Mencius’s mother taught by self-sacrifice and guilt rather than pain

Evidence

This is — and I want to underline what this is — the opposite of corporal punishment. This is parental self-sacrifice in the service of the child’s moral formation. The cost the Mengmu pays is the cost she pays. The lesson her son learns is one he chooses to internalize because he sees what his behavior cost his mother. The mechanism is guilt and gratitude, not fear. — , The Rod and the Child, 925

Categorization

• SEED: Rebuttal material for tiger-mother discourse: the canonical exemplar is self-cost, not severity.
• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s Mencius anecdote and to Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn reception discussed later. — connects to: Coercion is pedagogically backward under Mencius’s view of innate goodness. — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 4048

Related

• Coercion is pedagogically backward under Mencius’s view of innate goodness. (similarity 0.85)
• The canonical Mengmu anecdotes contain no corporal punishment at all (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Coercion is pedagogically backward under Mencius’s view of innate goodness. #expands (0.65) — , The Rod and the Child, 4048