time is of essence, he would say. We should never squander it. Secondly, suffer today, enjoy tomorrow – that is my mother’s teaching. We may feel the pain today because we got our tables wrong, but we will reap the rewards of being better prepared tomorrow.
As I always remind my husband today, closure is crucial. The message does not end at the scolding or yelling or time-out. It must end at the hug and comforting and explaining that the punishment is not something we enjoy meting out, and there is a long-term purpose behind every harsh word uttered (most of the time, it’s because “you guys don’t seem to hear me when I speak nicely!” LOL).
All this said, the worst of it was not the beatings and the scoldings – it was the comparing between my sister and me, my friends etc. This, I felt, was unnecessary. The punishment I could endure. It was the “kiasuism”, the need to keep us at par, if not ahead, of all their friends’ kids, was the most unfair I felt.
But isn’t this what we do today in America as well?
Think it’s hard being a parent? Try being a parent raising children in a foreign land with an entirely different culture
Wow, Jenn, both your post and your comments have me thinking…
You have some really good points in your comment– about the pay now enjoy later, and also the reconciling with the child after the punishment. It is so critical– no matter what the discipline– to outpour the love on the child right afterwards.
Also– I think it’s hard to find a balance between pushing our children far enough, and relaxing enough to not stress them out. I don’t know many in this country who have the right balance. Either we push too hard and compare or we take too much of a “whatever” approach. Where is the happy medium? Does it exist?
This has certainly been a thought-provoking post and comments. I have a very hard time understanding parents who cane children for what could be a simple need for help with academics , and I’m completely against humilation as a learning tool.
I also think a culture where the parents’ word is law, followed by beatings could lead to a nation of sheep, but what do I know, I am not an international studies expert.
I guess I will take my slacker American ways and “just” look for the best edcuation I can give my kids within my means, help them when they need it and encourage them when they run into a problem. There will never be a cane, a belt or humiliation used in my home for anything.
I’ve never really believed the “I was beaten and I turned out all right” old saw. While it might not have turned one into a criminal, certainly a person can become a high-achieving, productive member of society without violence. Memories of that abuse isn’t likely to be good-why make it so that childhood memories are tainted by pain and humiliation?
Shrug-I am usually a live and let live person. This type of childrearing is something I’m prepared to take a stand against.
Hehe Agi, I know. I think had I grown up here, I wouldn’t even dream that caning was something parents did everyday in other parts of the world. Heck I’ve only lived here two years and I’ve now lost my will to rule over my children with an iron fist and inflict pain in the name of discipline
.
Seriously, I do believe in the value of pain and suffering. It is an essential life lesson. We cannot paint the world as perfect and painless for our kids, create a bubble so to say, and then hope that they never find out the truth (while we’re still alive). It is one thing to pretend tooth fairies and princesses and Santa exist to give our kids a little magic in their lives. It is quite another to pretend that unfairness and bad people and pain are not real. Whether as an observation or something we experience ourselves, we all need to acknowledge that pain and unfair situations exist to be able to deal with them later in life, without drugs or other unhealthy outlets.
Wouldn’t you say a six-year old in Cambodia, who had to wake up each morning at 5am to toil the rice fields to help his family make ends meet, or take Frank McCourt of Angela’s Ashes fame, or Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn who was raised by a single mother in Stalin’s Russia, are better equipped to handle, say, an abusive spouse or loneliness or failure? THey’d simply go, “Pffft. So what? There are worse things in life” because they had experienced those worse things first hand, and become stronger.
Again, the difference here is reconciliation and attention. I am sure there are many, who cane and go, leaving their kids to cry and wonder what it is they’ve done that is so wrong. That is simply not right, I dare say, even as wrong as parents who don’t cane but also leave questionable behavior unaddressed.
Let me share with you a true story: I coach my six-year old to handle difficult social situations in school using some very popular methods, such as the three-step “Say stop. If they don’t stop, walk away. If they follow you, look for a grown-up”. One day, she told me a boy was giving her a hard time at recess. She’d followed all of the steps but the grown-up that was there was on the phone. In the end, she endured a few minutes of being teased and taunted while she avoided them and had to sacrifice her favorite toy on the playground, the monkey bars.
It was clearly a painful experience for her (it took me a few days to pry it out of her) for she is a very determined child who always speaks her mind LOUDLY. She was angry and her pride was hurt more than anything else I realised, and I’ve always wondered since then if I have somehow taken away from her an outlet to vent, that perhaps those three steps have fallen short, and because I’ve taught her always to use words and not her hands (to hit), that she has internalized all that anger at being treated so unfairly. In the end, I had to tell her that sometimes, these things happen and that what she did was very brave but I couldn’t promise that it would not happen again. I also told her that it was okay to interrupt the grown up the next time because it was an emergency!
And they say rocket science is hard?
as a teacher i feel that one of the most important thing parents (and any other adults in a child’s life) can do is provide a good example. if you want your children to be healthy, self-motivated, responsible, etc. then try to be healthy, self-motivated and responsible in front of them. talk with them about how and why you do the things you do.
secondly, do your best to nurture the qualities that you hope they have as adults. give them responsibility. take them places where learning is enjoyable. give them chances to make hard choices.
good luck!