To what ends do we raise children?  In a new book, Amy Chua and Jeb Rubenfeld argue the most successful children are those who harbor feelings of a large group inferiority complex, insecurity, and impulse control.  Nurturing feelings of inferiority and insecurity, they suggest, along with cultivating the ability to reject immediate gratification for long term gain, allow people to accomplish more than those who are being raised amidst constant encouragement, commendation, and plaudits designed to elevate their self-esteem and, presumably, their desire to accomplish and succeed.
     Chua (also famous (or infamous) for her thesis of the "Tiger Mom") and Rosenfeld's thesis will undoubtedly stir significant controversy.  My intent here is not to argue the merits of their position as much as it is to consider a larger issue:  what are we really trying to do as we raise our children?
     Much of this depends, I suppose, on our starting point.  Most parents decide to have children because they wish to enjoy them, because they wish to enrich their lives with offspring.  In addition, most parents cannot help but raise their children according to various sets of values and assumptions about life and living.  Also, all parents cannot but help wish certain things or goals for their children.  And most parents want their children to "succeed," although their views of success vary widely.
     In the end, however, what parents eventually (we hope) come to realize is that their children will never be like them.  Their children will never be everything their parents may have envisioned for them.  They are their own selves, their own person, uniquely gifted and singularly visioned.  The world into which parents are therefore bringing children will be a world that, try as they might, they cannot possibly predict.
     So to what ends are we raising children?  Nothing more, I hope, than to learn that life is far bigger than the things with which we try to fill it.  Our children will live lives in a universe whose foundations and meaning and intentions exceed anything that we think it can be, a mystery we can never make.  Ultimately, they're in no one's hands but God's.