This originally appeared on The Huffington Post on April 1, 2011. Note that the same day my piece was posted, news broke that Amy Chua's eldest daughter, Sophia, was admitted to the Harvard class of '15 (during the most competitive admissions cycle in Harvard's history, with a 6.2% admit rate); Sophia will be matriculating in Cambridge this fall.
Looking for advice on how to raise a successful daughter? Recent bestsellers offer conflicting advice. In Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Peggy Orenstein trumpets Girl Power over pink princesses if you want a smart, independent woman. But Kay Hymowitz writes in Manning Up that you should poo-poo this New Girl Order -- at least if you want your daughter to be a wife and (working) mother someday. And then there's the now infamous Tiger Mother Amy Chua who painstakingly details how she "Chinese parents" her two daughters to be the best at everything they touch in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother; her girls tend to trounce everyone (girls and boys) while wearing princess-style dresses.
Chua recently spoke at Harvard (otherwise known as mecca for Tiger Moms), where she proclaimed, "I could not in a million years imagine my book to be perceived this way, as preaching Chinese parenting as superior... This is not a parenting book. It is a memoir." Indeed Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother covers Chua's childhood and family life, and describes how her relationship with members of her family changed while raising her over-achieving Chinese-Jewish-American children. These humanizing details are interspersed between the more horrifying anecdotes -- well known, thanks to the excerpt printed in The Wall Street Journal -- about denial of dinners and sleepovers, and threats to burn stuffed animals and give toys away.
As Chua was excoriated in the media, Orenstein's own parenting book-cum-memoir appeared. Cinderella Ate My Daughter is a spirited journey through the princess-industrial complex created by Disney and fed by American Girl, Club Libby Lu, other toy companies, child beauty pageants, and many more. Orenstein, a journalist who specializes in women's and girls' issues, details how this pink culture developed historically and how it impacts girls today at younger ages than ever before--including her own daughter, Daisy.
In many ways Chua and Orenstein's families and concerns are similar. They both have daughters. In fact, they both are raising Asian/Jewish daughters. They both find something wrong with current American parenting techniques, especially when it comes to raising their girls. But Peggy Orenstein is revered and Amy Chua is reviled, and when you read the books you can see why. As unyielding as Chua is (even when conceding defeat), Orenstein is questioning -- a crucial difference between the two books. Orenstein is also humorous. Chua claims she was trying to be a funny writer, but any self-deprecating humor just doesn't come across as genuine, especially when she repeatedly lists the accolades of her various family members. In the end, Orenstein is just more admirably ambivalent, honest, and likeable about mothering a young girl today.
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Saturday, April 2, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Mommy/Daddy, It Hurts
Please note that this was syndicated on BlogHer on April 8, 2010: http://www.blogher.com/mommydaddy-it-hurts. Check it out!
April is National Youth Sports Safety Month, according to the National Youth Sports Safety Foundation (NYSSF). I've been thinking a lot youth sports injuries-- last week I presented some preliminary findings from my research on youth sports injuries and the relative-age effect (which is joint with Rebecca Casciano and Children's Hospital Boston). One of the NYSSF's "Tips for Athletes" is especially relevant: "Some children grow faster than others and some have better coordination earlier than others. Everyone catches up eventually. Be patient."
I've mentioned my interest in age cut-offs here before, but today I want to highlight a different set of findings about how parents deal with youth sports injuries, which are especially timely. Last week Gatorade released a study of "Sports Moms," a group they estimate is about 13 million strong. Based on a poll of 900 mothers of middle- and high-school age athletes, Gatorade reports that these sports moms spend more money on, and time with, their kids than parents whose children don't play sports. To do so they sacrifice their own personal time like sleep, exercise, and leisure.
It's not at all surprising that Gatorade chose to focus on sports moms, as they tend to be more involved in children's afterschool lives. Dads are getting more involved, especially with girls and sports and coaching, but for the most part moms are still the ones who do the "dirty" work of washing uniforms and schlepping to and from practices. I've always thought that the title of this book, by an Australian academic, pretty much sums it up: Mom's Taxi: Sport and Women's Labor.
So it didn't surprise us that moms were much more likely to be with kids when they visited the doctor for a youth sports injuries. What did surprise us is how many dads were present as well. Out of 989 office visits, dads were at the appointment 44.7% of the time.
However, dads are significantly more likely to be at an appointment if it is their son who is injured, irrespective even of a child's age.
(Note that there are more injured girls in our sample-- 54.3% of 2291-- which is higher than expected based on the sex ratio for girls this age born in the state of Massachusetts).
We have several possible explanations for this, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts! Is it that dads are simply more invested in their sons' athletic careers, or that boys play sports that are more likely to interest men (unlike, for the most part, the girls who dance, do gymnastics, or figure skate)? Other thoughts?
April is National Youth Sports Safety Month, according to the National Youth Sports Safety Foundation (NYSSF). I've been thinking a lot youth sports injuries-- last week I presented some preliminary findings from my research on youth sports injuries and the relative-age effect (which is joint with Rebecca Casciano and Children's Hospital Boston). One of the NYSSF's "Tips for Athletes" is especially relevant: "Some children grow faster than others and some have better coordination earlier than others. Everyone catches up eventually. Be patient."
I've mentioned my interest in age cut-offs here before, but today I want to highlight a different set of findings about how parents deal with youth sports injuries, which are especially timely. Last week Gatorade released a study of "Sports Moms," a group they estimate is about 13 million strong. Based on a poll of 900 mothers of middle- and high-school age athletes, Gatorade reports that these sports moms spend more money on, and time with, their kids than parents whose children don't play sports. To do so they sacrifice their own personal time like sleep, exercise, and leisure.
It's not at all surprising that Gatorade chose to focus on sports moms, as they tend to be more involved in children's afterschool lives. Dads are getting more involved, especially with girls and sports and coaching, but for the most part moms are still the ones who do the "dirty" work of washing uniforms and schlepping to and from practices. I've always thought that the title of this book, by an Australian academic, pretty much sums it up: Mom's Taxi: Sport and Women's Labor.
So it didn't surprise us that moms were much more likely to be with kids when they visited the doctor for a youth sports injuries. What did surprise us is how many dads were present as well. Out of 989 office visits, dads were at the appointment 44.7% of the time.
However, dads are significantly more likely to be at an appointment if it is their son who is injured, irrespective even of a child's age.
We have several possible explanations for this, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts! Is it that dads are simply more invested in their sons' athletic careers, or that boys play sports that are more likely to interest men (unlike, for the most part, the girls who dance, do gymnastics, or figure skate)? Other thoughts?
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