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Chinese parents:
"Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
• attend a sleepover
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin
...By the time Sophia was three, she was reading Sartre, doing simple set theory and could write one hundred Chinese characters… In 1997, when she was three, Sophia got her first piano lesson."
(From The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua.)
British parents:
"He [Arthur Waugh, father of Evelyn] suffered from asthma and was consequently no good at sport. [Alexander Waugh's] solution to his elder son's faiblesses was to enroll him on a toughen-you-up induction course based on the old-fashioned wisdom: ''Tis fear as makes 'em brave.'' To this end he forced his son to cling for his life to farm gates as he swung them violently back and forth, shouting ``Hold on, m'boy.'' He perched him on high branches, deserting him there for hours on end, and then would creep up behind him, blasting off both barrels of his gun just inches from his ear.
Dog-whipping and sudden explosions by his earhole had done nothing to sharpen his enthusiasm for the sport, so the Brute tried another ploy to arouse his interest. Every night for a week he dragged Arthur out of bed and pushed him into the damp gloom of a downstairs cupboard where, shivering in his pyjamas and doubtless crying like a baby, he was ordered to kiss his father's gun-case."
(From Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family, by Alexander Waugh.)
I would argue that the British method is superior at producing twitching, psychologically-maladjusted adults, while Chinese-style parenting is better at creating concert-level pianists with suicidal tendencies, reduced to playing in shopping malls and steak-houses due to the supply/demand mismatch.
It goes without saying that either approach is better than letting the young swine play Facebook and listen to "skiffle singers."
