Legal Commentary

An Economist Critiques the Tiger Mother

By David Bernstein

An excellent post by my friend and GMU economist Bryan Caplan. It starts:

Before you do something for your child, try asking yourself three questions.

1. Do I enjoy it?
2. Does my child enjoy it?
3. Are there any long-run benefits?

And concludes:

I strongly suspect that Chua?s daughters will turn out just fine. Indeed, they?ll excel. That?s what the children of two Yale professors usually do, however their parents raise them. I?m even willing to bet that Chua?s daughters won?t purge her when they grow up. Still, a sad fact remains: All three women in the Chua family needless suffered for thousands of hours because the mom couldn?t calmly ask and answer my three simple questions.

You?ll also want to pre-order Bryan?s book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on February 02, 2011 (boomark / email).