During our Monday online meeting, my Korean student shared something her ten-year-old daughter had asked of her: “Please don’t criticize me in front of others.” The moment passed quickly, but it stayed with me. In that simple request lay something Asian cultures understand deeply—and yet often mishandle: face.
The child did not ask her mother to stop criticizing her. She only asked that it not be done in public because it made her lose face. Parents often underestimate how devastating public humiliation can be for children, especially in cultures where face is closely tied to self-worth. Losing face can feel like losing one’s place in the social world. For a child whose sense of self is still fragile and shaped by peer recognition, that loss can be overwhelming.
This reminded me of a tragic case in Wuhan, China, in 2020. A 14-year-old boy jumped to his death from a school building shortly after his mother slapped and scolded him with his friends watching in a public hallway at school. It is in such moments that cultural practice, when left unquestioned, can become dangerous.
In many Asian families, parents take ownership of their children’s misbehavior and feel justified correcting—or even physically disciplining—them in public. Whatever the intention, when discipline becomes public humiliation, it can erode a child’s face, dignity, and self-worth at a critical stage of development.
There is another layer to the Korean girl’s request. Raised in the United States, she was also asking to be recognized as a separate person. In many Asian families, children are not seen primarily as independent individuals, but as part of the family itself. Family ties are close—often closer than in American families—and this closeness offers protection, belonging, and a whole comfort zone.
Yet that same closeness can blur boundaries. What is often overlooked is that while a child belongs to the family, she also stands on her own footing. She needs privacy, respect, and the right to save face—especially in front of others.
In many American families, by contrast, children are seen early on as separate individuals whose dignity should be protected. Public criticism is generally discouraged. They take ownership of their own behavior. It's their business, not a reflection of their parents. This can feel liberating, especially when contrasted with public discipline in Asian households. But this approach has its own risks. Respect for individuality can slide into avoidance; guidance becomes negotiation, and authority softens into uncertainty and permissiveness.
Seen side by side, Asian parenting risks closeness without sufficient respect for separateness, while American parenting risks respect for separateness without sufficient closeness. Parenting, it turns out, is the difficult art of holding both—connection without erasure, and respect without retreat.
What makes this more troubling is that parenting—the form of knowledge that shapes the next generation most directly—is almost entirely absent from modern education. We train for careers, cultivate talents, and pursue self-realization, yet we are left to improvise when it comes to the art of parenting.
This absence becomes even more striking when viewed through the lens of Herbert Spencer’s hierarchy of knowledge. Spencer argued that the most important knowledge is practical rather than abstract: first, the knowledge needed to make a living; next, the knowledge required for family life and parenting; then the knowledge necessary for good citizenship; and only finally the knowledge that serves personal fulfillment and leisure.
If Spencer was right, then parenting should sit near the foundation of what we learn, before good citizenship and personal fulfillment. The child’s quiet request—“Please don’t criticize me in front of others”—may be more than a personal plea. It may be a reminder of how much we still need to learn before we assume the role of guiding another human life.