The book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is getting some attention on the internet. In it, Amy Chua recounts her philosophy and experiences of "Chinese" motherhood. I haven't read the book, but it was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal, and here are another few anecdotes. A characteristic quote, from the mother to her daughter Lulu:
I gave the card back to Lulu. “I don’t want this,” I said. “I want a better one — one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. I have a special box, where I keep all my cards from you and Sophia, and this one can’t go in there.”
“What?” said Lulu in disbelief. I grabbed the card again and flipped it over. I pulled out a pen from my purse and scrawled ‘Happy Birthday Lulu Whoopee!’ I added a big sour face. “What if I gave you this for your birthday Lulu- would you like that? But I would never do that, Lulu. No — I get you magicians and giant slides that cost me hundreds of dollars. I get you huge ice cream cakes shaped like penguins, and I spend half my salary on stupid sticker and erase party favors that everyone just throws away. I work so hard to give you good birthdays! I deserve better than this. So I reject this.” I threw the card back.
Julianne Hing, a daughter of another--somewhat different--Chinese mother, adds her thoughts, which are also worth reading.
My thoughts? I have a few. First, I can't speak from experience about parenting, but I don't have any complaints about my childhood (with a dramatically different parenting style). Of course, I always was an academic high achiever and didn't need a dragon mother to get As; so I do wonder whether people who might otherwise be mediocre students would look back on a strict parenting style and credit it for their eventual success. So while I think Chua takes her style to extremes, I also suspect she may have a point, especially when she says "What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work." I suspect at this point all of my readers will jump in to comment from their experience--comments I would love to hear.
Second, I see the parenting style Chua describes in the parents of some of my students. While I don't know the parents themselves, I do hear stories of mothers not being satisfied with any grade less than an A, and kids attending five or six extracurricular academies to prepare them for a good life. I certainly have my share of discouraged kids and there are times I just want to stop teaching class and give the kids some rest, but for the most part they are resilient and quite gifted.
Finally, I take issue with Chua's metric for evaluating success, specifically the success of her kids. From Chua's perspective, to be successful is to be a well-educated professional who plays the piano and violin like a virtuoso. Yet so many of the people I admire, who I would call extremely successful, are so far out of this model. Being a local actor, singer-songwriter or designer is success if that's what you love. Working hard at athletics to play on the college sports team can be success. Learning and plying an honest trade for a living can be success. Chua's model has no space for these successes, and it seems somewhat cruel to force your children into your standards for success, when they could be finding their own. (This, of course, comes from Western-style individuality and self-actualization.)
Readers - thoughts?
What an interesting elaboration on your Korean teaching experience. I enjoyed the discussion following, most especially the comment that practicing the piano for 4 hours isn't as cognitively difficult as sleeping-over with 14 year old girls. Your parents seem to have produced A level students with much less hassle than is described. So did mine.
ReplyDeletegm
ps
ReplyDeleteAnd so did Jim and I.
gm
I liked Julianne Hing's mother's comments and I think that there are extremes in all styles of parenting. I would be interested to see what Chua's daughters have to say and whether they would parent like their mother. It goes agains my grain - that is for sure! And I agree with you Stephen - success can be seen in many ways - and who am I to say what should be your success. I was interested in the diverse philosophies that Amy and her husband hold about children and I imagine that he had some influence on their upbringing as well which I think probably makes them a bit more well rounded. Very interesting....
ReplyDeleteMom xoxo