I didn’t say that “all whites” were permissive parents. I said “average”. “Average” does not mean the same as “all”.

To clarify: the definition of average means the result obtained by adding several quantities together and then dividing this total by the number of quantities; the mean. And “mean” (or “average”) is the most popular and well known measure of central tendency. In this case, “average” means the largest single measurable group of parents from more than one study from more than one source over a long period of time measured in years/decades.

For example, I’m white, and I have never practiced a permissive style of parenting. In fact, I’m sure that critics of tiger parenting would say I was a tiger parent once they examined my parenting methods.

For another example, all we have to do is look at the number of reviews of Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” to discover that 39% of the reviews rated her book with 1, 2 or 3 star reviews and most of those reviews criticized her parenting method—sometimes viciously. This number is close to the 40% that numerous studies say represent the percentage of permissive parents in North America that raise narcissistic children. Yet 79.96% of the population is White.

http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Hymn-Tiger-Mother-Chua/product-reviews/0143120581/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

As for this post being “racist”, I don’t think so – the results of many studies on this topic do not support popular White political correctness when it comes to parenting. When I say “political correctness” as it relates to parenting, I’m talking about the very popular self-esteem movement that is mostly found among White parents.

The average White parent inflates the self-esteem of his or her child, but there are three types of self esteem:

1. High self-esteem (normal): The person loves themselves and accepts who they are
2. Low self-esteem: The person doesn’t love themselves, doesn’t accept who they are and doesn’t value their qualities.
3. Inflated self-esteem: The person loves themselves more than others and they exaggerate their qualities.

Healthy self-esteem is based on our ability to assess ourselves accurately and still be accepting of who we are. This means being able to acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses (we all have them!) and at the same time recognize that we are worthy and worthwhile.

Inflated self-esteem is not healthy and the average White parent has been dedicated to inflating the self-esteem in his or her child since the 1970s giving rise to the “ME ME ME Generation”.

For example, there is this study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that compares Black parents to White.

“Still, if higher levels of negativity and detachment are truly harmful for a developing child, some may still be concerned for African American male children. This conclusion is less warranted, however, when parenting behaviors are taken as whole.”

One would think if the average Black parent is negative toward his or her child, then the suicide rate should be higher among Blacks but it isn’t. In fact, the rate of suicides among Blacks is less than half that of Whites.

http://www.unc.edu/~klongest/Parenting%20Styles.pdf

And suicides among Asian-Americans is even lower than Blacks.

There’s a great piece in the most recent “Time” magazine that indicates how many mostly white parents may have raised children that grew up to be members of the “ME, ME, ME Generation”. If I recall correctly, the “Time” piece says there are about 80 million Americans that were born into this generation, but only 40% demonstrate that they are narcissists and feel that they are entitled. That’s about 32 million Americans or close to 10% of the US population.

But that is the largest block for that generation and they have an influence that goes far beyond their numbers. I recommend the “Time” magazine piece. It’s well written and refers to a lot of research that has been coming out on this topic in recent years.

I should make it clear that I read this piece after I published the post we are talking about.

The issue of “Time” I’m talking about is the May 20, 2013 one. The cover of the magazine says, “The ME ME ME Generation – Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents …” Joel Stein wrote the piece.

For example, here are a few pull quotes from Stein’s piece:

“They got this way partly because, in the 1970s, people wanted to improve kids’ chances of success by instilling self esteem. It turns out that self-esteem is great for getting a job or hooking up at a bar but not so great for keeping a job or a relationship.”

“The problem is that when people try to boost self-esteem, they accidentally boost narcissism instead.”

“All that self-esteem leads them to be disappointed when the world refused to affirm how great they know they are.”

In addition, studies reveal that Asian-Americans have the lowest sense of self-esteem in America as a racial/ethnic group compared to the other racial/ethnic groups. And most whites born and growing up after the 1970s have the highest sense of self-esteem—also the highest suicide rate and lowest marriage rate, etc.

It seems that being raised believing that one is perfect in almost every way and hearing that all dreams will come true leads to many very depressed adults later in life.

And I agree with you. I think there is a middle ground between permissive and authoritarian that is the best way to raise a child. Although some might claim my wife and I are tiger parents, we were not total authoritarians and our daughter did have a voice to express herself and say no. But we turned off the TV six days a week and only watched it for two or three hours on the weekend usually 60 Minutes and a DVD movie. She did not get a cell phone until she was in high school and then only to be used in an emergency or to call us—not for texting and socializing with friends. She never had her own Internet connection, video games, etc. She did date in high school, went to school dances and had a few sleepovers but there was a strict curfew. We had family discussions. We ate dinner together and talked as a family. No electronic devices were allowed at the dinner table or during family discussions. We also spent a lot of time together. Our daughter worked with her mother at the apartment complex she bought and also worked with me at home in the yard. We took long hikes as a family spending much quality time together as families should but many today don’t.

Because the TV was off six days a week, our daughter turned to books for entertainment and read a lot of books over the years. She loves “The Lord of the Rings” (read it three times) and that vampire series that was made into film—I can’t recall the name right now.

There is also a huge difference in first-generation immigrants vs. naturalized American families in terms of achievment and entitlement. There is a middle ground that is actually the best way to parent, where you set clear limits but also show love – it’s typically called a democratic parenting style.

I think the stronger factor in the success of Asians as you show in your research is due to their close-knit communities and strong socializing, NOT the critical “tiger-mothering” that was looked at in the initial study you quoted.

But what good parenting has in all situations is the authority to set limits AND nurture self-esteem. And these days, like never before, to counter mainstream culture as Beck and his guests discuss, and create a strong family culture by giving responsibility to kids.

Thank you. If you know how to embed a video in one of your posts, you may also include videos. It isn’t that difficult. You Tube has billions of videos and most of the time it is easy to find a video—by searching You Tube on You Tube—that complements the topics your posts. If your search terms do not come up with what you want, change the terms and keep looking.

If you fail to find a video that works, then post a photograph. Or open your own You Tube account and produce your own videos to embed in your posts. It really isn’t that difficult. The software comes with Windows and it takes less than a half hour for most people to learn even without directions.

My wife has a You Tube account and produces her own videos.

http://ancheemin.com/

Follow the previous link to my Wife’s Website and click on “The Cooked Seed” documentary book trailers link and you will be able to see her work. She has promised to help me produce a few videos as soon as the book tour for her next book is over in June. She earned an MFA in film from the Chicago Art Institute and before that she worked several years for the Shanghai film studio.

The downside to using videos posted on You Tube by other people is that sometimes a video will vanish and the link stops working—someone closes his or her account, removes a video or You Tube took the video down due to copyright violations. Then you have a dark rectangle that does not offer a video to view.

Oh well.

Lloyd

I wish I had your talent for working in meaningful video pieces. Yay for you! But I know you’ll enjoy my reflections on teaching.

TEACH…To Change Lives,
Dauna Easley

And those success stories were usually linked to a teacher/s and/or administrator/s who made a big difference in the life of some of his or her students.

For example, the first school where I taught was called Giano Intermediate. Back in 1979 when I was hired by Ralph Pagan, the principal, Giano had a reputation as one of the toughest most dangerous schools in the San Gabriel Valley. Pagan only agreed to take the job as principal if he had the power to transfer teachers out that were not effective (meaning they went to other schools in the district that were not as challenged as Giano was at the time). Then he hired new teachers (of his choice) or invited teachers to transfer from other schools in the district. Pagan was a Korean War Veteran. Many of the teachers he invited or hired were also veterans of the Korean or Vietnam Wars. And the teachers he kept that had already been there during the hard times who refused to give up on their kids were fearless and dedicated to working with the kids to make a difference.

I’m thinking of two petite women at Giano who were tough as nails—compassionate tough love from benevolent dictators.

Before his heart attack that almost killed him, Pagan turned Giano around and that middle school became an oasis for at-risk kids to learn and succeed. A great success story.

But with more than 14,000 public school districts in America and millions of teachers, can we expect all of the teachers to be the same type of people as the examples both you and I have mentioned in our comments? Yes, the success stories are out there but do they last once the individuals that were responsible for that success move on or get burned out? Can we really expect to duplicate that type of success everywhere? I wish we could.

Like Japan, it is possible to follow one and/or both tracks—vocational and/or academic—to graduate from high school in most of the world but not in the United States.

India suffers from extreme poverty. Many children living in poverty in India never go to school. And India has a very high illiteracy rate. Thousands of children die daily of malnutrition or starvation.

In China, the education system is still being developed. The rural schools are not as well developed as the urban schools. The schools in Shanghai and Beijing offer a better quality education than most other cities in China. About 90% of the children that start grade school drop out before finishing and reaching the first stage of high school. There are about 150 million children that start grade school and about 10 million attending senior high school. These numbers may be improving. I’m quoting stats from several years ago, because China is making a great effort to improve all of its schools.

China’s education system is based on merit and the competition to get into senior high school after age 15 is fierce. The competition to get into a university in China is even fiercer.

Singapore is the same way. Merit is the basis for deciding what track a student is placed in and there is public corporal punishment in Singapore’s schools.