The Useless Tree

Amy Chua is a Legalist Mother

Amy Chua's now infamous piece, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior," has already garnered significant blog reaction.  Perhaps most poignant is this comment by Christina Lu at Quora:

Drawing from personal experience, the reason why I don't feel this works is because I've seen an outcome that Amy Chua, the author fails to address or perhaps has yet to experience.

My big sister was what I used to jealously call "every Asian parents wet dream come true" (excuse the crassness, but it really does sum up the resentment I used to feel towards her). She got straight As. Skipped 5th grade. Perfect SAT score. Varsity swim team. Student council. Advanced level piano. Harvard early admission. An international post with the Boston Consulting Group in Hong Kong before returning to the U.S. for her Harvard MBA. Six figure salary. Oracle. Peoplesoft. Got engaged to a PhD. Bought a home. Got married.

Her life summed up in one paragraph above.

Her death summed up in one paragraph below.

Committed suicide a month after her wedding at the age of 30 after hiding her depression for 2 years. She ran a plastic tube from the tailpipe of her car into the window. Sat there and died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of her new home in San Francisco. Her husband found her after coming home from work. A post-it note stuck on the dashboard as her suicide note saying sorry and that she loved everyone.

Unfortunately, this is not simply an anecdote...

It is wrong, however, to categorize strict parenting as "Chinese."  While it may be true that there is a strand, by no means definitive or exclusive, of Chinese tradition that calls for strict parenting, we should remember that such attitudes are by no means particular to Chinese history and culture.  "Spare the rod, spoil the child," is not a Chinese saying.  Furthermore, such a simple formulation as "Chinese mother" can hardly capture the range of parenting experiences of Chinese-Americans (and we must remember that Chua's experience is that of a second generation Chinese-American).  Yes, there are strict Chinese mothers.  But there are others who are disgusted by Chua's approach. 

Instead of "Chinese," I would argue that Chua is a Legalist mother, drawing her practice from that strand of Chinese tradition and philosophy that emphasizes clear laws and strict punishments.  Han Feizi comes to mind right away, and this statement of his seems to get at what Chua is striving for with her kids:

In a strict household there are on unruly slaves, but the children of a kindly mother often turn out bad. (125)

In its most extreme form, during the Qin dynasty, Legalism turned out to be so brutal and dehumanizing that it inspired an uprising that overthrew the dynasty.  Perhaps Chua should be a bit more attentive to the negative consequences of overly strict rule.

Compare this to Mencius.  Of course, Mencius was canonized after the Qin dyansty, but Legalism did not disappear: harsh punishment always lurked in the background of Chinese Confucianism during and after the Han dynasty.  And this was true for Confucian parenting as well as Confucian governance.  But Mencius, sans the Legalist appropriations, suggests a much more supportive and humane approach.  Here, after mentioning the "affection between father and son" (which we can understand more generally as parenting), he favorably quotes the sage-king Yao:

Encourage them and reward them.  Help them and perfect them.  Support them and give them wings, and reveal them to themselves.  Then you will bring Integrity alive in them. (5.4 )

This suggests the use of positive inducements, as opposed to negative punishments, and could point to a very different parenting posture than Chua's. 

Indeed, Mencius's mother is rather famous herself, known in legend to have moved three times when Mencius was young to find the best environment for his education.  She eventually settled next to a school so he would be encouraged daily in his studies.  She also gently guided him to keep at it.  But she did not micro-manage his life to the extent that Chua does her children's. 

Chua, then, is not really a "Chinese mother," nor is she a "Mencian mother."  Rather she is a Legalist mother - and we'll just have to wait and see if the peasants eventually revolt as they did against Qin.

A Poem by Wang Wei

A friend (thanks Tracy!) recently gave me David Hinton's translation of poems by Wang Wei, the great Tang poet. I like Hinton's translations of Chinese philosophy, precisely because he translates so much poetry, which, I think, gives him a certain appreciation of the lyric qualities of Chuang Tzu and Mencius and others. 

I came upon a poem that captured the moment I find myself in now.  It is entitled "Mourning Yin Yao."

How long can a life last? And once
it’s gone it’s formless all over again.

I think of how you waited for death:
ten thousand ways a heart wounds.

Your gentle mother’s still not buried,
your daughter’s hardly turned ten,

but outside the city, cold-silence wind-
scoured expanses, I listen to lament

on and on. Clouds drift boundless skies,
birds wing through without a sound,

and travelers travel deserted silence
through a midday sun’s frozen clarity.

I remember you back then, still alive,
asking to study unborn life with me,

but my guidance came too late. Sad
how you never found understanding.

And those old friends here with gifts—
they never reached you either. So many

ways we failed you. All bitter lament, I
return to my brush-and-bramble gate.

Let me focus on the first two couplets.   The opening two lines reveal Wang's immersion in Chan Buddhism, which itself is an amalgamation of the Buddhist ideas and practices that gradually moved from India to China, and the Taoist ideas and practices indigenous to China.  Thus, it is not surprising that Wang's contemplation of death brings him to an appreciation of the formlessness of life, a notion that I associate with Chuang Tzu and the Tao Te Ching, though especially the former. 

The second two lines brought my aunt to mind.  She was not comfortable in her last days.  The slow decline of her body and mind frustrated her.  There were good moments, but as the end drew near these became fewer and fewer.  Just before she passed away she slipped into a peaceful unconsciousness.  I thought she was sleeping but obviously it was something deeper. I was relieved at that time, not knowing what was coming, because she seemed to have escaped "the ten thousand ways a heart wounds."   And now she has for good.

She did not have the same sorrows to which Wang Wei refers - her parents are long dead and she was unmarried and childless.  Would her heart have been even more wounded if she had the burden of worrying about a surviving mother and daughter? 

I do not share Wang Wei's sense of failure.  Of course, there may have been more I could have done for her.  But she would have done what she would do, regardless of my counsel.  She lived out her time in Way.  And so, without the bitterness, I return to my own brush-and-bramble gate.

Do not go gentle into that good Dao

Dylan Thomas was not a Daoist. 

This thought comes to mind today as I mourn my aunt's passing.  She was 77 and in chronically bad health for some time.  She had to go to the emergency room at about one this morning and I sat with her there for a couple of hours.  I thought she had stabilized and would be admitted and would be there when I awoke at daybreak.  But no, the call came while the dark still hung in the air, the call that no one ever wants to answer, the call from my sister to say that Aunt Pat had died.

As I sat with her in those last hours she did not relax, she did not sigh and give over to mortality.  She fidgeted and tried to talk, even though only about half of the words were audible.  Her rage came through.  She wanted to be in a more comfortable bed, she wanted to be rid of the IVs, she wanted to be home.  It brought Dylan Thomas to mind:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This runs in my family.  My father (my aunt Pat was my mother's sister, unrelated to him) loved Thomas as did my mother.  She had me read that poem at my father's graveside eighteen years ago - fitting, since the poem itself is a son speaking to a father.  So even though my aunt was from the other side of the family, she was true to this form: she would not simply accept death, she would press back against it as long as she could, she would not go gentle into that good night.

And this marks my divergence from the family pattern.  Although I have yet to confront my own demise, in recent years as I have faced the loss of my mother and my son I have found solace in Chuang Tzu and his acceptance all that comes.  He counsels us not to rage, rage against the dying of the light, but to embrace each transformation, even the physical transformation of death, as a marvel.   When one of his characters is facing  his end and is asked if he resented it, he replies:

This life we're given comes in its own season, and then follows its vanishing away.  If you're at ease in your season, if you can dwell in its vanishing, joy and sorrow never touch you.  This is what the ancients called getting free.  If you can't get free, you're tangled in things. And things have never overcome heaven.  So what is there to resent. (92)

My aunt did not have it wrong.  She expressed her inner Integrity, her De.  Raging against death was a part of who she was, just as it was for my father and mother and Dylan Thomas.  Indeed, there was much that was good in her life, much that she did not want to relinquish: she was a gifted teacher who helped countless children learn how to read; she was a generous neighbor; a lover of animals; and she shared with me her love for her family and her hometown, Washington DC.  I may have a different orientation to death (at least I think I do) but she followed Way where it led her.

Catherine Patricia Lane, July 24, 1931 - January 30, 2009

Rest in Peace

Taoist Thanksgiving Thoughts

Back in 2005, when this blog was only a few months old, I wrote a post, "A Taoist Thanksgiving," which I have returned to over the years.  It places my son, Aidan, who died two and a half years ago, at the center of my thinking that day.  I reproduce the pose below both as a reminder of what we might give thanks for, and as a remembrance of Aidan:

It is a perfect Thanksgiving morning here in Northwestern Massachusetts: a light snow, about 2 inches on the ground; a chill air; great conditions to be inside and cooking and eating all day.  Aidan and I are here by ourselves, however.  Maureen and Maggie are down in New York City, attending the famous parade.  So, we will do the whole feast thing tomorrow.  Today will be just about pie baking: I have a couple of small pumpkins to bake and make into a pie.  If I feel ambitious, perhaps an apple pie will follow.  That will make the house warm and comfortable.

     We are supposed to be thankful today, and I am.  But as I give thanks I can't help wondering: for what am I giving thanks and to whom?  As is my want, I fall back on Taoism to help clarify my thoughts.  And, through that exercise, I come to a somewhat startling realization: I give thanks for Aidan and his profound disability.  I know that sounds a bit bizarre - how could a parent be thankful for a child's disability? - but, as I think through it, I am happy to say that I am. 

   (For other parents thinking about disability, see this recent piece on disability; hap tip: Laura).

    First, let's think more generally about the act of thanksgiving.  In the Christian American context, that means giving thanks to God for all of the good things we have.  (We tend to skip over the bad things today; we focus on the good in order to balance out the bad).   What I like about this idea is the underlying assumption that we do not really control the course of our lives and we need to be humbly grateful for the good things that happen along the way.  I think that sentiment is consonant with Taoism.

   Of course, a Taoist (at least a philosophic Taoist) would not invoke a god figure as the ultimate controller of our destinies.  Rather, Way itself (Tao) is the all-inclusive, self-generating, continually unfolding complex reality that surrounds and shapes our lives.   So, a Taoist would recognize the one's subordination to Tao.  But would a Taoist give "thanks"? 

     In a way (pun!), yes.  Although Chuang Tzu tells us that fully apprehending the uncontrollable power of Tao should lead us to let go of virtually all emotions ("joy and sorrow never touch you" 92), there is still room for gratefulness, even if gratefulness assumes a happiness for which to be grateful.  A Taoist can be grateful - and, indeed, can be happily enchanted - to witness or sense some small part of the wondrous richness of Tao.  This is not a function of education or age: even the smallest and weakest infant simultaneously absorbs and expresses a corner of Tao. Indeed, the immaturity and naivety of the infant is presented as the best state from which to experience Tao:

Embody Integrity's abundance
and you're like the vibrant child...
      - Tao Te Ching 55

     A Taoist, then, would give thanks, in the sense of recognizing and gratefully subordinating oneself to uncontrollable forces of Tao that shape our lives and produce the good (as well as the bad) around us.

     It is in that spirit that I give thanks.  And as I give thanks in that way (Way), with Aidan silently sitting next to me in his wheelchair, air rattling in and out of his tracheostomy tube, I am thankful for him in precisely the way that he is.  I do not regret his disabilities (this is not Regretsgiving Day, after all).  Of course, if I were some omnipotent divinity able to determine the conditions of his life, I would call a do-over and have him fully abled in all the ways he is not now.  But I am not omnipotent.  I am subordinated to Tao, and Tao moves as it will, with no heed to my desires or expectations.

     But can I be positively grateful for his disability?  Yes.  I can because I have come to see that his experience of Tao is just as valuable and worthwhile as any other experience of Tao.  He cannot speak or see or stand; but he can hear and touch and feel the warmth and love around him.  He takes in Tao and adds to Tao in his own, unique way.  I may think my own understanding of the world around me is greater or more significant than his, but philosophic Taoists would scoff at such arrogance.  It is, after all, the immature and naive infant who can "embody Integrity's abundance."  It is, after all, our human-created knowledge that can obstruct our view of Tao. 

    To be perfectly honest (and I have said this elsewhere), if I had a choice, I would not change places with him.  I am too used to and happy with my abilities to experience Tao that I would be loath to give them up.  But that might just be my own lack of understanding.  Yet, whatever my own hesitations, I can be fully grateful for him, in precisely the form he is.  It is he, as he is, who has fundamentally challenged my world view and opened up to me the serenity of philosophic Taoism.  It is he, as he is, who has had myriad good effects on the people around him.  It is he, as he is, who is a perfect expression of the wholeness of Tao in himself. 

     So, Happy Thanksgiving.  We are happy here.  We are thankful.  And among that many things I am grateful for today is Aidan and his profound disability.

   (For other parents thinking about disability, see this recent piece on disability; hap tip: Laura).

    First, let's think more generally about the act of thanksgiving.  In the Christian American context, that means giving thanks to God for all of the good things we have.  (We tend to skip over the bad things today; we focus on the good in order to balance out the bad).   What I like about this idea is the underlying assumption that we do not really control the course of our lives and we need to be humbly grateful for the good things that happen along the way.  I think that sentiment is consonant with Taoism.

   Of course, a Taoist (at least a philosophic Taoist) would not invoke a god figure as the ultimate controller of our destinies.  Rather, Way itself (Tao) is the all-inclusive, self-generating, continually unfolding complex reality that surrounds and shapes our lives.   So, a Taoist would recognize the one's subordination to Tao.  But would a Taoist give "thanks"? 

     In a way (pun!), yes.  Although Chuang Tzu tells us that fully apprehending the uncontrollable power of Tao should lead us to let go of virtually all emotions ("joy and sorrow never touch you" 92), there is still room for gratefulness, even if gratefulness assumes a happiness for which to be grateful.  A Taoist can be grateful - and, indeed, can be happily enchanted - to witness or sense some small part of the wondrous richness of Tao.  This is not a function of education or age: even the smallest and weakest infant simultaneously absorbs and expresses a corner of Tao. Indeed, the immaturity and naivety of the infant is presented as the best state from which to experience Tao:

Embody Integrity's abundance
and you're like the vibrant child...
      - Tao Te Ching 55

     A Taoist, then, would give thanks, in the sense of recognizing and gratefully subordinating oneself to uncontrollable forces of Tao that shape our lives and produce the good (as well as the bad) around us.

     It is in that spirit that I give thanks.  And as I give thanks in that way (Way), with Aidan silently sitting next to me in his wheelchair, air rattling in and out of his tracheostomy tube, I am thankful for him in precisely the way that he is.  I do not regret his disabilities (this is not Regretsgiving Day, after all).  Of course, if I were some omnipotent divinity able to determine the conditions of his life, I would call a do-over and have him fully abled in all the ways he is not now.  But I am not omnipotent.  I am subordinated to Tao, and Tao moves as it will, with no heed to my desires or expectations.

     But can I be positively grateful for his disability?  Yes.  I can because I have come to see that his experience of Tao is just as valuable and worthwhile as any other experience of Tao.  He cannot speak or see or stand; but he can hear and touch and feel the warmth and love around him.  He takes in Tao and adds to Tao in his own, unique way.  I may think my own understanding of the world around me is greater or more significant than his, but philosophic Taoists would scoff at such arrogance.  It is, after all, the immature and naive infant who can "embody Integrity's abundance."  It is, after all, our human-created knowledge that can obstruct our view of Tao. 

    To be perfectly honest (and I have said this elsewhere), if I had a choice, I would not change places with him.  I am too used to and happy with my abilities to experience Tao that I would be loath to give them up.  But that might just be my own lack of understanding.  Yet, whatever my own hesitations, I can be fully grateful for him, in precisely the form he is.  It is he, as he is, who has fundamentally challenged my world view and opened up to me the serenity of philosophic Taoism.  It is he, as he is, who has had myriad good effects on the people around him.  It is he, as he is, who is a perfect expression of the wholeness of Tao in himself. 

     So, Happy Thanksgiving.  We are happy here.  We are thankful.  And among that many things I am grateful for today is Aidan and his profound disability.

More Taoist Parenting, Please...

This story in the New Yorker, about "over-parenting," made me think of the possibilities and virtues of Taoist parenting, which I have contemplated here.  This excerpt provides some idea of the problem of overbearing parents:

  Finally comes the Last Judgment: college applications. Admissions officers, it is said, don’t know what to make of application forms these days—many of them have so clearly been filled out by someone other than the applicant. If the parents don’t feel up to the job, they can turn to IvyWise, a service that, for a fee ranging from three thousand to forty thousand dollars, gives students a course in how to get into college. IvyWise’s offerings include “Application Boot Camp,” on how to complete the forms, and “Essay Writing Workshop,” on how to get the application essay into “optimal shape for submission.” Careful parents don’t have to wait for application time, however. IvyWise will also advise high-school freshmen and sophomores on which courses and extracurricular activities to choose, so that two or three years later, when the application process begins, they won’t make the awful discovery that they have been spending their time on classes and clubs that will not please admissions committees.

    Parents filling out their child's college applications...pathetic. And this comes after all sorts of micro-parenting (how's that for a neologism!), getting down into every detail of a kid's life.

     While Chuang Tzu and the Tao Te Ching say almost nothing explicit about parenting, the sensibilities of these texts would push against too much adult intervention in the lives of children.   Making that real in modern life is a difficult thing - parents are, after all, responsible for what their children do or do not do.  But as a general proposition it is well worth keeping mind (especially with teenagers!): let them make their own choices, their own mistakes, their own ways.  Yes, we have to try to keep certain bad things from happening, but we cannot make children something they are not or cannot be.  Indeed, passage 51 of the Tao Te Ching might be taken as parenting advice:

Way gives birth to them and Integrity nurtures them.

Matter shapes them and conditions complete them.

That is why the ten thousand things always honor Way and treasure Integrity.

Honoring Way and treasuring Integrity isn’t obedience to command, it’s occurrence perennially appearing of itself.

Way gives birth to them and Integrity nurtures them: it fosters and sustains them, harbors and succors them, nourishes and shelters them.

Giving birth without possessing, animating without subjecting, fostering without dominating: that is called dark-enigma Integrity.

     This suggests that parents are almost unnecessary.  Children are born of Way and nurtured by Integrity, the unique characteristics that inhere in them and interact with others in Way.  Of course, just like the idea of wu-wei, or doing nothing, we needn't take this as absolute.  Perhaps it is not telling us that parents should do nothing when in comes to raising and guiding their children; rather it is suggesting that parents might want to do less in terms of imposing expectations and demands on their kids.  Less can be better.  Or, to refer to the elegant Tao Te Ching text, parents might want to remember: Giving birth without possessing, animating without subjecting, fostering without dominating....

Realizing our Parents

    Laura, at 11D, calls our attention to an article in the Sunday NYT Magazine by Bob Morris, in which he reflects upon his desires to push his elderly father to physical activity beyond what the older man wants.   Laura sums it up nicely in her title, "improving our parents."   The story Morris tells ends with some regret that he pushed his father too hard.

     I know this feeling, having watched my mother die slowly, over the course of two years or so, of cancer (my father died suddenly of a heart attack years before).  There were times during her illness when I pressed and prodded her to do more and better than she was.  And there were times when I had to make big decisions that she resisted.   Morris gets at the selfish undercurrent of such anxieties:

...What he really needed was more affection, not exercise. Yet I kept trying to impose my will on both my parents right to the end. How dare they become so old?

I think about them now, when I go out walking with such determination it’s almost as if I’m trying to walk away from myself....

     The demise of our parents, inevitable as it may be, is a picture of our own demise, and that is one reason why we are so uncomfortable with it.  When faced with the physical decline of a loved one, we have to walk a fine line between doing what is best for them and what is most pleasing and affirming to ourselves.  Knowing the right action is not easy.  But we have to struggle to find the right thing.  Mencius comes to mind, my mind at least.  In describing one of the great sage-rulers, Shun, Mencius says that he

...knew that if you don't realize your parents you aren't a person, and if you don't lead your parents to share your wisdom you aren't a child.

 I like that rendition, "realize your parents."  What he means is that in our own actions, as we perform our daily duties, we are not only doing for ourselves but we are enacting the honor and respect of our parents.  That sounds like a heavy burden, and Confucians mean it to be a conscious responsibility.   But it is precisely in that activity that we make ourselves human.  Notice, too, how Mencius expects us to lead our parents to share our wisdom.  In other words, as we grow to adulthood there will be things we know better than them, and these things we must share with them, that is our responsibility as children.

      Whatever his regrets in pushing too far, Morris was right to seriously engage the question of what it was that his father needed.  He tried to do the right thing.  The biggest challenge is to keep our own expectations about what we think they want from getting in the way of realizing them.

Do Children Need Fathers?

    That may seem an odd question to some, but it is inspired by a piece over at Slate by Emily Yoffe.  A couple of excerpts:

In the last 50 years, there has been an extraordinary decoupling of marriage and procreation. In 1960 about 5 percent of births were to unwed mothers; that figure is now a record high of nearly 40 percent. Out-of-wedlock births used to be such a source of shame that families tried to hide them: Singer Bobby Darin was born to a teen mother and raised to believe she was his sister. But now out-of-wedlock births are greeted with a shrug. Some say they're an understandable response to economic realities. Others say they're a liberating change from the shotgun-wedding ethic that shackled two unsuitable people together for life.

...

...Some researchers identify out-of-wedlock births as the chief cause for the increasing stratification and inequality of American life, the first step that casts children into an ever more rigid caste system. Studies have found that children born to single mothers are vastly more likely to be poor, have behavioral and psychological problems, drop out of high school, and themselves go on to have out-of-wedlock children.

     Yoffe is sensible: she does not advocate keeping all bad, abusive marriages together.  But she sees the negative effects, especially economic effects, that single parenthood brings to children.  Thus my question.

      In an ideal sense, yes, children benefit from having a mother and a father (I am thinking socially here, not biologically).  A certain household division of labor, which need not the traditional dad as breadwinner and mom as homemaker, can be good for parenting.  When one is working, the other can focus on the kid(s).  A male/female paring might be good in that it exposes the child(ren) to different world views (to the extent that there are different male and female sensibilities, which, in a general sort of way, I think there are).  But this is the ideal, and not all situations live up to the ideal.

     In judging circumstances that appear, for whatever reason, less than ideal, I think the main criteria should be love and attention and care.  Those are the most essential parental qualifications.  If they can be provided by a single mother, or two mothers or two fathers, so be it.  Indeed, it might be better to keep an uncaring biological father out of the picture, if doing so will allow a single mother to give her child(ren) the love and attention and care they need.  If a father's presence disrupts or diminishes the love and attention and care children require, then he is not needed.

      The converse would also then be true.  There could be situations where a mother is the problem.  If a father can do the job better by himself, if the mother is abusive or addicted or whatever, then there is nothing magic about keeping her around.  Yes, such separations can be painful for children.  They should only be considered if (and I am sounding mighty consequentialist here) the the amount of love and attention and care would be increased.   That might be a hard calculation to make but it would, I believe, serve the "best interests of the child(ren)."

     If there is an economic cost to single parenthood, that might be addressed by public policy. We should not maintain relationships that undermine love and attention and care on economic grounds alone.  In those cases where it can be clearly demonstrated that single parenting is better for the child(ren) than a traditional dual mother/father arrangement, then some sorts of educational and/or insurance programs for the child(ren) might be enacted to address the shortfall.  It would have to be carefully crafted so as not to create a significant incentive to single parenthood.   But neither should loving and caring single parents necessarily have to bear such  significant economic costs.

    But what about the young woman who decides to have a child with no thought of marriage.  Is she acting recklessly and subjecting herself and her child to likely poverty?  Perhaps.  Yoffe has the statistics that suggest this is the case for too many young women.  Should we somehow disallow such pregnancies (as if we could)?   This is where I will make my usual turn: What would Confucius say?

     First the obvious caveats.  In his own time, Confucius obviously assumed a traditional household division of labor (with perhaps a couple of concubines thrown into the mix).  Child rearing was assumed to be women's work, and husbands were supposed to provide material support and moral guidance to the family.  But that was then.  This is now.  What might a modern Confucian perspective be on single parenthood?

      The first Confucian question would be: why are you having this child?  If it is simply a matter of "being cool," then she should be dissuaded, as much as that is possible.  Some number of young mothers and fathers may see a child as a status symbol, as something that marks their own significance and importance in the community.  Those, a Confucian would say, are bad reasons to have a child.  We should have children in order to create a new web of loving relationships through which we define our duties, which we then carry out conscientiously (i.e. through "ritual"), as a means to realize humanity in the world.  It is a social-moral thing, not a personal-status thing.

     I imagine few young people actually think in those terms.  I didn't when I was contemplating our children.  And that, Confucians would argue, is a broader failure of society and elders.  Young people need to be taught, they need to be educated on matters of humanity and duty and ritual.  Their parents should be doing that, fathers as well as mothers; and, as Mencius reminds us, so should the public schools.  That may seem an old-fashioned and, perhaps outmoded idea (moral education in public schools) but that is what Confucius would say.

      Now, if a young woman was truly thinking of having a child in order to expand humanity in the world, then a Confucian would not necessarily stop her.  Again, it might be ideal to have two parents, of whatever genders, but the main thing would be the commitment to and actual performance of the duties of motherhood.  If she can provide the love and attention and care the child needed, then there is no substantive reason to criticize her. 

      In the end, then, a Confucian might answer "maybe not," if asked "do children need fathers?" 

Admonish Them Gently

 Thandiwe D. Watts-Jones has a nice little piece in the Westchester section of today's NYT about her aging mother' habit of hoarding things:

She must save everything. In the pile of dust I had gathered with a broom, she bent down to pick out, dust off, a single paper clip. The boxes of them in the desk drawer, the metal containers of them on top of the desk and the kitchen table do not allow her to leave it in the dirt.

Sheets of used foil, used paper towels to be recycled, I understand. But then there are the Styrofoam trays that meat, sometimes vegetables come packaged in, rising up the wall above the toaster. The freezer looks as if it belongs to someone who once came close to death from starvation. It is forcefully packed, tight as drum skin, and it never changes between visits. Can it be that she never takes anything from it to eat, or is this state of rigor renewed again and again?

      She wants to do something, to push against the clutter and chaos, but her short visits with her mother do not provide sufficient time for the delicate work of cajoling her to let go of the useless and unused.  And she does not want to give things up, as she comes to understand:

I offer to make a dent, a small one, in a single counter. It’s the one cluttered with sample size bottles of Lubriderm and Eucerin, a large pump bottle of Estée Lauder lotion, tubes of hand cream, a jar of Peter Pan peanut butter, adhesive tape, an empty Cingular Wireless phone box and, most prolific, plastic bags folded neat and flat into 64ths, some bunched in a pile with rubber bands at the front of the counter and others overflowing from a plastic container, hundreds maybe. You can’t see the can opener unless you pull the bags forward to reveal it. How easy, I thought, to put all the plastic bags in a shopping bag and put them in a pantry corner.

“Just leave me alone,” she finally yells, after I offer to move the bags.

“I’m just trying to be helpful.”

“I know, but you’re nagging me,” she says.

I was done.

  She backs off and lets her be.  Instead of imposing her sense of order on her mother, she tries to see through her eyes:

I’ve learned so much from this teacher, most of all the love of learning. But now, she is being swallowed in the proliferation of mundane objects, paper, plastic and metal.

Or perhaps the word is comforted.

    Watts-Jones made me think of my own struggles with my mother, when she was dying of cancer and I was unsure of how to proceed.  I made mistakes of overstepping boundaries at times but occasionally was able to step back as Watts-Jones suggests.   And I am reminded once again of passage 4.18 from the Analects:

The Master said: "In serving your mother and father, admonish them gently.  If they understand, and yet choose not to follow your advice, deepen you reverence without losing faith.  And however exhausting this may be, avoid resentment.

     Watts-Jones does just that.

Mencian Child-Rearing

    Jeremiah, over at the new and improved Granite Studio, calls me out on the question of child-rearing in Mencius.  Glad to be of service...

    He is discussing the "household instructions" left by a scholar-official long about the seventh century or so.  Unsurprisingly, it recommends strict methods of child-rearing.  This passage jumped out at me:

…As soon as a baby can recognize facial expressions and understand approval and disapproval, training should be begun so that he will do what he is told to do and stop when so ordered. After a few years of this, punishment with the bamboo can be minimized, as parental strictness and dignity mingled with parental love will lead the boys and girls to a feeling of respect and caution and give rise to filial piety.

    I have to admit that, as a father of a teenager, the "punishment with bamboo" sounds pretty good.... but I digress.
 
     Jeremiah rightly notes the Xunzi-like pessimism behind such sentiments: people are generally bad and must be beat into goodness.  He arrays this against Mencian optimism, in his words:

One final point, given the Confucian (or at least Mencian) emphasis on the innate goodness of human nature, it is interesting that Mr. Yan sees children as needing to be shaped and molded, especially early on, reminiscent more of Xunzi (and the parable of the warped wood) rather than Mencius

 I would suggest a slight revision here.  Yes, Mencius was certainly more optimistic about human nature, but he, too, believed that, in order to draw out our innately good nature, children (and adults!) have to be "shaped and molded."   The key difference is how it is to be done.  My sense is that a Mencian approach would rely less on Legalistic "clear laws and harsh punishments" and more on positive inducements and exemplary modeling.  Take this passage, for example:

Human nature is inherently good, just like water flows inherently downhill.  There's no such thing as a person who isn't good, just as there's no water that doesn't flow downhill.

Think about water: if you slap it, you can make it jump over your head; and if you push and shove, you can make it stay on a mountain.  But what does this have to do with the nature of water? It's only responding to the forces around it.  It's like that for people too: you can make them evil, but that says nothing about human nature.  (11.2)

       Parents must learn how to channel their children's nature toward their better angels.  Interesting how he adduces the negative example: "you can make them evil."  That is, the natural tendency is toward goodness but, if you don't watch out, they can respond to negative stimuli and turn out bad. As to positive inducements v. negative punishments (carrots v. sticks), this passage comes to mind:

...But once people have plenty of food and warm clothes, they lead idle lives.  This is their Way.  Then, unless they're taught, they're hardly different from the birds and animals.  The sage-emperor worried about this.  He made Hsieh minister of education so the people would be taught about the bonds of human community: affection between father and son, Duty between sovereign and subject, responsibility between husband and wife, proper station between young and old, sincerity between friend and friend.

Yao said:

Encourage them and reward them.
Help them and perfect them.
Support them and give them wings,
and reveal them to themselves.
Then you will bring Integrity alive in them. (5.4)

      I believe this is the only time that the "five relationships" are mentioned explicitly in Mencius (they are not directly mentioned in The Analects, I believe).  And, notice, they have to be taught.  People must learn the proper conduct toward others; their natural tendency toward the good needs to be made socially concrete and actionable.  Observe also that there is no mention of whipping them with bamboo poles.  Rather, the emphasis is on encouragement and reward and support.

     We often think of "Chinese" or "Confucian" parenting strategies as relying on strict rules and harsh punishments, like those mentioned in the text Jeremiah discusses.  But these are not "Confucian," not in the Mencian (and I would say the Analectian - can I do that, make an adjective out of Analetcs...?)  expression of that tradition.   This is just another example of how Legalism infects the definition of Chinese-ness under the guise of Confucianism. 

Walking the Dogs with Confucius and Chuang Tzu

     When I am around my dogs - two beagle-mutts, Rudy and Larry - I am more Confucian than Taoist.

   I was reminded of this again today when my wife and I took them both for a walk.   As we made our way toward the fields by the town dump, she reached down and unleashed Larry.

     "What are you doing?" I asked.

     "Oh, I always let them run here."

      I knew that.  She tells me how she lets them off their leashes and watches them run free.  But I cringed.  Dogs, to me, have to be kept under a modicum of control.  When off the lead, they should respond to commands, they should return when called.  Neither Rudy nor Larry does this.  They just run and run, hardly heading a whistle or call.

     Nonetheless, I gave in and let Rudy go, and he dashed after his dog-brother.

     We walked along, the dogs sensing our position and circling around us but very much absorbed in the various sights and smells they were encountering.  Up to the big, open fields we went.  Larry looked beautiful.  He is the younger and thinner and faster of the two, and he runs like the wind, effortlessly, with exhilarating speed.  My wife remarked upon his grace.  I worried that he would not come back to us when it was time to go.

     And that is what happened.  We retraced our path and returned to the place where we had unleashed them, near a busy main road back to our house.  Rudy, slower and fatter, ambled up beside me and I was easily able to reattach his lead.  Larry was quite a different story.  He raced by us, not heading our calls, and shot into the backyard of a nearby house.  We called, he ran.  This went on for about ten solid minutes and all the while I was thinking to myself what a mistake it had been to let him run free.  He was setting the agenda, not us - and that is not how a dog should be handled.

      I gave up and took Rudy home.  Our house was very close and I figured I could return with Rudy's leash and some dog biscuits to lure Larry back.  Maybe with the two of us working at it we could corral him.  By the time I found my way back, only about five minutes later, my wife was on her way home, Larry excitedly pulling at the now-attached leash.

      The whole affair got me to thinking.  In most ways, I am the more Taoist of the two of us.  My wife has a good dose of Catholic-Christian propriety that infuses her daily activities and interactions.  There are, for her, clear standards of right and wrong and we should consistently follow them.  All of which is rather Confucian, at least to my mind.  I, on the other hand, have somewhat blurrier expectations.  I am not as quick to correct our teenage daughter and I am generally slower to outrage or anger.  Chuang Tzu often drifts through my mind.  Except when it comes to walking the dogs.

     She clearly believes that Larry and Rudy should be able to fully express their inner integrity, their Te, which obviously includes running free.  And to see Larry zooming along is to see him in his most natural state, finding his place in Tao.  Leashes are artificial human creations designed to distort the inherent character of dogs.  We try to bend them to our will, shape them according to our preferences - all very un-Way-like, indeed.

      But just as her incipient Taoism does not extend much beyond the dog world (perhaps the cat would count, too), my inner Confucian, usually imperceptible, comes storming out when the canines are near.  I could offer a Taoist defense: it is "natural" for a person, perhaps especially a guy, to want to control a dog, to bring it under command; it is in keeping with my own integrity (Te).  But that doesn't really cut it.  The better Taoist stance is my wife's: let the dogs run free.  But I just can't do it.  I worry that they will bother someone or, worse, run out in front of a car and get killed.  I cannot face the possibilities that the loss of control implies.

     It is not just the dogs, of course.  I am not really as Taoist as I might like to think - though I would never call myself Confucian.  Rather, I am just a standard issue human being: jumbled and inconsistent, alternating between a Confucian desire for propriety and a Taoist embrace of freedom.