Are Chinese parents more caring than Caucasians?
Depends who is doing the study. It turns out that not only there are cultural differences how parents act, but also interpretations of those behaviors have cultural bias. What a Chinese researcher would see as caring act, a Caucasian researcher may find intrusive.
A University of Illinois study shows the cultural bias of researchers themselves influence the results of all the cross-cultural research. Two Chinese and two Caucasian research assistants were shown the same 13 hours of video of 22 first generation Chinese families having dinner with their toddlers. They were told to categorize the parent-child interaction in three categories - sensitive, detached, and intrusive, and asked to note if it had positive or negative impact. But the same action was seen differently by the two groups. While the Chinese assistants saw the parents feeding food to a four year old baby as a sign of caring, the Caucasians interpreted it as lack of independence. Though all four were given the same instructions, it is hard to erase the cultural bias in how they see things.
There are fundamental differences between the two cultures: while Caucasians treasure independence, Chinese value obedience; Caucasians teach their kids to speak up, but expression of emotion is considered a weakness in Chinese culture; Caucasian parents want to be consistent in their response, while Chinese parents prefer to be flexible dealing with each case separately. The influence of these differences is hard to estimate and almost impossible to avoid in cross-cultural studies.
This study calls into question the reliability of all cross-cultural studies at a time when understanding of diverse culture is essential.
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whatever may be the opinion of Caucasian researchers about chinese parenting, it’s a no-brainer as to which parenting style is creating a winning society. Chinese obviously.
How the hell is Chinese society winning? By killing unarmed Tibetan monks?
littlechen is being sarcastic. China’s economy is heading for a crash, its environment is on the way to total devastation, and if the past is any guide, there’s going to be a lot of violence in the near future as the government comes to terms with the fact that its authoritarian style is incompatible with the innovation and adaptability necessary for long-term prosperity.
However, I don’t have quite such a fatalistic view. There are places, such as Singapore, where the Chinese cultural tendency towards authoritarianism has been tempered with rational, dogma-free long term thinking.
Hi everyone,
I think it comes down to how we were brought up in the first place; despite our racial background. My parents were strict and imposes an authoritarian parenting style - I came from a Chinese background. While many Chinese parents have this parenting attitude, some of them do not. In my opinion, this parenting style has not helped me at all as it causes me to withdraw from my parents, thus jeopardizing our parent and child relationship. I do not put up with strict guidelines and the occasional, sometimes frequent beatings when I do something wrong as a kid. Every kid has the tendency to make mistakes and as a parent you need to know what’s best to teach the kids, not punish them.
My dad he had set an imaginary level - that he is the highest in the family equation and everybody should respect him. I do not put up with that since this behavior has caused me to have less respect for him since respect should be earned, not assumed. Furthermore, he does not contribute to proper family discussions that bonds the family together. I have, all my life been very alienated from my own family because of this authoritarian structure our parents imposed. Every time my dad talks it’s always a commanding statement, never have we chat about proper stuff about life, what I like or do not.
I feel sorry for other Chinese family members who were brought up like I was, having really strict parents. Getting punished (beaten, caned) for minor things a normal kid would do, and their justify their behavior as “discipline”. While there are many Chinese parents who take on an authoritarian role, a few are more liberal.
Caucasian parents however, do not punish their kids by beating them. However, verbal and mental abuse are more frequent, as a form of punishment (for those parents who are strict). They are also more open to communications between family members which is a very good thing. I find that Caucasian parents are more caring to animals, that’s a wonderful thing as I love animals dearly. Caucasians seem to love and care for the universe more than Chinese in my opinion because of how we were brought up. Chinese are more concerned with earning as much money as possible, less concerned about nature and the negative impacts we’re causing on our world on a major scale.
At the end of the day it’s the Social Conditioning that causes us to react, think, and be who we are. Who we really are, we do not know. Are we a mirror image of our parents and our previous generations? In a world where people will hate you for being different, how many of us will truly stand up for ourselves and stand for what we believe in? Or do we conform to the society, giving them what they want and mirroring what we see on the media, friends, or family? Society has been fake on many levels. Those that are in control - the government, our parents - many have been hypocrites and liars. Going on and on about terrorism and the middle east, while they do their dirty work everyday (kidnapping innocent [innocent until proven guilty] suspects from europe to countries like Egypt to torture them, going into wars for the sole purposes of wealth and dominance, corruptions within government officials, pay assassins to kill threats within their own and foreign countries, lies, and more hypocrisies)
So it is due to these reasons there exists a culture, because we conform and mirror our ancestors. I hope we can only learn from the good things we see, as there’s no better way between any racial culture; it is how we handle to the situations that matter.