Successful Family
In response to Amy Chua’s controversial essay, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”, published in the Wall Street Journal ahead of the release of Ms. Chua’s book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
The piece has been called everything from “horrifying” to “heartbreaking”. According to critics, Ms. Chua is, at the very least, a horrible parent. We can be a judgmental society. The “funny” thing is, so much of the parenting criticism we dole out is based on our own parenting experience or cultural norms. That’s it. We’re parents. Imperfect ones. Just like Amy Chua.
I couldn’t help running some of the comments through my mental Successful Family filter. From that perspective, here are some thoughts on Ms. Chua’s essay and the public reaction that followed.
Happy New Year!
The start of a new year is always exciting to me. It’s a chance to renew my motivation to improve or achieve something—like a fresh start. I usually set a few goals for myself; I refuse to call them resolutions for some reason. I will admit I’ve gotten pretty good at setting [...]
It doesn’t matter if you’re disorganized—flying by the seat of your pants, or the schedule whisperer—never more than a heartbeat away from your 23 color-coded calendars. If you aren’t doing the right things, then doing the whole list doesn’t feel much better than doing half of it.
What’s your strategy for prioritizing your daily activities? Do you just react to whatever is urgent? Do you focus on what you assume or perceive to be important? How do you know your time and energy are invested in activities that truly are important? That isn’t just a problem for moms or families. It’s universal. And while it’s a common problem for even the most organized families, the solution is one of the first things covered in every business school, because success in business is dependent on companies doing the right things.
What if society cared as much about the success of families as it does about the success of Wall Street? Could we take a page from the corporate playbook and apply it to family management?
Chaos. Exhaustion. Guilt. Resentment. Stress.
Sound familiar? If you’re a mom, your answer is probably “yes”. Maybe you even display them jokingly on your coffee mug, notepad, fridge magnet, or blog. And why do we joke about living with such an obviously burdensome state of mind? Because as modern moms, we’ve come to accept [...]
