写于2015年5月24日

After reading The Creative Spirit by Dan Goleman, Paul Kaufman, and Michael Roy, I hold that creativity is something interesting and is worth possessing. My definition of creativity is an ability or a habit to doubt everything and to challenge authority which might even sound a little paranoid and to try to break the limitation which sounds a little rebellious. It dose not matter whether you are successful or you invent something useful and practical or you change the whole world or not, yet it does have relation to never quit doubting and challenging.

Now I’d like to talk more about my thoughts on different ways of bringing up children after reading Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior by Amy Chua.

First of all, the fact of parents come in all varieties should be admitted but we can compare the stereotypes between Chinese and western methods of raising families.

I don’t think Amy Chua is a dictator. Her tone in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was not that serious as an educationalist but self-mocking as a mother who has two children.

I do agree with the philosophy of children don’t choose their parents and they don’t even choose to be born. I don’t think parents owe their children and vice versa. Everyone is an individuality and everyone is the only person should be responsible for their own. Everyone is special and everyone should be treated with different methods and it is hasty and irresponsible to say which method is the best for any outsiders.

There should be some kind of mutual faith between parents and children. The faith of parents towards children is they believe children can make it and more importantly, they believe in the individuality and independence in their children and they love their children unconditionally whatever their children are like. In children’s heart, they should believe their parents are come from good will and the vital thing is they believe in themselves. However, good will cannot promise a good result. To me, for-your-sake can sometimes be like a killer for joy and a liar against freedom. The role of parents play is a guide not the Big Brother.

Let me quote those words, “everyone is special in their special own way, even losers are special in their own special way”, ruthless and faultless. Life is not an either-or fallacy. Don’t get me wrong, sense of achievement after winning can be one of the roots of happiness.

Why Chinese mothers are superior? Why Chinese students are better than western students in tests? Why western children are more creative? The question whether the parents and the children both feel happy or not seems to be the most important one to me.