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

[pyraxis]

What do you think the response would have been if she were white?

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

i think it's important to consider audience (Wall Street Journal) and why this in particular caught on like wildfire in the mainstream media, in terms of racial/national context.

[emma-in-oz.livejournal.com]

I think there would have been a massive meltdown as the response to any person writing a child rearing book that took an extreme stance. Attachment parenting, not breastfeeding, breastfeeding til the child is a preschooler, home schooling, sending the kid to boarding school, strict discipline, no discipline - any of these is bound to enrage some other parent because all parents are basically massively insecure.

[chomiji]

>>The dominant sentiment slants more toward guilt and squirming about their own parenting<<

Very true.

>>They sure love to refer to everyone else in broad generalized strokes<<

Sadly, also true.

Oddly enough (in terms of timeing), today someone on my f-list linked to this article - "How to land your kid in therapy," about typical U.S. liberal child-rearing - which cites Tiger Mom in more measured terms than most of the original reviews: "Chua’s book resonated so powerfully because she isn’t so different from her critics ... When the Tiger Mom looked unsparingly at her parental contradictions, perhaps she made the rest of us squirm because we were forced to examine our own."

That's not to say there wasn't a lot of ugly conflation with prejudices and blanket assumptions about Asian cultures as well.