Parenting style different from the West has historical, cultural connotations

Watch out, Tiger Mom. Wolf Dad and Eagle Dad want to outdo you. Last year's publishing sensation by Amy Chua - The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - has spawned copycats in China as media attention focused on the circus-like nature of animal training in "Chinese parenting".

Wolf Dad and Eagle Dad are each more severe in the treatment of their offspring to induce "success", which in the case of Chinese-style parenting means perfect grades and admission to a top university.

Wolf Dad proudly claims that he physically beat all three of his kids into the prestigious Peking University, while Eagle Dad uploaded video footage of him making his 4-year-old son run in the -13 degrees Celcius New York weather with 20 centimeters of snow on the ground wearing nothing more than underwear for 30 minutes while the boy cried for his father to hold him.

Following the media storm that drew heated debate of his extreme methods, Eagle Dad got his son tested for IQ at his tender age, enrolled him early into elementary school, and announced that he aims to get his son admitted to Beijing's elite Tsinghua University by the age of 10.

Increased globalization makes this a time in history where there's a collision of educational philosophies and systems with the merits of each side being hotly debated in China and in the West. Chinese parents feel a greater sense of ownership over their children even after they've become adults. Western parents allow their children to explore and decide on their own based upon their own interests rather than what the parents think is best for them, and these parents expect their children to live separate and independent lives when they are grown.

Chinese parents stress performance in academic pursuits, and place a higher premium on discipline. American parents stress the development of interests in education and place a higher premium on freedom and creativity.

To understand either Western- or Chinese-style parenting, we must examine the origin of higher education in each culture and understand its significance to the Western and the Chinese worldview. This is because many Chinese parents seem to measure one's success in parenting on which top university their children graduate from.

Western universities were formed at the grassroots to enable groups of commoners to acquire knowledge for various purposes. Institutions of higher education were heavily influenced by various monarchies and the church, which were inextricably tied together.

The purpose of higher education in the West was the pursuit of knowledge and truth for the sake of better understanding creation and its Creator, thus enlightening the mind.

The Chinese did not have institutionalized schools or advanced centers for learning, but children were educated in home-based classrooms where wealthy families hired tutors for their children while children of poor families would study on their own.

However, China instituted the world's first ever meritocracy with an imperial examination system, or ke ju. Established in 605 during the Sui Dynasty (581-618) using the Confucian classics as the basis for the examinations, scholars with the highest scores qualified to become bureaucrats and officials in the imperial government. A spot in the government meant a life of security and status for the entire clan of the official.

A famous poem composed in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) under the reign of Genghis Khan summarizes this mindset well: "Ten years of frozen obscurity by the window, one action gains fame under the big sky", meaning that even though you spend 10 years studying hard by the cold window without anyone noticing you, when you succeed in one examination, everyone under the sun will know your name.

Education carries a far weightier and significant meaning than just the mere acquisition of knowledge for knowledge's sake. An exam score could mean the difference between endless toil in the fields and lifelong servitude to the emperor, or a life of prosperity, power, and fame for an entire family. In an agricultural society where the fate of a family was dictated by the whims of nature, this meant the difference between life and death.

The examination system continues today for civil servants in China. With the establishment of the republic under Sun Yat-Sen, a Christian, the examination system was revived for government posts.

However, the modern Chinese university and medical system was established by missionaries from the West, mostly from Britain and the United States. Many of these missionaries graduated from top universities and because they were not seminary-trained, they were called Student Volunteers. Of the more than 20,000 such volunteers from the US, a third landed in China to do what they do best: run schools and hospitals.

Notable among them were the Cambridge Seven, who caused an uproar in Britain at the time by forsaking their promising futures to sail for China. Therefore, Chinese universities are reflections of their founders' universities in the West. With the exception of Peking University, which evolved from a school for children of nobles in the imperial court, most other top Chinese universities have Christian roots.

Tsinghua University was founded by missionaries to China who returned to Washington to lobby for the roughly $30 million Boxer restitution paid to the US by the Qing government to be returned to Chinese soil for the benefit of the Chinese people. This fund was administered by the Presbyterian denomination, and Tsinghua's first president was a Yale University graduate who founded the YMCA in China.

Even though the university systems of both countries have the same roots, entrance into and education in these universities carry very different meanings for Chinese and Westerners in light of their cultures and what an education means to them.

In China, it's also true that a 10-point difference in the high school examination score can doom one to a life of poverty as a farmer or lift one into a life of prosperity as a white-collar worker in a prosperous coastal metropolis. Education and redemption are so deeply intertwined in the Chinese mindset and psyche as a way out of hardship and "eating bitterness" that to not put one's all into educating one's child is almost sacrilegious.

To Chinese parents, their children's academic performance is a direct reflection on the success of their parenting. There is a layer of fear and anxiety to this kind of parenting: fear of failure, and anxiety about whether the parents will measure up.

As both a Chinese and a practicing Christian who's a beneficiary of both kinds of education systems, I would like to suggest that we look beyond the styles and methods of child-raising and examine the real complex underlying reasons for why we want our children to succeed. If we can recognize and own up to our own fears and anxieties about our performance as parents and disengage them from how we go about loving our children and helping them to get the best education possible, perhaps we can then finally be able to extract the best of both East and West to ensure their future long term happiness.

The author is an etiquette coach, author and speaker specializing on East-West differences. She was born and raised in Taiwan and Canada, and received her university education in the US. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.