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US parents should emulate Asian parenting culture — from ancient times

US parents should emulate Asian parenting culture — from ancient times US parents should emulate Asian parenting culture — from ancient times

Do you want your child to grow up to be Zack or Slater from Saved by the Bell, or do you want him to grow up to be like Screech? For the past week, this debate has raged on after the future Department of Government Efficiency Co-Chairman Vivek Ramaswamy posted on X an argument for more legal immigration of skilled workers.

He explained:

The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:

Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.

A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.

He went on to deplore the fact that in sitcoms such as Saved by the Bell, the heroes were the jocks, not the nerds. Ramaswamy had advice for today’s parents: “More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.’”

His post triggered an extended debate about the H-1B visa program, a U.S. work visa that allows foreign nationals to work in specialty occupation jobs in the United States for U.S. employers. Traditionally, the people on those visas tend to be from Asian countries. The culture of these countries was what Ramaswamy was promoting to American parents to emulate. 

Ramaswamy got people talking about the minutiae of immigration policy, but unfortunately, his posts didn’t elicit a larger conversation about the differences in childrearing in America and Asia. Perhaps that’s hard to do — when Asian countries are having so few children, it’s hard to extrapolate parenting trends from a population that is increasingly forgoing parenthood. In South Korea, which has one of the world’s lowest birth rates, the total fertility rate is 0.78, indicating the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime. Taiwan, China, and Japan aren’t far behind, at 1.09, 1.02, and 1.26, respectively. 

Those low birth rates signal something deeply amiss in a country’s culture and society. To have children is the ultimate expression of optimism and faith in the future. Reporting on the fact that South Korea saw the world’s lowest fertility rate in 2023, Reuters attributed the cause to women concerned about career advancement and the financial cost of raising children in a high-achievement society.

The South Korean childhood is intense and unforgiving, with little time for the relaxation Ramaswamy dismisses. South Korea doesn’t just hold the record for the lowest birth rate in the world but also the highest suicide rate among industrialized nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the fourth-highest rate of any country in the world. In 2022, suicide caused more than half of all deaths among South Koreans in their 20s. Between birth rates and suicides, the data do not point to a healthy society in a culture as hyperfocused on achievement as South Korea is. 

Instead of emulating modern Asian advice on parenting, as a parent of six young children, I’m far more interested in ancient Asian wisdom on the subject, from an era when families were large and their societies renowned for their reverence of the family unit. In his book The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents, William Martin shares his parenting wisdom from that time, “Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.”

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Like most American parents, I am not raising my children with the goal of them becoming engineers or scientists. If that’s what they become, great. But my real goal in motherhood is to raise children with a sense of awe, and with the goal that they concern themselves with being decent people and responsible adults and balance their professional and personal priorities and interests. I want my children to be productive members of not just an economic system but of their families and of their communities as well.

To do that, we’ll skip weekends at a science fair or mathlete competition and spend them together as a family at the aquarium or on our couch under a blanket reading or watching a movie. That model may not be the most rigorous, but it will, in all likelihood, produce well-balanced children who won’t be too stressed or career-driven to give me grandchildren one day.

Bethany Mandel (@bethanyshondark) is a homeschooling mother of six and a writer. She is the bestselling co-author of Stolen Youth.



This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com

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