2.33 Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011)

[emma-in-oz.livejournal.com]

2.33 Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011)

I am actually reluctant to review this book, because it is genuinely hard to write it without impugning the author.

There was a heap of articles and blog posts about the whole Tiger Mother concept earlier this year when the book came out (or, to put it another way, a furore), but I preferred to wait til it was available in the library. I knew it wouldn't be a keeper.

I don't want to get into whether Tiger Mothering is typically Chinese, as Chua argues but I would like to make one comment on her parenting philosophy which she summarises thus:

'Unlike your typical Western overscheduling soccer mom, the Chinese mother believes that (1) schoolwork always comes first; (2) an A-minus is a bad grade; (3) your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math; (4) you must never compliment your children in public; (5) if your child ever disagrees with a teacher or coach, you must always take the side of the teacher or coach; (6) the only activities your children should be permitted to do are those in which they can eventually win a medal; and (7) that medal must be gold.'

I have not thought to articulate my parenting philosophy but off the top of my head it would probably be along the lines of (1) the best thing you can give your children is a happy childhood; (2) you can't spoil a child by giving her love and attention; (3) children are all different so each should be given what they need; (4) but what they all need is love and affection.

So, it's pretty hard for me to comment on her book in any meaningful way since I just, literally, kept feeling ill as she described fight after fight with her daughters as she forced them to practice their musical instruments for hour after hour. The scene where she locked the three year old on the porch, in the snow, because she refused to practice was pretty harrowing.

Comments

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I am *really* unhappy about the erasure of hyphenate voices from your framing of the Chua response.

Quite a lot of Asian Americans in the blogosphere banded together to decry their own version of being raised by abusive Tiger parenting. It results in a lot of very real trauma even as it allegedly makes possible the Model Minority myth.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Intent is nice, but it's better when not covered over by expressions of erasure.

Thanks for the acknowledgement, at least.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your revisiting that!

Yes, the weird white filter over the story, and the reaction to *that*...

*sigh*

My friends list wasn't like that, but I've been pruning like mad for years. So I've seen vague MSM mentions of the white reaction, a bunch of hyphenate reaction (which I also went off-list to go look for), and a bunch of sourceland-identified Asians reacting against the white MSM stuff and utterly eliding the hyphenates.

So my sample set had me a little itchy to start with. (And I'm seeing Asian parents justifying their parenting style based on the WSJ excerpts now...for toddler kids. It's triggering to watch a small child being told, "Oh, that's good, Don't Be An Artist! That's no good, be a surgeon! Art is stupid, and for stupid people!" (rough quote of actual incident I witnessed).

*shudder*

[trinker.livejournal.com]

We're cool. Thank you.

I liked Amy Chua's earlier work (World on Fire) and I'm just really disheartened by this book, and all the complicated, and....*flail*.