Parenting is very serious business in Korea and I sometimes wonder if the parenting style looks ethical...
...that said...
...although I lacked musical talent, I studied piano for more than 5 years... I took private singing lessons, had private Math tutors, was not allowed to go to parties (I lied and went anyway...), was not allowed to date or invite friends over often, and I had a very very early curfew...
...that said...
...my mother's aggressive approach to raising myself and my younger brother was quite similar to what I am now seeing with the Korean homestay families I have been living with in Seoul...
In 2011, Amy Chua's book entitled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was a controversial and raging success...
The book attracted polarized commentary on Chua's parenting style from around the world and sparked furious discussion about whether or not it is OK to lock your child in a bare room with a cello for 7 hours...
I have not read the entire book...
... but quotations from the text seem to point out supposed differences between Eastern and Western parenting methods...
My mother did employ similar parenting techniques to Amy Chua...
My mother's family came from a very poor agricultural part of Italy, so they were always concerned about making sure that the family progressed in Australia...
Which meant STUDY STUDY STUDY...and more STUDY...
...although I lacked musical talent, I studied piano for more than 5 years... I took private singing lessons, had private Math tutors, was not allowed to go to parties (I lied and went anyway...), was not allowed to date or invite friends over often, and I had a very very early curfew...
(I did have one...ONLY one...boyfriend in High School, but my parents did various background checks and reviewed his parents before they said it was viable...)
Korean parents invest a lot of time and money in the academic success of their children...
... if Korean students don't get into the top Universities (Yonsei, Seoul National University, Korea University, or American Ivy League schools...) then their parents sigh deeply and (often) ask their children to retake the University entrance exam...
Aside from getting a lot of pressure to perform academically...
... the hardest thing about growing up with an Italian mother and Grandmother is that Italian culture (at least in the 80s and pre-80s) was very much influenced by gender roles...
...while, contrastingly, Australian culture is a bit more free regarding what boys and girls should be doing/how they should be acting...
As a child, while climbing trees with my younger brother, my Italian Nonna was regularly asking me to come into the house to clean the house and prepare my bed sheets, as she stated (in her angry Italian dialect) that I would need to learn these skills for when I met my future husband...
(errr... highly unlikely that that will ever come to fruition...).
While my parents were much stricter on me than my friend's parents...
(and they were more strict on me than my younger brother due to my gender)
I appreciate that they understood that the world is competitive and that kids absolutely require discipline...
...the only problem is that the coercion of children is not sustainable...
...and at some point kids will have to form their own attitudes and ideas...
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