Enough of tiger moms and wolf dads

Thomas Friedman wrote in his column, "How about better parents?" (The New York Times, Nov 19), that parent involvement is key to student success.

Fed up with the status quo of American education, and desperate for an alternative model, some readers peppered the word "Asian" throughout the comments section for Friedman's article. One reader wrote: " the question among the coaches was the usual, why were so many of our top students are Asian. I asked when was the last time they had an Asian parent complain about too much homework."

This statement, however, proves nothing except the theory of relativity in human opinions. Asian parents in the United States rarely complain about children's homework because it is a picnic compared to what we had to go through in our younger days in our home country. But in Asian countries, like any other, complaints abound. In China, I constantly hear parents complain that their children cannot go to bed till 11 pm because they have too many assignments.