I've decided to agree with the comments that this parenting style has a time and a place. In china where there's 3 people doing every one person's job so that the government can keep all those people gainfully employed maybe this makes an average child rise above the competition to get a better life. Maybe if you're family is first and second generation immigrants and you're trying to make sure your offspring can survive in a place you're not from. Maybe it's fine for a rich family who can afford to get her daughters everything to have some performance expectations in return. I'm not that worried about someone unwittingly using this on a disabled child, how cruel but unlikely or rare. I see lower middle class or higher poverty mothers from the James Dobson camp using this fantasy story to fuel their passion for "raising a child in the way they should go". Yep, I'm getting flashbacks. The point of the excercise is that you have the resources and the commitment to see that the child is rewarded with success on the other side of the exercise. Like one of the comments said no one wants the Jewish mother they want the Jewish father writing blank checks to pay for school.
So it won't work for my family because we're not any of the above extreme cases. I can't believe we see parents calling this abusive, a blogger said the little girl who played at carnage hall had Stockholm syndrome for cuddling with her mommy after piano practice. I think that's an emotional over-reaction. I saw the professor's supporters calling dissenters "wounded weaklings" who are almost neglectful in their hands off raising of their own children. Odd, most of the vocalest promoters of permissive parenting are stay-at-home moms, they have enough spare time on their hands to think up these things. I think it's fine that people publicly discuss these things. Maybe it will lead to tolerance and understanding. Doesn't mean you'll like what you learn about each other. You don't have to. If you can't gossip about each others faults then you don't love them enough to look closely and see their flaws. But good fences make good neighbors. That lady can't keep an ancient Chinese secret.
