Surely by now, you have heard of the article by Amy Chua on the Wall Street Journal about why Chinese mothers are superior to Western mothers.

I have to disagree with Chua that Chinese mothers are superior.

Convincing a child to forge ahead in their endeavours and never give up is a good thing.

However, in the process of never giving up on a parent’s goals for the child, the child will grow up regretting that he or she pursued the parent’s goals and not her own in her childhood. They are experiences the child can never get back.

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it.
~ wsj.com

Furthermore, if children are taught that they can only have fun when they are winning, they might never try something new later on in life because they will have to lose before they can win. And win for a limited time. There will always be a bigger fish.

Being the best is not the most important … because you can never stay the best. Or if you keep on trying to be the best in one thing, you miss out on a lot of other things in life.

Learning to enjoy the journey and develop an intrinsic love for what you do is the key to being happy in life.