Amy Chua’s Wall Street Journal piece, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” teaches the power of motherhood in many great ways even if all the mothers are not perfect and even if their goals may (in some cases) be too one sided and too utilitarian.

It pays to parse out the wheat from the chaff. First the wheat:

Children can reach much greater heights than most parents ask them to achieve. The fault here is not with the children but the parents — who themselves often are not prepared to do the work involved: they don’t realize the potential of their children for they do not realize their own potential.

The Jewish mother and Western and Central European Jews in particular had developed similar cultures of demanding a lot of their children. One of these children wrote a book that had a big effect on my raising my children: Edith Stein, a Jewish philosopher (doctorate under Husserl and worked with Heidegger) who later became a Carmelite nun, death-camped by the Nazi’s for being a Jew and canonized by John Paul II. Volume One of her autobiography (Life in a Jewish Family) taught the lessons of hard work because of high expectations of parents. They rose to it because no one thought otherwise. And see what Jews achieve as a result. Wonderful is the capacity God has placed in man.

The conversation around our Sunday (extended-family) dinner table last week revealed a consensus that our children were the product of a Catholic “Chinese mother” and so were many of the children they knew. Those children were all home-schooled too for a significant portion of their early childhood. Home-schooling mothers had to recognize themselves in Amy Chua’s article — but with one exception.

Home school mothers probably agree with legendary basketball coach John Wooten that not all kids can be #1 but all kids can give of their best — and that is much more important. The dignity of the child and rejoicing in the talents he or she has (not the ones they wish they had) is the main lesson to be learned. And to develop talents to their fullest means lots of effort.

Amy Chua does the country a great service, reminding us of what is possible. Some “Chinese mothers” on the other hand go too far as some of the blog responses have clearly demonstrated: name calling and emotional abuse is the antithesis of being a good parent and it is no wonder some of the children have broken relationships with their “Chinese mothers”: they were treated like a piece of iron to be filed not a wonder of God to be nurtured.

Those who come closest to this golden mean are those who grow up in married families that worship weekly. Their hard work and dignity are most likely to be attained — and graduations from high school and colleget too. Check out Mappping America and you will see US national patterns for these outcomes.

And by the way, the overwhelming majority of home-schooling families fall into this category too. The American “Chinese mother” comes in many forms as Amy Chua indicated.

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