Wow, this is surprising, I don't agree with a Cracked writer! I mean, really, to call the experiment "creepy" without acknowledging that the main feeling that Judit and Susan recall is a loving family, is ridiculous.
The Polgar Family History
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I think superfluous and superficial research/writing is rather creepy.
So, he got together with his wife for what was presumably the most romantic dinner of all time and "submitted a request for research materials."
Submitted a request for research materials! That was fuggin' funny.
I would like to submit a request for research materials.
Lucky for Kasparov they didn't have a boy!
if u read about tennis parents u will think that Laszlo was pretty mild
Just an odd story I read about at cracked.com. Maybe this is already well known here, but I didn't know about this and found it very interesting. The parent article is "The 5 Creepiest Parenting Tactics Ever Attempted":
#3. Man Decides to Raise His Children as Chess Prodigies Before They Are Even Born
Laszlo Polgar, an educational psychologist from Hungary, fully believed in the idea that genius is something people learn rather than a trait they are born with, a radical viewpoint hotly contested by the docudrama Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2. Laszlo decided he would test his theory on his own children by seeing if he could hone them into brilliant chess players simply by exposing them to the game at a young age and having them train constantly throughout their adolescence. Makes sense. The problem was, he didn't actually have any children. Laszlo had devised an experiment wholly dependent on a group of test subjects that didn't exist.
It seemed only fitting when you consider all the hardcore fans of competitive chess.
So, he got together with his wife for what was presumably the most romantic dinner of all time and "submitted a request for research materials." The end result was three children -- Zsuzsa, Zsofia, and Judit, because Laszlo could apparently see into the future and wanted to frustrate Internet comedy writers and their spellcheck programs by drowning his children's names in unnecessary consonants. With a ready pool of subjects now available to him, Laszlo could begin testing his theory. We aren't necessarily saying that the only reason he had children was to prove his master thesis, but it was clearly his favorite reason.
Second favorite reason? Finally having someone to refer to as "his pawns."
Laszlo home-schooled all three of his daughters, starting their day off with a few hours of table tennis practice followed by a full eight hours of chess playing and research, because he apparently wanted to arm his daughters with all the tools necessary to get the shit hammered out of them at recess. Not that interacting with other kids was ever a problem -- his daughters never spent a day in an actual school, despite the fact that the government at one point threatened to toss him in a mental institution if he didn't have his children enrolled in the education system (he finally pacified them by agreeing to have his girls take the appropriate final exam each year to prove he wasn't destroying their futures).
The girls weren't allowed to play with any toys or any friends, because it would take up valuable time that could be devoted to perfecting their chess game. They were essentially raised as guinea pigs by a batshit Hungarian Santa Claus:
Fun is relative. Right?
However, it would appear that Laszlo was crazy like a fox -- all three of the girls became Grand Masters, while Judit is ranked among the top 20 chess players in the world and is considered the greatest female player of all time. And they're all grateful to Laszlo for his efforts, because pathological obsession, like genius, can be both taught and inherited.
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_20373_the-5-creepiest-parenting-tactics-ever-attempted.html#ixzz2rdLuhsfz