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On January 12 2011 06:57 Mayfly wrote:How much of IQ is inherited and not is poorly understood. I know a review of 111 studies on identical twins reached the number 86% heritable, i.e. identical twins raised apart are 86% similar in regard to IQ. Adopted unrelated siblings raised together are 0% similar in regard to IQ. Heritability of IQ also rises from childhood into adulthood, which is rather counter-intuitive. If we look at brain mass, amount of gray matter in the frontal lobe, and the shape of the frontal lobe itself, all of which carry what we call the general intelligence level and IQ, they are all highly heritable, and in the case of the shape of the frontal lobe as heritable as fingerprints. All in all, 50% is a LOW estimate of IQ inheritability. And what the non-heritable stuff is we don't know either. Breastfeeding seems to be great, though. Nutrition in general, probably.
You can't account for development during pregnancy with twin studies. Things like smoking or malnourishment during pregnancy would cause a correlation between the twins IQs even though it's an environmental effect not genetic.
Another point is that it doesn't make sense to say IQ is 86% heritable. Or even that 86% is determined before separation. What you can say, is that within the sample 86% of the variation was caused by factors before separation. The key difference is that 86% applies to your sample, and reflects the variation in environmental factors within the sample. The extreme example would be where environmental factors are largely similar after separation. If the separated twins grow up under very similar conditions of course we'd expect them to show little variation in their IQ scores.
To simplify x/(x+y) goes to 1 as y goes to 0 (as long as x isn't exactly 0). So if there is some genetic component it will come to dominate the variation as the environmental effects decrease.
So there might be environmental factors that do matter but don't show up because they don't vary enough within the sample. I've seen suggestions that severe malnourishment during early childhood and certain infectious diseases do affect adversely intelligence. But there probably weren't many of these in the sample to show up in the statistics.
Using the same logic you could imagine that certain forms of parenting, or other environmental factors, could have a positive effect. As long as these are rare enough they wouldn't show up even in large studies or meta-analyses.
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Amy Chua Responds:
(from a Time Magazine interview)
A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies," writes Amy Chua in her provocative new book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. "Well I can tell them because I've done it." With those words she set off a storm of controversy.
Chua's book, which she wrote as a memoir of her conversion from authoritarian Chinese drillmistress to marginally less authoritarian drillmistress has led to people calling heartless and worse. She makes one daughter, Lulu, play piano late into the night until she gets the piece exactly right, with no water or bathroom breaks. She never lets her girls have sleepovers or do drama at school or get less than A on report cards. Result: one daughter gets to play a piano recital at Carnegie Hall. The other, Lulu, rebels, drops violin and takes up tennis. An excerpt under the headline (which Chua did not write) "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior" in the Wall Street Journal led to howls of outrage and accusations of heartlessness and worse from readers. But it's also led to a deeper reflection on the different styles of parenting and whether Western, more child-centered practices are always the best way. Here, Chua gets to make her case.
It's a brave woman in this day and age who writes a parenting memoir. What made you want to do it?
I didn't write this book to tell people how to parent. In fact, I wrote this book in a moment of crisis. I was raised by extremely strict but extremely loving Chinese immigrant parents. To this day I adore them and I feel I owe them everything. I tried to raise my children the same way. My daughter rebelled against this kind of parenting and I felt like my family was falling apart. So the book is about many of the strengths I see in that kind of parenting but it's also about the mistakes. What has provoked the most reaction?
The story I'm getting most flak for her is one I stand by. My daughters find the trouble I'm getting in for it incredibly funny. My kids were maybe seven and four and my husband had forgotten my birthday so at the last minute we went to this mediocre Italian restaurant and he said “O.K., girls you both have a little surprise for mommy.” And my daughter Lulu pulls out a card, but the card was just a piece of paper folded crookedly in half with a big smiley face and it said Happy Birthday Mom. And I looked at it and I gave it back and I said “This isn't good enough. I want something that you put a little bit more time into.” So I rejected her birthday card. People can't believe I rejected this handmade card. But she knew as well as I did that it took her about two seconds to do it. That's the story that's coming off as the most outrageous, which in our family is like a standing joke.
What are the chief differences between the western style of parenting and the Chinese style of parenting?
I think the biggest difference is that I've noticed Western parents seem much more concerned about their children's psyches, their self-esteem, whereas tough immigrant parents assume strength rather than fragility in their children and therefore behave completely differently. I know some of the examples seem very harsh—I've had a lot of emails about that—but I think it goes without saying that love and understanding have to come first, without that it's nothing. At its best I think it's not about achievement, but about trying to help your child be the best they can be and it's usually more than they think. It's saying “I believe in you so much that I know you can be excellent, and I'm going to sacrifice everything and be in the trenches with you and I don't care if you hate me while you're a kid and I'm just not going to let you give up.” That's, I think, a positive message.
What does that kind of parenting look like?
It's much less deferring to the child's wishes. The westerners want to respect their child's individuality and to pursue their passion and to provide positive reinforcement. The Chinese are much more comfortable overriding their children's preferences. I talk about the virtuous circle: most things are not fun until you're good at them and to get good at them, you have to work extremely hard, and kids on their own will not want to work hard at something. My husband adores his parents but he wishes someone had forced him to learn a musical instrument.
Another thing is total respect for parents. I was raised never talking back to my parents. I once won a second prize in a history concert. My parents came to the ceremony. Somebody else had won the prize for best all-around student. Afterwards my father said to me, “Never, ever disgrace me like that again.” When I tell my western friends they are aghast. But I adore my father. It didn't knock my self-esteem at all. To this day my father is my greatest source of strength. Words said in one cultural context may not mean the same thing as words said in another cultural context. Having said that, there are a lot of moments I'm not proud of. This book is making fun of myself. One of the things that working mothers wanted to know, was how on earth did you have the time to do all that with your kids while having such a successful career?
I read my own book and I'm exhausted. I do think it's very difficult. But what I'm calling tough immigrant parenting is not the same as being a helicopter mom. As I understand it that term means the parent is hovering over the child and talking to teachers and principals. When I was little, my father used to say that if something doesn't seem fair, you prove yourself by working twice as hard and being twice as good. Now I think if a kid in school does badly on a test you rush into the school, you question the teacher and the curriculum. I think the kids are strong to be able to hear “Start with yourself, maybe you didn't work hard enough.”
Do you think one of the reasons the reaction has been huge, is that parents fear they're maybe doing something wrong?
I think it's partly the suggestion, maybe, the Chinese way is better. I really just don't believe that. I think there's many ways of being a good parent. I find it very striking that we're calling the values of hard work and be the best you can be and stick with it— that we're calling those Chinese values because I always thought of those as American values. Parenting is such a personal topic. Everyone is reacting against or in favor of the way they were parented or defending the way they're parenting now. It's so emotional. I completely understand it. Is this kind of parenting an immigrant thing or a Western/Eastern thing? I think the Asian approach emphasizes hard work. But you cannot believe how many emails I've had from people whose parents emigrated from Sierra Leone and Nigeria and Ghana and Jamaica and Haiti, who say “I was raised exactly like this. I'd never be the person I was without my mom.” My kids grew up more privileged than I did. I tried to recreate the immigrant experience. I didn't have the same authenticity. My parents never spent a penny on themselves, so when they said 99% is not good enough, I never questioned it. My kids do.
How have your children felt about all the controversy?
They've been really really supportive. The thing that hurts me most is this idea that if you practice this strict parenting you're going to get robots. My children are not robots. They have the biggest personalities. They're always putting me in my place.
What did your parents think?
They were cautious, but completely supportive. We're very close. But I want to spare them any pain, so I hope they don't know how to use the internet.
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/11/chinese-vs-western-mothers-q-a-with-amy-chua/#ixzz1Aps01yd5
So, looks like either she's walking it all back big time, or the WSJ did a fucking hack-job on her book and completely misunderstood. She didn't write the article title 'Chinese mothers are superiour', she doesn't believe Chinese parenting is superiour, and in fact half the point of the book is to make fun of herself. Many of the horrible stories she told were not something she's proud of. She said that she wrote the book more as an attempt at self-analyses, to see where she was going wrong, to question her own assumptions about parenting, and that the conclusion she draws in the end is that all that matters is instilling your kids with self-responsibility and good work ethic. And that she considers those American values moreso than Chinese values.
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On January 11 2011 12:09 USApwn wrote: I was the valedictorian for my University in 2009 with a perfect 4.0 GPA. I was also a high school drop out. Success?
My parents allowed me to explore the world and in doing so allowed me to better understand myself and my surroundings. I thank them that they did not raise me in such a brutal manner.
Different cultures go through different means to accomplish a common end; to improve. Sometimes those means focus too much on one area, which is what I think this particular Asian family fell victim to. The children have a lot of catching up to do in terms of social milestones that most of us take for granted.
How about you tell us the circumstances of why you dropped out and what university you went to? You assume much
The children have a lot of catching up to do in terms of social milestones that most of us take for granted. I'm willing to bet that their entire family is more "successful" than your families counterparts.
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Interesting that it seems this excerpt is some kind of misrepresentation of her book, according to what she is saying. Fundamental misunderstanding, or simple backpedaling?
I was raised by extremely strict but extremely loving Chinese immigrant parents. To this day I adore them and I feel I owe them everything. I tried to raise my children the same way. My daughter rebelled against this kind of parenting and I felt like my family was falling apart. Well, I can't see why.
My husband adores his parents but he wishes someone had forced him to learn a musical instrument. I think he'd reconsider that if he had an actual Chinese parent like this woman.
But you cannot believe how many emails I've had from people whose parents emigrated from Sierra Leone and Nigeria and Ghana and Jamaica and Haiti, who say “I was raised exactly like this. I'd never be the person I was without my mom.” And here I must protest. Would she feel the same way if she had gotten a ton of emails from Chinese students with severe internet addiction, depression, drug problems, hypersexuality, suicidal thoughts, grown adults who resent their parents, who never talk to them ever, high school dropouts, college failures, and et cetera, also with the same message "I'd never be the person I was without my mom"?
Herein lies the major fault with this kind of thinking. If you survive this type of parenting without some kind of major neurosis of course you're going to believe it was "successful". Despite all the hardships you endured that may or may not have even been necessary in the first place in teaching you the valid life lessons you hold dear and hold your parents responsible for. In fact, I believe there's a term for this kind of thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
Those that were raised this way and came out alright are of course inclined to think it was okay, especially if they're comparing themselves to people on the opposite end of the spectrum - those who were never parented at all and spent all their time playing video games or whatever. And those who raised their children this way and had them come out alright are of course inclined to think that's therefore an acceptable version of parenting. Because we never hear about the spectacular failures, or else attribute them to other causes. If two mothers raise their kids in an identical fashion and one child becomes a Yale Law Professor and the other child strangles her mother to death, we're going to assume the parenting was successful and that the second kid was just crazy. This is called selection bias.
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I'm full chinese and my parents aren't even half as strict @_@
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@reborn agree, she exaggerated wayyy too much in the article.
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@Hautamaki
Regarding that christmas card incident, totally agree. Got a pen pal once in middle school in Germany. Wrote a few letters to her in English until my mom found one of the letters and said I was not allowed to write any more letters to her unless I wrote to her in German. So I decided not to write any more letters to her. She was hot though, which sucked.
Also, her attitude toward her kids is almost like the attitude of an associate toward an analyst at a large Wall Street bank.
"This? This card shows no fucking effort whatsoever! You call this effective communication? Why aren't all the fonts aligned? What the fuck is this nonsense! I don't care that it's a gift. I want a re-done, perfect version of this on my desk at 7 AM tomorrow morning. Oh, and show some effort. It'll get you ahead in life."
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On January 09 2011 08:44 Gatsbi wrote: honestly i dont care how successful it makes them. thats on par with slavery.. its just too bad the kids wont know any better because thats how they're raised.
edit: once those kids are out of their parents grasp, they go harder into drugs/alcohol/whatever they werent allowed to do than anyone. Explains why 70+% of people in clubs here in SoCal are asian lol.
I get the feeling that people are missing the point of what the mother in that article is trying to say. Yes, she seems very arrogant and self-loathing in a lot of it, but at the same time you have to remember what is fun to some people isn't fun to others. Maybe here it is considered fun to enjoy life and play video games. When I was studying in Japan (yea.. not China but its Confucian), I noticed that the college culture in Tokyo is extremely different that here in the US. It was like I was on a different planet. After class, people just did after school programs like clubs (music, art, sports, martial arts, etc..) until around 8pm. So basically, I would be busy at school since I got up at 7:30am and until i got home around 8:30 pm. This was a normal school day for me in Japan as opposed to what I do here. I have one or two classes and then I sleep the rest of the day--of course by choice, but the college culture also encourages this more here. The mom in this article seems like she is trying to cut a lot of pollution out of the life of her kids by keeping their focus in the right direction--education--which doesn't mean that she is neglecting them a life of fun. It simply means that fun is defined differently in her kids life.
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Seems like common sense to me, or would be if us westerners didn't watch TV all day and live in imagination land our whole lives.
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On January 16 2011 12:01 Lefnui wrote:Response: WSJ Article
great response, very well written and quite funny in the way it duplicates the other articles ridiculous fallacies and flaws and does the same thing to illustrate a point, gotta say i love it
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Most people claim chinese/asian kids do well in school, but become a sociopath and unsuccessful later in life. This is BS.
A much greater percentage of these kids went on to get professional degrees than your so called well adapted normal American children.
The Chinese style brings out the greatest in kids. Americans overindulge their children.
If I were to go back in time, I wish to be pushed a lot harder.
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If this is true my parents are fucking awesome parents.
So be it.
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I am 15, and a sophomore in high school, and I have a lot to say about this
First off, from a very early age, ~4 or so, I was groomed to go to the ivy league by my parents. Continuously told how brilliant I was and how I would go to a great college and have a great life. I learned to read before kindergarten, and felt so superior to all of the other children. I bragged about reading a whole Harry Potter novel in first grade, and always made straight A+'s. And from my parents I had learned that being smart was the most important thing. I didn't have many friends in elementary school. Around 4th grade, I'm still doing great, straight A's, and I have no friends. I have alienated essentially everyone, for being not smart enough or for being competition if they were smart. Anger Issues run on my dad's side of the family, (probably from parenting, not genetics, my dad's dad was alcoholic and his mother is crazy), and I had severe anger issues in elementary school. I once threw a desk at a teacher, screamed often, and once left the room in a fit of tears because I didn't agree with a score i got on a test, and when the teachers were trying to calm me down, I kind of flipped. That got me a solid weekly spot with the school counselor. Which didn't help. At all. I did everything he asked me to do to get out, because I believed that Harvard kids don't go to therapy. I was pretty miserable. Going into middle school, I tried to re-invent myself. I had figured that something was missing, and I was right in assuming that it was friends. So I made friends (kind of) with the other kids who had been raised in similar ways to me. All of us wished our parents would be less strict. I actually did badly in school in 7th grade just to infuriate my parents, which I did. I despised them/ But now it turns around. My parents had just been doing with me what they had done (which had always worked) with my older sister, and they noticed it was making me miserable, so pretty much going into 8th grade, they backed off. I began to do just as well as I had been doing in school before. I made friends with people who had similar interests as me, and I have changed my goals from getting into a great college to being a great person. I tolerate and am friendly to everyone, regardless of intelligence or anything else, as long as they are not just a douchebag. I only take the AP classes I want to take. I study when I feel I need to. And I feel like I have a great grip on my own life. I don't argue for those extra 2 points on the test anymore, because an A is an A and I don't feel like I'm a failure if my grade isn't as good as it could be. I care only about whether or not I approve of myself, not what anyone else thinks. I have not had any discipline or attitude problems since 7th grade, and though my social skills are still not that great (seeing as I am kind of starting from behind), I am happy, and still doing fine in school. And the only parenting my parents have done is give me advice. Meaningful advice that i can choose to follow if I wish to. So my life has turned around because my parents switched to this "western" style of parenting. Although I am not saying the eastern doesn't work for some people, my older sister somehow took all of this. And now I do not despise my parents, I hold them in very high regard.
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Want to share a story with y'all. My parents are not as strict as this crazy lady, but you know that Asian stereotype joke where the parents have crazy high expectations? That's actually pretty realistic. There's that Asian father meme with things like "You program in C++? Why no A++?" Clearly that's a joke. And there's that short family guy clip: "You doctor yet?" "No, Dad, I'm twelve." "Talk to me when you doctor."
Well I just had this conversation with my mom (context: I am a freshman in college, and it's pretty hard to get internships with business around the city because they mostly look at sophomores and juniors): "Hey, mom, I found some internships for the summer. This one company has an applied science department that I'm particularly interested in." "Are they finance?" "... no." "Try to get finance."
Yeah, I wtf'd.
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I don't think she's backpedeling.
The subtitle of the book is:
This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.
She also did state that she didn't pick the title for the WSJ article.
Without actually reading the book, I don't feel qualified to say what I think she actually meant to say, but I think unless you have actually read the book, you might want to try and keep an open mind.
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On January 17 2011 16:50 random user wrote: I don't think she's backpedeling.
The subtitle of the book is:
This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.
She also did state that she didn't pick the title for the WSJ article.
Without actually reading the book, I don't feel qualified to say what I think she actually meant to say, but I think unless you have actually read the book, you might want to try and keep an open mind. That's nonsense. "What she actually meant to say"? How about reading the words she wrote? There's no reason to assume that she misspoke or misrepresented her own views. She wrote an entire article on the subject, how is that not enough to judge?
It's funny, conservative commentators use that line a lot too. "Please though, keep an open mind and read my book before making any judgement". Well how beneficial it is to the author that every person must buy their book.
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She also wrote a whole book on the subject, which is probably a far more complete representation of her thoughts on the matter than the article.
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