CHinese Parenting

No, this is not yet one of those blog about 'tiger mums'. On the contrary, its my lamentation about how poor chinese parenting can be sometimes.

I am not one who believes blindly, i need proof, i need the theory to be backed by grounded research. Hence, i find it awfully difficult to accept alot of the old wives tales which unfortunately, lands me into the 'rebellious, disobedient' books in the eyes of my elders.

For a start, I simply cannot understand the chinese confinement rules. Things like new mothers cannot wash hair, drink water, must wear socks, no aircon, all windows must be shut etc. I find them all absurd and against my logical thinking. I mean no washing hair? The most extreme i heard was no bathing! I like what my Gynae said, the objective of the confinement period is to make the mother rest & feel comfortable- no bathing is definately causing more stress than help.

Let me tell you how all these rules came about- i learnt this during my pre natal class during my first pregnancy. We all know that these rules came from our ancestors in China. Apparantly, in those days, the weather can be very extreme & cold. These rules were implemented to keep the mothers warm. Somehow these rules became warp as each generation pass it down to the next.

I watched on the television how other cultures (American) deal with their confinement- NOTHING SPECIAL! If anything, there's a welcome party at home for the mum & new baby when she arrives from the hospital. Guess what? They eat normal food like PIZZA, PASTA etc- nothing of our sort! So, if they can survive with none of our confinement nonsense, why not us?

My take is that the Chinese all way too superstitious and (forgive my language) suckers for old wives tales. We need to loosen up, analyse the rational behind each belief, throw out the extremely warp ones and keep only the logical ones. As for me and my house, we're going to stop this nonsense- i refuse to pass down anymore lies to my next generation!