Chinese Mom and "Story of The Fox"

You probably know "Chinese Mom" isn't a very positive phrase. It has been widely used by other races to describe how over parenting we are in general.

Not only the Chinese moms, I see the same thing with Indian parents as well.

Every morning, there is always someone who would inconsiderately block the single lane during kids drop-off at school. Trust me I see it over and over again, the worst offenders are either Indian or Chinese parents.

Like this morning, an Indian dad riding in a Lexus arrived at the drop-off entrance of my older one's school, got off his car, opened up the door for his daughter, left it wide open, put the backpack on her back, zipped up her jacket, tied her shoelaces, and then walked her all the way to the door while still repeating things that perhaps he had talked about 10 times the previous night.

Meantime, the little girl was busy saying hello to her friends and turned a deaf ear to whatever the dad was saying, and the dad turned a blind eye to the mile long line of cars behind him.

Again, at my younger one's school, another Indian dad stopped at the drop off line, and this time walked his son into the entrance and did not even return. He was completely oblivious of the cars behind, but how can you blame him? The guy does not have eyes at the back of his head.

I know what you are thinking, yes we Asian parents are too protective that we end up being irresponsible to both other people and our own children. You do have to give us credits for trying our best though.

In our area, there is a very large Asian community, predominately the Chinese and the Indians. It is very common for grandparents of these two groups to spend their golden years here helping the 2nd generation raise the 3rd generation. The devotion to their youngsters typically does not end even after the cubs grow up and leave the den. It is great the we have such strong family ties, unfortunately, it keeps our children remain latched on... and on... like babies.

When I was at my girls' age, I once watched a Japanese documentary film called the "Story of the Fox". It was reported that the Japanese camera crew followed a family of 7 foxes many years to shoot the movie.

The story was about a male fox Philip and a female one Lena fell in love when they were young and had 5 kids together. But life had been everything but easy for mom and dad.

The youngest one, born blind, died prematurely.

Then mommy got caught during food hunting for her babies while getting chased by dogs. I still remember her sad eyes when she looked at her cubs right before her died.

After losing Lena, Philip hunted and raised 4 kids alone. He trained the young cubs hunting skills, then chased and drove each of them away from home so they could be on their own in the wild.

The end was pretty sad, with 3 out of the 4 remaining cubs dead from hunger, the hunters or the predators. The last cub, after carefully learning from its sibling's losses, survived the longest. He later met his daddy right before getting chased by the hunters, and both fell off the cliff in the end.

We typical Asian parents probably will never be able to kick our children out of the home like what the daddy fox did. We will sacrifice a lot more just to make our children suffer a little less, unfortunately at the same time, lengthen the time needed for them to become mentally strong and physically independent.

I really shouldn't criticize others as I myself am in similar boat. I drive my girls to school every morning just so they can sleep an extra 30 minutes, but I am a little more cold-hearted -- at least I don't carry them off the car and to the door on my back so drivers behind don't have to curse me out.

There is a well known saying in Chinese "可怜天下父母心" which literally means "poor parental love".