Parenting: East versus West

My friend Sally Rippin today sent me this extraordinary article by lawyer and writer Amy Chua, called Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.

This story has attracted more comments (nearing 7,000 at last count!) than any story previously published by the Wall Street Journal, and has set off a fierce debate on so-called Eastern versus Western parenting styles.

It has waded into parenting territory at a time when there are various hot-button debates going on about whether modern kids have too little freedom, too much praise, too little real competition, too much pressure, too little responsibilities and so on, and so on.

Funnily for me, Chua's article is the first thing I've read since returning from a beach holiday (yesterday) where I deliberately focussed on being less controlling and less fearful in how I deal with my kids; to give them more trust, more room to explore their own boundaries and learn from their own mistakes. Holidays are a good time to work on that stuff!

I don't really understand the motivation for the kind of parenting Chua describes. While I sympathise with the need for discipline, and the role parents play in helping their kids to learn the benefits of hard work, her approach seems dangerously extreme to me.

Doubtless her "Eastern model" is a way to create children who have great technical proficiency. But for what? Where is the fun and the joy? And what of the role of creativity and the imagination?

Surely without that, you risk shaping an immature child, confused about their true motivations, who might be able to pay a note-perfect Rachmaninoff but can't invest it with any real emotional sensitivity, let alone create anything original of his or her own.

I'd love to know where you guys sit on this issue... And, while you're at it... on this one too!

The Unspeakable

"I shouldn't have had them." ...It's such a huge thing to admit. And perhaps it was only a fleeting regret. Or perhaps it wasn't...

These were the words spoken by a friend of writer SA Jones, which led her to write a very interesting guest post for the Kill Your Darlings journal website. It raises the "taboo subject" of feeling regret at having children.

If you can snatch yourself a few moments to check it out, it's worth reading on through the comments, where readers have cited some stunning poems on the theme of maternal ambivalence...

Divided Hearts on the radio

Hey there loyal friends

Apologies for the lack of recent blogging. Rest assured, I have not run out of things to say yet... so watch this space.

In the meantime, Clare Bowditch is interviewing me (there's a little role-reversal for you) next Monday at 8.30pm on local ABC Melbourne 774AM.

She's doing the 7-10pm slot every night next week, BTW, so tune in.

We are going to have (yet another) chat about how to juggle family responsibilities with creative urges; the value of passing on creative expression to our children; the social benefits of creativity... That kinda thing.

It's a talkback, so please do call in if you can and tell us your own experiences/ideas on these matters. Be lovely to hear you (kind readers still checking in on me).

Dads and domestic labour

Yesterday the winner of the Most Mentally Sexy Dad comp, which I helped judge, was announced on Radio National’s Life Matters program.

I think it’s great when something started as a bit of a lark among friends finds, quite by accident, that it has tapped in to the cultural zeitgeist — and that is definitely true of this comp.

It has offered a really positive way in to discussing what can otherwise be such a banal, bogged-down issue for couples — i.e. who does what around the house.

Here is a bunch of couples changing the blueprint for what constitutes a contemporary family life; men who are fully up to negotiating with their partners how things are going to run in terms of work, housework and childcare.

In fact, I think the Most Mentally Sexy Dad competition might be one of the more powerful campaigns we’ve seen in calling on men to move beyond the lip service that gets paid to respect and equality towards acting like they mean it. Not for some abstract ideal, but because it is meaningful to the women and children they love, and gives their relationship a better chance of long-lasting passion.

What was so touching about most of the entrants was their basic awareness that to show true love and commitment to their partners meant sharing the load. In fact, they took this for granted.

These men aren’t just “babysitting” the kids or “helping out” around the home, but fully engaging in the realities of keeping the family juggernaut afloat, emotionally and practically, so that everyone has more time for their own interests and for each other.

Hopefully it won’t have to be such a conscious shift for the next generation, and there won’t be a need for such a competition, great as it’s been.

I also have an article on this subject — the division of domestic labour — in the latest issue of Kill Your Darlings.

The editors have ensured me my next copy will arrive in a plain brown paper bag after the previous one gave my son terrible nightmares. The poor darling thought I was reading a manual on how to kill off him and his sister!

It took me days to convince him that he could trust me enough to tell him what his bad dreams were about. Oh dear…

Ms Bowditch and the PM

Among the many great achievements of the women featured in The Divided Heart, the smokin' gun that is Clare Bowditch recently scored an interview with our first female PM.

You can watch an edited version of that conversation here.

She says her approach was to use the most of her "lay-persons status", and try to talk from the heart about all the same things we talk about at our thinking-people dinner parties.

"So yes, I did grill her on most of the big ones, as respectfully as I could (we had about an hour together in total)," she said. "On a lighter note, she touched my Lucky Cricket Ball, and even showed me how to improve my impersonationa of her with the "Karate Chop Talking Technique": see!"

Hope that cricket ball is secretly magic...

And while you are under the spell of our bewitching Ms Bowditch, please consider purchasing her new album "Modern Day Addiction" at your local record store or with two bonus tracks via itunes--that'd be here.

If you want to read a little about the album's design (another collaboration with Kat McLeod), Lucy Feagins has a great interview with Clare on her fabulous blog, The Design Files.

But the album is not all style. In fact it's all about substance!

Feminism and motherhood

The organiser of the Cherchez La Femme IV: Feminism and Motherhood event on next week asked me to suggest some themes for the evening.

This is the little rant I sent her:

OK, feminism and motherhood. I will definitely be able to give the personal account, I suppose, as I am no academic, though I have certainly given the subject a lot of thought.

To me, motherhood seems to be the final frontier for western feminism. It's the point at which it all falls down! (Hence, the conflation of motherhood, perhaps.) Women can be going along very nicely, and then *bang* they become mothers, find themselves alone all day with babies, drowning in domestic chaos, and wonder when they agreed to all this. (That's not to say that we don't all have to deal with the realities of life, or that having babies isn't also lovely, but I do think it is the point at which men's and women's lives can cease to resemble each others' in all sorts of confronting ways.)

All that lip service paid to equality still doesn't seem to translate into the private sphere. Mothers are still the ones taking it all on, keeping their families afloat, emotionally, domestically etc., even though they are also (often equal) financial contributors.

Mothers are under an extraordinary amount of pressure from all sides. Society has not kept up with their expectations and then they are blamed for it--either punished for being a nag, or not a good enough mother, or not a dedicated enough worker... That's the guilty, vulnerable space backlashers step into and exploit--women (usually) who have decided that those old roles and divisions of labour made so much sense after all and wouldn't it be easier if we all just scuttled back to the kitchen. Which no doubt it would be... but at whose expense?

So yes, structural change is necessary. But also how do we go about changing men and women's own hard-wiring/patterns of behaviour? Will structural change send enough of a message to men that they will start putting on that load of washing without being asked?!

What do you reckon? If have other ideas of pressing issues that should should be covered, please let me know.

Thank the Lord it's being held in a pub. I think I'll need that drink!

Feminism in the pub

Cherchez la femme is a French phrase meaning "Look for the woman".

It originally referred to any case where a man behaved badly, out of character, or brought about his own ruination: look for the woman – she will be the cause. He will either be trying to impress her, possess her, or free himself from her clutches.

Don't ya love it when women are blamed for men's behaviour?!

Nowadays, in English usage, the phrase has come to mean "Look for the root cause of the problem".

No doubt both definitions will come into play at these regular "feminism in the pub" sessions in Melbourne...

Cherchez la Femme is a monthly digest of pop culture and current affairs from a feminist perspective. With regular guests and audience participation strongly encouraged, its organisers have created something more dynamic than a lecture, more stimulating than bingo, and more useful than shaking your fist at the sky.

As you know, women are not funny and feminists have no sense of humour, so I’m afraid there will be no comedic element. Take your medicine.

These sessions are on the first Tuesday of every month. The next one is on 3 August with the topic: Feminism and Motherhood.

I will be having a bit of a rant, along with Natasha Ludowyk and Louise Keogh, and anyone else who wants to put in their two bobs worth.

(Mothers are never short on opinions, so should be a feisty evening!! Or you could stay at home occupying yourself in a more demure fashion a la mademoiselle above...)

When: Tuesday, 3 August 2010, 7–9pm

Where: The Fox Hotel, cnr Wellington St & Alexandra Pde, Collingwood

Cost: $5 entry