All I can say is that upon reading Amy Chua’s WSJ essay several weeks ago I discovered I am — on balance and far from a blanket endorsement of Chua’s methods — a Chinese mother. My wife agreed.
But upon hearing Rush Limbaugh deride Chua as a “Chicom mom” and after reading a by-the-numbers neo-con smear in The Weekly Standard or Commentary — sorry, they all run together — I knew the Rick Hess-es of the world would soon follow.
Bottomline, if your kids have any kind of raw material at all to work with, “Little White Donkey” moments — or “Freewill” or “One” or “Money” or “Giant Steps” moments as the case may be — are a necessary part of their growth and development.
Middle-class Americans cannot escape a world that demands world-class skills — all the speeches and ribbon cuttings by Bev Perdue to the contrary.