Just Work

Perhaps, by now, all the rage against Amy Chua has died down. Over this weekend, there was an article at The Wall Street Journal, voicing a different approach. There were other snippets of opinions about it, mostly against Ms. Chua's method. As it turned out, the Journal, of course, only published possibly the most controversial section of the book. In the section where Ms. Chua answered some readers questions, she actually sounded, very, very normal.

Anyway, I was going to write about mothering the way Ms. Chua chose to parent her girls, and the implications of that. (I know the implications, because that was how my mother parented us.) There isn't whole lot to say about it, actually. Because, frankly, it was, just a lot of work. I am NOT saying that mothering any other way isn't a lot of work. But, really, let's be honest, it is easier to drop off a child at a playdate than to encourage/force/cajole the said child into practicing whatever-the-task-is for an hour and half, isn't?

It also requires advanced planning. Like only making one shopping trip per week, maybe every two weeks if possible, to be more efficient. Knowing how to cook huge amounts of food that is nutritious and quick to fix.

But that really isn't very interesting.

What is interesting, is the process of projection and projective identification.

Wiki probably has very good explanation of the above terms. Go look. This can wait.

Basically, I think, people rose to such uproar about this matter, because, fundamentally, there is no consensus about how to raise kids, and Ms. Chua successfully poked at people's insecurities.

This reminds me of what happened when I was a resident. I had this colleague who got out of doing a lot of work, (in my opinion, anyway.) This resident came in late, left early, punted work...etc. I was REALLY worked up about it. In fact, I confronted the said resident in process group. (Another topic for another day, but all in all, it was a really DUMB thing to do.) In the end, I realized this: I was MAD, not necessarily because I had to do extra work, but because I wanted to be like this resident. I wanted to go to work late, leave early, make other people do my work. I was JEALOUS. On the other hand, one of my worst fears in life was that people would think that I was slacking. I was afraid people would judge me the same way I judged this person! My feelings were not about her, after all, but about myself.

Here is my conclusion about Ms. Chua's controversy. People got all worked up because they felt Ms. Chua was judging them. On the other hand, they were jealous, because Ms. Chua has a seemingly successful/perfect life.