Pajiba

StewCol soothes the hurty

Also I think it would be great if Tom Hardy coached Lindsey in her sobriety, he's a true success story and he will be good for her.
And I believe she wont drag him down.

I have to point out that her name is spelled LindsAy, not because I'm an asshole (I am) but because I've taken to using her to tell other people how to spell my name: "My name is Lindsay, as in Lindsay Lohan only minus the coke addiction and jailtime." Gets a laugh every time, and very useful when you have a name like mine that has 27 different spellings.

(Noted and corrected, thanks, Lindsay, and my apologies to any Lindseys I may have unintentionally maligned with ze association.--JR)

I really hope that lion ate one of those guys.

Awww... big kitty.

Holy crap. There is just nothing okay about that Chua story. Nothing. That's verbal abuse, clear as can be. She wouldn't let the kid go to the bathroom until she played a piano piece correctly. But it's okay, because when she figured it out, they snuggled in bed after. Uh huh.

I'm not doubting Amy Chua's excerpt is racist (even if I think her argument is intentionally stereotypical and uses stereotypes as a source of humor to get at different parenting methodologies). I'm just doubting that other people haven't been similarly treated as a child seriously learning a musical instrument.

My asshole clarinet teacher left me in tears and gave me my first full-blown panic attack because I couldn't get a particularly tricky phrase in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto (3rd Movement) right for a looming audition. I begged my parents to let me find a new teacher and was told no. We rehearsed one passage over and over for five lessons until it magically clicked and I landed the audition.

It's par for the course in private music instruction. You go easy on a player that should be able to easily handle a piece and you give them permission to give up anytime they're challenged; you push hard, trying every technique you know, and they'll get it right. There's a difference between forcing a child to play music that's too advanced (that they just cannot play) and pushing a child to work on a piece well within their ability range.

Robert, the difference is your teacher wasn't your parent, and your teacher didn't/couldn't restrict food/water/toilet privileges.

Add to that her casual admittance of being ok with calling daughters "fat" and her general endorsement of crippling pressure to conform to very narrow definitions of success, which (see my previous comment) has been explicitly linked to high suicide rates among young Asian-American women, and you have one pretty fucked-up view of parental priorities.

Push your kids to do their best, but don't make it impossible for them to please you or earn your love. Unless you want their blood on your hands.

Amy Chua's daughters will murder her in her sleep. Otherwise, she'll live to she them disappoint her.

Nope, that shaper is killing your children. Still.

I agree with Robert. There comes a time when you've got to get the student to go past "just okay" when they are capable of playing a piece really well. As a mother of a cello player who wants to play well enough to get a symphony gig, sometimes you've got to force them through the barrier of difficulty to accomplish a piece that is at the top of their range. It expands their ability and confidence to be able to play something that they didn't believe they could.

That said, I never use punishment to get him to practice. Instead, I just insist he keeps going until we both can hear progress.

And, in defense of WSJ, sometimes I think they publish articles like this not as endorsements of particular mindsets, but to stimulate discussion and raise questions, in this case "Is there more we can do as parents to ensure our children's success in the world?"

Yeah, that Wiki page is crap. Next it'll be telling us that Indians didn't wear headdresses made of construction-paper feathers and say "How!" to each other all the time!

I sure wish I could trade my parents' love and gentle support during my childhood for some mad cello-playin' skills. Then I would have a truly fulfilling life. I knew something was missing, it just took Chua's article to really make me realize it.

My daughter was just recently diagnosed with a seizure disorder which manifests itself as several hundred absence seizures each day. Do you have any idea how guilty I now feel for even *thinking* she was slacking off?

Or give someone an orgasm.
Posted by: Pitter Patter Matter

Done!

I'm going to back up peachfish on the maternity shapewear. As a recently pregnant woman I own three sets of shapewear - a maternity Spanx, Assets tights, and medical grade compression tights. None of them compress the belly in any way. The firmness starts underneath so that the belly gets a bit of support and gives your back a break. They all start to compress around the hip area which is a good thing. Every pregnant woman needs to wear an undergarment that compresses just a little bit in order to prevent circulatory issues that are bad for both mother and baby, such as varicose veins, excess swelling, and poor circulation.

Re: Lion photo. Sound recording did exist prior to the 1927 release of "The Jazz Singer". Edison Company did research on film sound recording and some film companies introduced recording systems in the very first part of the 20th century; however, these lacked workable amplification & synchronization of sound with image was also a problem. When amplification technology became good enough in the 1920s, sound film projection became commercially viable.

I already knew a surprising amount of those common misconceptions. I'd like to think it's because I'm well read and knowledgeable but it's all the result of watching continuous QI repeats on Dave.

I hear you JenVegas, but I'm going to take the word of all the podiatrists and vein specialists that I know (which is a good number). Better to spend $60-70 on a pair of compression hose if you have a job that requires long periods of sitting or standing than play the genetic lottery with regards to circulation. Plus, then you automatically have an tough pair of tights to pair with maternity skirts. Fashion win.

@RobP

and proud of it! I teach media courses so yeah, I can truly nerd out on that stuff.

The Tiget Mother book is already out--I saw it at my local bookstore and read bits and pieces all the way through it. No, the WSJ piece isn't taken out of context. YES it really is that bad. It's that painful and abusive and racist all the way through the book, and I can't understand how she is still married after the gut-wrenching piece about her Mother-in-Law's (I'm pretty sure it was her MIL)death, and the subsequent beratement of the dead woman's lousy Western character.