Essay of the article: “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior”

The writer of the article, Chua, uses the terms “western mother” and “Chinese mother”, respectively about a mother who doesn’t expects a lot from one’s child and a mother who doesn’t accept lesser than the best. Chau, who herself is a “Chinese mother”, means that the “Chinese mothers” believe in and support their kids more than the stereotype western mother does. According to her ”nothing is fun until you are good at it”, and therefore it is necessary to be extremely focused at the goals one wants to accuse (for example to become a master at piano playing). According to her the “Chinese mothers” sacrifice themselves more for their children than ”western mothers” do.
Chau’s extremely authoritarian upbringing is way to much, do you ask me, but still I see the reason in what she says about giving children self-confidence: When your child comes home with a bad grade and you praise her only, you have said indirectly, that your child doesn’t have the potential to achieve any better. This view the child will take over and her/his self-confidence will fall.

The genre of the article is expressive and persuasive because of the fact that Chau has a point of view, which she wants to share with the reader and convince that she is right about her opinions.

The majority of the moods of appeals is logos, but still there is a use of ethos and pathos in it.
An example of logos is this:

“In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun."”

She includes several studies as documentation for her claim about “American mothers” and “western mothers” being different in certain ways. This appeals to our sense wherefore it is a logos-argument.

There doesn’t appear any direct ethos-argumentation, but the fact that she, herself, is a “Chinese mother” and includes examples of her own kids make her generally argumentation appears more convincing.

All though Chau is a strict and hard woman, she still appeals to our emotions when she argues. An example of her use of ethos is her story about her daughter learning a very difficult piano piece. When the daughter refuges to keep on practise Chau forces her not to stop. After blood, sweat and tears the daughter succeeds in playing the piano piece and says:

"Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up.

Chau is subjective, but still the article is reliable because of the fact that Chau arguments carefully for all her points of view. Moreover she doesn’t try to hide the fact that she is subjective and already at the beginning she makes it clear that she herself is a “Chinese mother”. This makes the article more reliable.

The language is accessible to a normal citizen wherefore you must conclude them being the receivers of the massage of the article.
Chau’s use of concrete examples makes her arguing easier to understand. Moreover the composition of the article is very well-arranged because of the fact that she divides the text into points.

“Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play” (p. 1 ll. 17-21)

At last the non-use of specialist terms and the analytical language is worth mentioning as reasons of the relative easy language.

According to Chau “Chinese mothers knows what is best for their kids” (p. 2, l. 50) but is this all true? First, I don’t agree completely because of the fact that parents aren’t the same person as their kids. Even though her claim up to a point is right seeing the fact that grown-up people have more experiences from life than kids. According to me Chau’s extreme control of her girls is way to much as it’s very important that kids also through own experiences learn what is the best for them - otherwise they become pupped worked by strings.

Chau has a good point saying that “Chinese mothers” in some ways make their kids get more self-confidence. She presses her child Lulu to play a piano piece that Lulu doesn’t believed she could manage to learn. Doing the practise Lulu reaches a point were she is completely frustrated, sad, hungry and wanting to pee. Even so Chau forces her to stay at the piano chair and keep on practise. Not to allow a little girl to go peeing, eating and rest for a while isn’t okay according to me, but still I can’t ignore the fact that Lulu’s feeling of success after reaching the goal makes her get a very good self-confidence. I think it’s generally a question of how high you want to put your goals and how much time and struggles you want to sacrifice for reaching them. If you as Chau and other “Chinese mothers” think that “nothing is fun until you are good at it” (p. 2, l. 23) I believe that Chau’s upbringing method is the best, but according to me it isn’t worth it to struggle that much to become the best at everything.

The genre of the article is expressive and persuasive and the majority of the moods of appeals is Logos, but still there is a use of ethos and Pathos in it. The receivers of the massage are normal citizens and the article is reliable.
The parents know up to a point what is the best for their children, but certainly not always, and parents need to learn their children to think self and take their own choices – this is very important skills for a person living I a modern world.