Chinese Parenting vs. Western Parenting
English 101
Prof. Shapiro
Chinese Parenting vs. Western Parenting Everyone who has come to America came for specific reasons: to make a living, to raise a family and, moreover, watch their children do the same. I grew up surrounded by family that only spoke about getting the best education, so that when we grow up we would be someone who carries on the family name, be someone who is renowned, that pronounced that whatever we were to thrive for throughout our lives, to make the best out of it. Just like Asian parents, my parents had certain expectations from my siblings and I as well. As I interviewed my father, I learnt the way he has helped raise us, is quite similar to my grandmothers. Even though they had the qualities of Western parents by being strict yet not destructing our self-image, their philosophy of raising children was similar to Chinese parenting, they stressed for us to achieve academic success. Combination of both has shown me how important persistent parents are. Education was really vital to my parents upon growing up, they were always concerned about our homework, studying, meeting teachers at school and especially extra curricular activities. They had several restrictions, yet they were vigilant; they didn’t bind us from having the liberty of our own, but it helped them steer us in the right pathway. I remember well, as soon as we would arrive home from school we were ordered to do our homework, and study for what was required, and if we fortunately had free time before going to sleep we were allowed to watch our favorite shows before going to bed. If we had a test the following day, we knew that we would have to watch television on the weekend instead. Even if we didn’t do as good as they would want us to on our test; they would still praise us for our effort. The praise was an element of Western parenting, gave essence to our relationship with them, I believe if my parents didn’t assimilate with us as
Prof. Shapiro
Chinese Parenting vs. Western Parenting Everyone who has come to America came for specific reasons: to make a living, to raise a family and, moreover, watch their children do the same. I grew up surrounded by family that only spoke about getting the best education, so that when we grow up we would be someone who carries on the family name, be someone who is renowned, that pronounced that whatever we were to thrive for throughout our lives, to make the best out of it. Just like Asian parents, my parents had certain expectations from my siblings and I as well. As I interviewed my father, I learnt the way he has helped raise us, is quite similar to my grandmothers. Even though they had the qualities of Western parents by being strict yet not destructing our self-image, their philosophy of raising children was similar to Chinese parenting, they stressed for us to achieve academic success. Combination of both has shown me how important persistent parents are. Education was really vital to my parents upon growing up, they were always concerned about our homework, studying, meeting teachers at school and especially extra curricular activities. They had several restrictions, yet they were vigilant; they didn’t bind us from having the liberty of our own, but it helped them steer us in the right pathway. I remember well, as soon as we would arrive home from school we were ordered to do our homework, and study for what was required, and if we fortunately had free time before going to sleep we were allowed to watch our favorite shows before going to bed. If we had a test the following day, we knew that we would have to watch television on the weekend instead. Even if we didn’t do as good as they would want us to on our test; they would still praise us for our effort. The praise was an element of Western parenting, gave essence to our relationship with them, I believe if my parents didn’t assimilate with us as