NSBE - Winter 2013 - (Page 22)

Tiger ‘‘W NSBE Moms Discuss the Art of Parenting “You haven’t gone over all of your tests, have you? Have you got them right? Oh, you got it? OK, now get out a sheet of paper, and write it down. I want the three parts of a tree and their function.” “This isn’t a game!” she seems to yell over her shoulder as she returns to discussing how she is preparing her children for a future in which competition for the better jobs will play out on a global stage even more intense than today’s. Mack, a project manager at CH2M Hill in Washington, D.C., and a chemical engineering graduate of Florida A&M University, is not alone as a mother who insists on weekly routines that involve early rising, making beds with military tucks, bathroom time, then breakfast, then school, followed immediately by homework, perhaps an outdoor activity, dinner, chores, more homework, then lights out early to start again the next day. During the week, there is no television, no video games, no surfing the web, no Facebook. Such luxuries are reserved for the weekends, providing the week went well. “Our home is about military precision. We don’t turn TV on during the week, except for the news,” says T. Chandler, attorney, science writer, and president of NSBE’s Summer Engineering Experience for Kids (SEEK) Parent Volunteer Organization. “We expect excellence without foolishness. You are not just competing with kids in the U.S. Understand that when you are not doing your job, there’s a kid in China, India, Russia, you name it, waiting to come here and do it better than you.” Eye of the ait a minute.” Jamiyo Mack, P.E., lifetime member of NSBE, politely cuts short her phone interview to handle a situation, altering her tone as if on cue. engineering and math (STEM) fields. China and India each produce hundreds of thousands of engineers per year (the exact numbers are disputed), and most engineers in those countries work for a small fraction of the wages paid in the United States. Employers in the U.S., increasingly international in their business outlook, are more and more willing to move jobs to the most attractive talent, or vice versa. Competition for jobs among U.S.-born engineers is also very strong. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that approximately 53,000 engineering job openings will be created in the U.S. each year through 2020. That sounds like a big number, until one considers that 77,400 U.S.-born students received bachelor’s degrees in engineering in 2011, according to the federal government. Mack and Chandler call themselves “Tiger Moms” and take pride in the moniker popularized by Yale law professor Amy Chua. The latter’s 2001 memoir, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” ignited a global debate with its story of her often strict parenting techniques. Chua’s tongue-in-cheek “how-to” manual defined what she called the ideal “Chinese mother” and used that term to describe parents of any ethnicity who practice traditional, strict child-rearing. She contrasted those views with what she called a “Western” approach that placed a child’s self-esteem over results. Chua admitted her methods were often extreme. In one passage, she detailed threatening to burn her older daughter’s stuffed animals if the child didn’t improve her piano playing. In another, the author said she threw unimpressive birthday cards back at her young girls and ordered them to make better ones. None of the NSBE moms we talked with condoned going that www.nsbe.org TighT MarkeTs, TighT ships Chandler has a point. Global competition for high-skill, high-paying jobs is fierce, even in many science, technology, 22 • nsbe magazine • winter 2013 http://www.nsbe.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NSBE - Winter 2013

NSBE - Winter 2013
Contents
Graduation! Pump Up the Party
Clean Up Your Digital Brand
Reelected
ITW’s Dr. Alexander Anim- Mensah
Steven Henderson of Life Technologies
Patricia Edmonds of NAVAIR
Franklin E. Leaven Jr. of GE Transportation
General Mills: Winning through Diversity
Eye of the Tiger
39TH ANNUAL CONVENTION PREVIEW
Golden Torch Honorees
The Professional’s Perspective
Trailblazers
Professional Development Conference Recap
CE Cover CODE2040: Grooming Business Leaders in Silicon Valley
Uhuru: Freedom
‘To Increase the Number…’
NSBE Calendar
NCEES Employer Profile
Advertisers Index

NSBE - Winter 2013