The American Spectator : Whoa, Tiger

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Whoa, Tiger

By Christopher Orlet on 3.24.11 @ 6:06AM

I am Tiger Mom, hear me roar.

Reader reactions to Amy Chua’s memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Motherhave ranged from shell-shocked to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Some have demanded Chua be brought up on charges. Others have branded her a social pariah. Chua’s response: Talk to me if and when your kid gets into Harvard. (Princeton doesn’t count.)

Chua’s thesis is that Chinese Americans are so terribly successful because Chinese mothers are so terribly strict. How successful are they? If you put one Chinese-American girl in a room with nine other girls and gave them each five dollars, in ten minutes the former would have $50 and the latter would have no money but a ton of self-worth.

Most of the reviewers of Chua’s book tend to dwell on the author’s “fascistic” parenting techniques. These include name calling, and threats to shape up or you’ll be locked outdoors in the rain, and your dollhouse will be given to some less fortunate girl who probably gets C’s and D’s on her geometry tests, (which begs the question, why shape up if girls who don’t study get free dollhouses?). Yes, Chua’s kids are unquestionably brilliant and successful, but at what cost?

What about their self-esteem?

Hogwash, says Chua. Self-esteem comes from hard-earned accomplishments, like being the number one student in every subject (excepting gym and drama) and playing Bach’s Cello Suites without getting a single note wrong (or else!), while all your underachieving classmates are out doing bong hits and getting acceptance letters to the University of Georgia. If they’re lucky.

Chua, a law professor at Yale, has two highly accomplished daughters. Both were denied a lot of things “normal” American kids’ experience. And not just STDs. Chua’s girls were never allowed to hang out at the drugstore soda fountain or go to the sock hop, or whatever it is kids do these days. They weren’t even allowed to go on a sleepover. All they got to do was study quantum physics and play the piano at Carnegie Hall.

NO QUESTION ASIAN-AMERICANS are extraordinarily successful as a group or cohort or whatever it is they are, and it’s largely due to tiger moms. A lot of Asian parents simply don’t think childhood is an appropriate time for having fun. In fact, there is never an appropriate time for having fun. Not even after you graduate from medical school, because then it’s time to begin having your own kids and torturing — I mean motivating them. So the time for having fun would be old age, and by then you’re too tired and your feet hurt.

Of course, getting into Harvard or — God forbid —Stanford, isn’t everything. Sometimes it’s not even a remote possibility. I should know. But one can still have a fulfilling and productive career with a liberal arts degree from a Midwest state university.

(Pause till laughter subsides.)

Besides, nobody knows for sure what it takes to get into an elite school. Straight A’s don’t mean a thing; every kid who fills out an application has straight A’s, and perfect ACT scores, and has published an award-winning novel, and started a nonprofit foundation to cure leprosy in Borneo. And, if he had a tiger mom, he has already debuted at Carnegie Hall and won the National Spelling Bee, too.

That’s all well and good, but I have plenty of friends who did not even attend college and who are likely as content with their lot in life as any tiger cub. Take my brother-in-law Mike. Mike was the only sibling in his family not to attend college. He builds cranes. He’s a 30-year-old bachelor and spends most evenings at Bunkers Bar and Grill. Mike would rather watch the Final Four at Bunkers than play Eine kleine Nachtmusik on the pianoforte, and I say good for him. It’s not that the Mikes of this world lack ambition or don’t care about our cultural institutions (okay, so they don’t care). They just have no desire to teach international law at Yale. Given the option, they would take cranes and Bunkers any day of the week.

I can’t help but wonder how much of this is about the tiger mom, and about how badly the failure of one of her cubs to attend an elite school — or to become a concert pianist — would reflect on her.

Helicopter moms, lawnmower moms, free-range moms, make way for the tiger moms. It’s normal to want our kids to succeed, even to do better than their parents. But all work and no play makes Amy Chua a dull girl. And that’s about the nicest thing a reviewer has said about her.

About the Author

Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (151) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Charles Dennison| 3.24.11 @ 6:42AM

So they push their kids entirely to reach a goal that may or may not be remotely fulfilling to the offspring. I guess they have their own idea of "success" - and it appears they rather "poopoo" anyone's different idea of a successful, fulfilling life. That is their right, I suppose. But I am curious, what exactly do these "tiger moms" do when faced with catastrophes (pardon the cat pun)? I am referring to children that have accidents or illnesses resulting in brain damage, or even giving birth to a child with Down's Syndrome - what do they do in these situations? Eat their young? God forbid they have a child that truly cannot live up to their idea of perfection!

Ed White| 3.24.11 @ 8:34AM

Tiger mothers' children may play Chopin etudes, but they play them mechanically, with no emotion.

The Asians are expert at learning musical notation, but they lack the ability--the talent--to enfuse the music with feeling?

And do they composes? Never.

The motivating force behind Chua's parenting style is status. To her, status is everything.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 9:05AM

"The Asians are expert at learning musical notation, but they lack the ability--the talent--to enfuse the music with feeling?"

Technique comes first, though--if I can't play Chopin, it doesn't matter how emotional I get about it.

YeloStalyn| 3.24.11 @ 9:25AM

Could Jimmi Hendrix play Chopin? Hell... he couldn't even play teh guita right. But within his genre he had emotion and thus created art.

Yes, technique is important... but music started with creativity and a desire to express (maybe not a feeling, but maybe simply just a pleasing sound) something. It is that emotion that led to the creation of technique. Masters of what others before them have done are not necissarily any good at the craft they claim to be masters of.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 12:04PM

I guess we have different ideas about what counts as art.

Cabermon| 3.24.11 @ 12:25PM

"STAY BETWEEN THE LINES!"
I saw no mention that either of the cubs plays jazz. Improvisation is not valued in Chinese culture. In practice, improvisation in all aspects of life is a necessity when our "best laid plans... gang aft agley." It's part of American exceptionalism.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 12:48PM

I don't think Chopin or Beethoven were about "staying between the lines." But jazz is most certainly scribbling.

Bill| 3.24.11 @ 12:57PM

You must be talking about modern jazz. There is lots of jazz music that is structured, such as swing music for one example. Even improvisational jazz can -and does- follow a structure as it rambles about.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 1:20PM

Sure, and that's nice and all, and fun for a party. But calling it art and comparing it to Chopin or Brahms or Mozart? Sorry, that's where I draw the line, so to speak...

Tommy Tune| 3.24.11 @ 2:08PM

In my opinion--and I am not alone on this--Asian pianists do not deliver the emotional nuances and shadings of a classical piece of music.

For instance, Lang Lang (Bang Bang) isn't really playing Western classical music. His interpretation of Chopin's Nocture 8 might be pleasant to those who aren't intimately familiar with Chopin, but to an experienced ear it sounds rather bizarre. It doesn't feel like a coherent whole but rather a series of isolated effects with no understanding of the structure or flow of the piece.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 2:10PM

You raise a good point, and it holds in many instances. But for every Lang Lang, there are at least a dozen Yo-Yo Mas.

Ed White| 3.24.11 @ 2:11PM

Athough technically brilliant, so many of the Asian pianists lack the ear for . . . as you say "emotional nuance and shading."

Their touch is often wooden.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 2:15PM

That's far from universal.

The emotional nuance comes from maturity and time. But without the foundation of technique, you have no shot at getting there at all.

Ed White| 3.24.11 @ 2:18PM

If you emphsize the *technique* of a virtuoso over everything else, you will play without soul.

You will be another Bang Bang.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 2:20PM

The technique is like the cake; the soul is the frosting. Cake comes first.

JmsA| 3.24.11 @ 11:25PM

Lang Lang is fine, but I prefer Vladimir Horowitz or Barry Douglas, anytime. I had the good fortune of seeing the latter perform at the Ambassador Auditorium in LA in the early '90s; he was great.

As for Ms. Chua, it sounds to me like a lawyer telling people how to live their lives, and given what's been going in D.C. for so long, I don't think that's working out very well. It goes without saying though, one should listen and heed his/her lawyer's advice should the circumstances require it.

Ted| 3.24.11 @ 4:44PM

Would I compare Brahms or Chopin to Gillespie or Armstrong? No. Because they are different. They are all great and great art. But they are different.

Just like it would be really hard to compare Degas to Rembrandt. Different styles, different artistic expressions.

Another example is the different between a Melkite Rite Catholic Mass and a Roman Rite Mass. Very different, yet they are expressions of the same thing.

By the way, I agree with your comment about teqchnique. At some point you have to have it, no matter how emotional. At the same time, there is something almost.... mechanical about how many Asians play their instruments. Incredible technique (which to an extent I envy) but.... Somewhere in their I would like to know there's some heart infusing that music.

Stuart Koehl| 3.27.11 @ 8:40PM

Do I detect a fellow Melkite here? If so, whereabouts are you?

Doctor Right| 3.24.11 @ 2:49PM

Jazz is mostly scribbling???

You don't know much about Jazz...

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 2:55PM

It's improv, it's primitive--"scribbling" pretty much sums it up.

La Scala| 3.24.11 @ 5:19PM

Modern jazz is murderous to the ears. And how jazz musicians like to go on riffs to show off their technique. Watching them makes me sick.

Listening to them makes me physically ill.

Yes, jazz is scribbling and scratching and scatting and very often it sounds rather sh*tty.

A pity.

Appleby| 3.24.11 @ 7:02AM

All my Mama ever wanted for me was that I should be popular and get married; all of life was geared to those two ends. In her own way she was a Tiger Mom, although *Jewish Mother* was the term back in those days.

I saw no reason to be *popular* since I did not care for clothes, makeup, dating, dancing (I actually failed social dancing in Bible College) or giggling, and I did not want the prize that waited at the end. I liked cars, science fiction, writing poetry and stories, and playing in the marching band (although even there I hadto do an end run around Mama to get an instrument that could also be played in the swing band). I was relentlessly discouraged from anything that handicapped my chances to Gettaman, and she wouldnt read my writing or even listen to me talk about it. *You know I dont care about that stuff,* she would say, and that was the end of it.

In her way she was a Tiger Mom, and if I had been another sort of girl, I probably would have run away from home. The problem was, every Mom was a Tiger Mom of that kind back in the day. Its not a new thing; only the goal has changed. And the secret is to read Ayn Rand and realize that it really does not matter what anybody else wants for you; it only matters what YOU want for you. And your mother will never get over it, but that is her problem, not yours.

There are worse things in life than disappointing your mother; one of them is marrying someone you dont like and having children you dont want, and spending your day sneaking peeks at Speedvision (not that pale imitation of today).

Ted| 3.24.11 @ 4:52PM

"And the secret is to read Ayn Rand and realize that it really does not matter what anybody else wants for you; it only matters what YOU want for you."

I must confess that I am surprised that you said this, Appleby. There's nothing wrong with reading Ayn Rand, as long as she is put in context (although William F. Buckley was rather scathing on her; perhaps a bit too much).

I would have thought that you would have found the perfect Biblical quote as you so often do so that people would understand that what really matters is to know that God loves you.....

ChrisC| 3.24.11 @ 5:23PM

I am still reduced to tears by memories of Speedvision; F1, LeMans, WRC, BTCC, Legends of Motorsport, etc. I lived according to that channel when I was a teenager. That other channel that replaced it is an unholy alliance of bad taste and idiot enthusiasms.

Appleby| 3.24.11 @ 7:59PM

Amen brother! Amen! Speedvision once devoted an entire New Years Day to running the whole BTCC Season -- the one my second cousin happened to win!

Ted, were I to quote the Bible on the subject of Tiger Moms, I would probably reflect on Psalm 23, although I might be constrained to point out that the reason the Good Shepherd leads sheep beside the still waters is that sheep will not drink from a running stream. That is, the Lord gives us what is best for us, even if it seems inexplicable to everyone else...He will not try to persuade us to take what we get and shut up about it; He gives us irrational sheep our still waters. And if Tiger Mom will just stop out-thinking God, her children will be much happier with both life and with her.

Doctor_X| 3.24.11 @ 7:26AM

I would not want my kids to go to Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, or any Ivy League school for that matter! Why would I want to pay $50,000 a year just so my kids can have their heads messed up by a bunch of far left-wing radical professors! What a deal $50k a year and my kids are taught to believe everything that I don’t stand for! Who wouldn’t want that?
I didn’t go to Harvard, and I enjoyed a “normal” childhood and even with those two ‘disadvantages’ people still call me Doctor.

Sorry but a J.D. is NOT equal to a Ph.D. or D.Sc.
A J.D is a professional degree at the level of a M.B.A. It is a three year degree past the bachelors and does not require a research project or dissertation.

When Ms. Chua earns a real Doctorate then we’ll talk.

Pelligrino| 3.24.11 @ 9:52AM

Correct on the ills of Ivy. Who is so dumb as to send your kid to Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Princeton or any school aspiring to emulate them? Maybe in the sciences or mathematics disciplines....possibly. But one could probably find better places for your children who wish to study in these fields.

Is there anything worse than a 22 year old humanities graduate from an Ivy League school?

Shouldn't this down economy be teaching us: The hands-on people who roof your house, raise buildings (Mike the 30 year old crane man), do the plumbing, install the HVAC equipment, pave the roads, build bridges, provide the electrical grid, and do your IT, those are the folks I prize.

What do I need another corporate or lobbyist lawyer for? More legal swine to write government regulations? Or an MBA stooge coming up with the kinds of bizarre marketing themes we see on the boob tube?

Put it this way: Who do we need? The cubicle kid or the one who is helping John Deere and CAT stay world powerhouses?

So many of these Ivies grads are unnecessary. They are about as valued as the pink slips or job application rejections they're holding in their hands.

Bigger issue: The secular liberalism infused into all professors at these whited sepulcher institutions is inculcated into the minds of the youth. This is pure poison.

Isn't part of our national survival problem Ivy Leaguers who turn to politics and destroy our towns, states and nation? (because they just aren't qualified to do anything else)

Moms & Dads, WHAT a DEAL!! Massive $55,000 per year debt accumulation and a mentally deranged kid 4 years (or more, yes indeed) later.

Incidentally, I thought Thorsten Howell of Gilligan fame laid to rest any misconceptions about Harvard.

On a very serious note: Remember the Beer Summit professor? Just where is he working? Oh, right. Now he there is a man displaying all kinds of maturity. Ditto for the Columbia professor and his incest.

dC| 3.24.11 @ 10:42AM

Dr. X, as a J.D., if anyone ever called me "Doctor" I'd correct them quickly, I'm no such thing. Law school is essentially advanced reading comprehension tempered with some study of public policy. That's really about it. So you're absolutely right.
You're also right (as is Pellegrino, below) about the worth of Ivy League schools. What you're paying for is connections and admission to the East Coast elite clubs of various sorts. If you think that's worth it, and many people do, ok, but be honest. Don't pretend you're getting a better education. At the graduate school level, maybe (depending upon which professors you consort with), but at the undergrad level it's an expensive fraud peppered with leftist/socialist/Anti-American indoctrination. I've already told my boys that unless they want to pay for it themselves, they are not attending an Ivy League school no matter how "perfect" they are in the eyes of the Chua's of the world.
And I don't begrudge Ms. Chua for how she parents, it's her business and her kids are likely to be very successful. But she ought to recognize that she and her husband are pretty good "raw material," and that without good genetics and a good work ethic, however inculcated, you're not going to achieve jackshit no matter what field of study or employment you choose to pursue.

Occam's Tool| 3.24.11 @ 5:04PM

Indeed. I went to TCU on a full tuition scholarship, got accepted to two US med schools, and did my psychiatric training at UCLA. I'm 48; people have been calling me Doctor for well over 20 years now.

That being said, my major problem with Ms. Chua is that Jewish moms make their kids love learning. Mine did. That's why Jewish kids pound the crap out of Asian kids on joining the club that most matters---the Nobel Prizes in the Sciences---Physics/Chem/medicine. It is not simply enough to instill the fear of failure---you must instill the love of learning. I don't see that there.

Ted| 3.24.11 @ 6:24PM

You made a great point. There is a huge difference between the love of learning and the fear of failure.

I do, however, find it ironic that you are a psychiatrist. Many of my Jewish friends joke that they felt like they need a psychiatrist because of their mothers.... Course, as one of them pointed out, I can't really laugh too much. I have Catholic guilt.

Occam's Tool| 3.24.11 @ 8:24PM

I never said my mother didn't instill multiple neurosis...I was referring to love of learning alone here. My Mom was a twitchy as they come, and, many would argue, so am I.

Occam's Tool| 3.24.11 @ 8:33PM

Sorry, neuroses...see what even THINKING of mom does to me!;)

KyMouse| 3.24.11 @ 7:45AM

We can make anything an idol if we focus on it too much -- even worldly success.

I haven't read Ms. Chua's book. I'd be interested to know how much time her kids devoted to helping others without any recognition or reward (when I was 12, my parents let me take on my first volunteer job, an inner city pre-school).

I was blessed to have parents who taught me that the highest praise would be for Jesus to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." I would take that over Carnegie Hall any day.

Ken (Old Texican)| 3.24.11 @ 8:05AM

Ky mouse,
Well spoken. The ultimate hope for an "Atta-boy" from Jesus.

PJ| 3.24.11 @ 9:00AM

You must have had great parents!!

Pelligrino| 3.24.11 @ 10:02AM

KyMouse, dittos from me, too. Maybe we all need to read, reflect, and meditate on Matthew chapter 25 (the whole chapter) in the New Testament? Okay, I certainly do.

You said more in your few lines than all the drivel I've added today. Thank you, KYMouse.

So, let's ask: Did Ms. Chua (and her husband?) dedicate these two daughters to God? Did they ask Jesus to show them how to raise them best?

Am I asking myself these same, real, eternal perspective questions?

Occam's Tool| 3.25.11 @ 12:25AM

By the way, just to bounce around the Nobelists a bit, Linus Pauling went, if memory serves me right, to Oregon State for undergrad. It's the student, not the school. First, second, and always. For example, Salk went to CCNY if memory serves me right. David Gross, physics Nobelist in 2004, did his PhD work at UC Berkeley. Politzer, who shared with Gross, did his PhD at Harvard, but did undergrad at the Home of the Wolverines.

For anyone who is really well educated, it is the ultimate degree training ground that really matters. For example, I did undergrad at TCU, but my final education in medicine was at UCLA, a top 30 World University. Where you do undergrad is essentially meaningless. For example, I can think of a high school classmate of mine who went to Brown for undergrad. He got his PhD in American Studies (whatever the hell that is) from Iowa State, when I was getting my MD from University of Texas. Then, while he was teaching at a Turkish university (see the direction here), I was finishing my training (an additional four years) at UCLA. In short, it is the student, not the school.

Melvin| 3.24.11 @ 8:07AM

My parents were strict and I still didn't learn anything. I don't mean that in a bad way. I didn't realize in what I considered their madness early on in my teen yeas, that they only wanted their junior to grow up and be a fairly decent human being.
After I got my crap together in my Senior year, then I started receiving top grades and the principals list. Back then you had to work hard to get on that list, unlike nowadays where they hand it out for self-esteem.
Miss Amy is partially correct in her raising her children the way she does, it's a Chinese thing, always has, always will be.
My opinion is a parent also has to let a kid be a kid sometimes. I go swimming almost every day of the week at the base pool. A group of Cub Scouts came in and were going into the pool to do they're swimming. Most of the boys, didn't have their parents and were guided by the scout master and a couple of parents to help him out.
There was one poor lad, who wanted to go horsing around with the other scouts, but there was one in your face pregnant mom, who was hell bent on showing everyone that she was pregnant, giving her son individualized pool side guidance on the fine art of swimming.
But this boy kept looking at the group at the other end of the pool having the time of it, and this boy kept trying to be respectful to his mother and inching towards were the other boys were, but his belly rubbing helicopter mother wouldn't have none of it.
By the time that she was done with her swimming diatribe the Scout Master started teaching the boys the different strokes in swimming after letting the group blow off some steam and then get down to the seriousness of swimming.
These are the same mothers who allow 5 & 6 year boys to walk through the women's locker room instead of routing them into the men's locker room.
I guess the point is, sometimes parents have to come down like a hammer on their offspring, and sometimes allow them to interact with other kids within reason.
Miss Amy's kids won't know how to act or interact with other kids who don't fit into their strata. They'll end up acting just like their driven parents, with no memories of being a kid.
The best time I ever had growing up was when my mom took me camping in the Summer, up in the mountains and all I did was fish, hunt, catch crawdads, cook over a campfire, and drank Shasta Cherry Coke while lounging on a sun heated rock in the middle of the Alsea River.
My dad would come in the weekends and he had to endure the stories of 6 foot Rainbow Trout, and crawdads as big as a pickup truck.
The things that I learned in that primitive campground during the summers couldn't be learned in Yale or Haaaavard.
God, what I wouldn't give to go back in time.

Ken (Old Texican)| 3.24.11 @ 8:32AM

Well, Melvin
you and I can always go back in time...you just did.
I've got a host of memory tapes to play that never wear out.

Tommy Tune| 3.24.11 @ 11:44AM

Ken, what has happened to Margie? I never see her posts anymore.

Has she deserted AmSpec?

Occam's Tool| 3.24.11 @ 5:05PM

She was harassed by trolls to the point that she decided not to post. Our loss. A great lady.

John Navratil| 3.24.11 @ 9:07AM

My Utopia was summer camp in Louisiana in the 60's. We'd walk down a dirt road to a sandy creek with a small waterfall and swimming hole. I go back in my mind to relax whenever I can.

Steve A| 3.24.11 @ 12:10PM

John, I think you may be imagining things. There are no waterfalls in Louisiana. Trust me, I lived there for 10 years. Hell, there are not even any hills except for levees.

John Navratil| 3.24.11 @ 1:20PM

Steve A,

Au contraire. Try Tunica Hills or Clark Creek. The place was outside of Pollock (Camp Hardtner was the camp). The creek flowed over a rock and at my age, the fall seem perhaps fifteen feet tall into a basin. I'm sure it was less.

A couple of years ago, I was playing around with satellite views and found the creek.

Falls don't have to be tall or necessarily huge (when they are called cataracts). Just memorable :)

Steve A| 3.24.11 @ 1:34PM

I certainly believe that. I lived in the New Orleans area & anything North of Lake Ponchartrain was considered Yankee North country.

On a side note, one of my favorite polls ever reported was one taken shortly after Katrina where US citizens agreed that New Orleans should be rebuilt on "higher ground" after the hurricane. Gee, considering the whole place is a freakin swamp that may be kinda tough....

John Navratil| 3.24.11 @ 1:41PM

Steve A,

Now you talkin' trash sha! I grew up in Baton Rouge (south of I-10 - when it came through) and Yankee country didn't start 'til you got north of Alexandria :)

By the way, the higher ground is called Metarie.

Steve A| 3.24.11 @ 2:25PM

Rivah Ridge may actually be a massive + 10' over sea level!

Married a Destrehan girl. Tough to get her to leave mama but pulled it off.

I do miss the crawdads, gumbo, boiled shrimp, po-boys, red beans, jambalaya...I could go on & on & on......She just took my kids down to Metry for the St Pats Day Parade. they caught 3 sacks of treasure & 1 sack of vegetables. good times.

PJ| 3.24.11 @ 9:28AM

"God, what I wouldn't give to go back in time."

How about taking the son or grandsons camping? Daughter or grand-daughters could be OK too. ---- I bet they even like to camp, fish, & hunt.

Pellirgrino| 3.24.11 @ 10:10AM

Or being that Assistant Scout Master? Or volunteering to help in Big Brothers? How about as a Sunday School teacher for the next year? Do these things for the youth of today (whether your relatives or just kids near where you live) and you'll recapture those days of 6 foot trout and mamouth crawdads.

I have the opportunity to do this through youth coaching. (Far more fun and life enhancing than my job with adults from 7:30 - 5:00)

Stuart Koehl| 3.24.11 @ 9:04AM

I had the opportunity to observe "Tiger Moms" in action for six years. My daughters attended an elite public high school in Northern Virginia (one frequently found on the cover of US News and World Report), where the student body is almost 50% Asian/Indian. I have the following observations:

1. The tiger mom phenomenon applies mainly to female offspring. Girls are fundamentally worthless anyway, so mothers feel free to dump on them constantly, pushing them into all sorts of endeavors that really reflect more on the mother than on the child. Sons are another matter. Since most Asian families have only one or two children, boys are treated as little princes, spoiled and indulged in every way. We see this phenomenon in China itself, where the one child policy has resulted in "Six Pocket Children" (mom, dad and two sets of grandparents) who are spoiled beyond belief.

2. There is a lot of neurosis and dysfunctionality going on. A lot of these children are miserably unhappy with their lot, and would much rather be doing other things--not necessarily slacking (these are all bright, motivated kids) but perhaps something other than science and technology, and perhaps not with the object of getting into Harvard, Yale or MIT. Failure to live up to the mother's goals frequently results in bouts of severe depression, and occasional suicide.

3. Tiger moms are fundamentally amoral in the way only an Asian shame-based culture can be. Success (as defined by the mother) is pursued at all costs, and if that includes cheating, lying, bullying, log-rolling and influence peddling, so be it. If you want your kids to grow up acting like the Chinese government, by all means imitate the Tiger Mom.

4. This keeping up with the Changs is getting really old. Back in the eighties, the Japanese were supposed to be eating our lunch, and unless we initiated Japanese-style industrial policy (complete with an American MITI) and made our workers do jumping jacks before starting work, America was doomed. Where is Japan today? Try to remember that China is just a bigger Japan. Today the U.S. economy is three times the size of China's. If the Chinese economy grows at 8% per annum for the next fifteen years (unlikely and unsustainable), while the U.S. economy grows at just 2.5% (way belong the historical average), at the end of that time the U.S. economy will be only twice as big as China's. And let's not forget that China has 1.3 billion people, a third of whom live in abject poverty. The per capita GDP of China is not that far removed from Rwanda's.

5. Asian kids may outperform U.S. kids on a range of standardized tests, but for some reason, the U.S. worker is still far more productive than his Asian counterpart, and the American economy remains far more dynamic and innovative than China's.

6. Stop worrying about what the Chinese are going to do to us, and start thinking about what we are going to do to them, in our own sloppy, ill-disciplined, lazy but amazingly successful way.

John Navratil| 3.24.11 @ 9:13AM

Stuart,

Good points. I remember James Baker III giving a talk at Rice years ago when Japan, Inc. was the phobia du jour. When asked when Japan was going to own all of America, his response was "trees do not grow to the sky".

That said, a little tending of our own orchard seems a bit overdue. If tiger blood isn't circulating in our veins (thanks, Charlie Sheen), could we just get a little pussycat blood flowing?

PJ| 3.24.11 @ 9:20AM

Stuart,

I agree with everything you have written!

I knew persons who lived in China & saw exactly what you saw in VA.

Thank you for your clear & succinct posting. I could not have written it any better!

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 1:05PM

I mostly agree, except for your point #2 that these are "bright, motivated kids" that would not prefer to be "slacking" if left to their own devices. That's kind of the crux of what this woman is getting at--motivation begins with the parents, and kids will most definitely be lazy if allowed to be.

I think there's a lot of room for good parenting somewhere in between Draconian and neglectful--and yes, neglectful rather than just indulgent is what I see in this country these days. We have a long, long way to go with adding discipline to the schools and child-rearing in general before we have to even being worrying about Draconian.

Stuart Koehl| 3.24.11 @ 8:10PM

I posit my wife as Exhibit A to the contrary: her father abandoned her, her mother was an alcoholic in and out of mental institutions. As a child, she got absolutely no encouragement from her family to do or be anything. Despite which, she was high school valedictorian, then went to Georgetown University, where she was again valedictorian for her class in the School of Language and Linguistics, then got an MS in lingistics from Georgetown, and an MA in Russian from Harvard, and a highly successful career as a translator (many different languages, including such odd balls as Hungarian and Georgian).

Motivation comes from within, it cannot be imposed from outside.

Nunya| 3.25.11 @ 6:35PM

Well said. Outside motivation will only motivate someone for a short period of time. It's internal motivation (or "drive") that takes people to great heights.

Congratulations to your wife.

Stuart Koehl| 3.25.11 @ 11:32PM

Chua's book is reviewed in this month's Commentary magazine. The reviewer cites a study of Asian-American students during their last year in high school and first year in college, which found these students suffered a larger drop in academic performance than their non-Asian peers. The study posited that, absent the micro-management of their parents, these students lacked the time management skills necessary to succeed in college, and, in effect, had to learn from scratch how to be independent of their Tiger Moms.

Another study cited in the review notes that Asian-American women between the ages of 15-25 have a much higher suicide rate than their non-Asian peers. Apparently, Tiger Cubs pay a heavy price for the Tiger Mom's obsessions.

Stuart Koehl| 3.26.11 @ 8:07PM

And P.J. O'Rourke has his taken on it, "Irish Setter Dad", in this week's Weekly Standard: http://www.weeklystandard.com/.....5534.html.

As might be expected, P.J. hits just the right note in reviewing Chua's book:

"Whose children are going to succeed in life, Amy Chua’s or mine? Her Lulu has that violin going for her—there’s hardly a Silicon Valley billionaire, Wall Street plutocrat, senator, four-star general, or pope who isn’t a violin virtuoso. And Sophia, who tickles the ivories, can always say, “Don’t tell Mom I work for Goldman Sachs, she thinks I play piano in a house of ill repute.” But my kids practice too, hour after hour every day. They practice being jerks. And since almost every boss I’ve ever had was a jerk, this gives them a leg up. Plus there’s the cat in the microwave. That shows an inquisitive, experimental turn of mind. You can see how electronic cat-zapping could lead directly to the invention of something like Facebook. . ."

"On the other hand, what with all the A-pluses and never being allowed to disagree with teachers, Chua’s kids are headed straight to the Ivy League. The more so since Chua is a Yale law professor. (Oooh, maybe she’s a Nazi and a Commie, making Battle Hymn the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of parenting advice.) The Ivy League is supposed to be good for success. Barack Obama went to an Ivy League school, not that he’s doing very well in his career at the moment. Let’s check on the most successful people in America. Sarah Palin went to the University of Idaho. Warren Buffet went to Nebraska. John Boehner went to Xavier. Glenn Beck didn’t go to college at all. And I’m not sure whether Justin Bieber’s mother even finished high school. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates did go to Harvard but—doubtless this is somewhere on the “never allowed to do” list—they dropped out. . ."

"Amy Chua, I’ve got bad news. “A” students work for “B” students. Or not even. A businessman friend of mine corrected me. “No, P. J.,” he said, “ ‘B’ students work for ‘C’ students. ‘A’ students teach.” Teaching in the Ivy League gives you a lot of time off, Amy—enough to write a crap book, worse than Yale prof Erich Segal’s Love Story. Maybe when you get some time off again you should come to rural New Hampshire and meet the Irish Setter Dad children. . ."

Seek| 3.24.11 @ 1:12PM

Superb post. It's a real rebuke to misguided conservative traditionalists in this country who ignore the fact that cultures aren't necessarily a function of transferrable "values." Tiger Moms, even if successful in the context of Far East cultures, aren't good for America.

The traditionalists' hatred of "the counterculture" blinds them to the reality that liberty begins at home. Kids are wards of parents, but they are still human, not robots. (Robot, by the way, is derived from "robota," the Czech word for "slave."). Let the Chinese train successful robots living in shame. Americans have better things on their mind.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 1:44PM

I don't think there's anything peculiarly Asian about keeping children disciplined. And if you read Chua's book, you'll see that even she sees the need for moderation in the end and is really poking fun at the extreme she's laying out. Dodging to the other extreme of laxity is not the answer--and is not really "American" either.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 9:08AM

Parenting, like everything else, requires balancing different priorities--in this case we're talking about fun vs. hard work. I have to agree with this woman that American parents have been raising some pretty lazy and self-indulgent kids for several generations now. A little more discipline would not be such a bad thing.

Pelligrino| 3.24.11 @ 9:11AM

Presently I believe I meet a lot of Tiger kids (cubs?) who are in their late teens, undergraduates, and graduate students.

Isn't some of this like relentlessly climbing that corporate ladder only to find there is nothing but emptiness (even with house, three cars, lawn, club memberships, and bills) at whatever rung you stop/pause?

My take is that Ms. Chua has found the emptiness in law, at Yale, and now in celebrity. But ego doesn't let her or any of us admit that.

Question: Did she go the law route because she has some inner passion to serve humans through this vocation? Or was it just for the "status?" (the safety of being in a pricey white collar zone?)

I'd take her and any book she might write seriously if she were like that doctor nun that has been aiding the down and out in Mississippi the last 17 years. (recent NBC news feature)

And...wouldn't the genuine, truthful stories be the ones her daughters will write? (Do they cringe now at their mother's exaggerations for the sake of book sales?)

I think this was all about mom (ego); this was not about her progeny. And...how does the "man in her life" factor in?

After all, the book comes out, and wwwhhhoooosshh!! next thing you know, she's on every TV station and then off to Davos!

Lance o Lot| 3.24.11 @ 9:23AM

bumper stickers such as “My kid’s an honour student at Cow Pie High” are not brags about the children; their brags about the wonderful driver of that Minivan or Tahoe and what a wonderful job she did raising the world’s best kids. My contemporaries are raising the worst generation of selfish, unmotivated morons this country has ever seen. Since they are handed everything mommy and daddy can buy them, they never learn the value of money. Heck, most kids today never get a job until they’re in their 20′s.

I laugh as I drive past all of the elementary schools these days and see the long lines of mommies parked out front to either drop off or pick up their homour roll kiddies so that the poor little tykes don’t have to walk the 500 yards home. Then those same mommies vote for politicians who promise to “do something” about childhood obesity.

Somewhere, there has to be a balance.

John Navratil| 3.24.11 @ 9:56AM

A local tongue-in-cheek bumper sticker read:

My child made "citizen of the week" at county juvenile.

dsayne| 3.24.11 @ 9:59AM

You can't blame all the moms for lining up to pick up their kids. Our county DOES NOT ALLOW the kids to walk to school. However, they are only allowed to ride the bus if they live more than a mile from school. That's just the beginning of the foolish regulations we have to endure!

Stuart Koehl| 3.24.11 @ 12:28PM

At the age of six, I was sent off by my mom to walk to PS 121, two long city blocks from my house in Brooklyn. She helped me across 18th Avenue, and then I was on my own.

By Junior High, school was a mile away, and the City gave me a bus pass that allowed me to ride on the New York City bus and subway system for free. At the age of twelve, I was taking the subway into Manhattan by myself, to go to stores, theaters and museums.

I'm flabbergasted by how protective modern parents are, even though their kids are much safer today than we were as children.

P.S.--I also rode my bike every day without a helmet and lived to tell the tale.

Ruth Bacon| 3.24.11 @ 2:00PM

I am not sure that kids are safer today than they were when we went to school. Don't know how old you are, but my school days were a LONG time ago. It seems the world today is too full of dangerous people from gray-haired pedophiles to 10-12 age bullies. Many parents have a good reason to be driving or walking their kids to school. Sad, but true.

Stuart Koehl| 3.24.11 @ 3:28PM

I went to school in New York from 1961 to 1973. If you look at the statistics, the odds of a child being killed, abducted or abused were much higher back then than they are today. The difference today is CNN, MSNBC and Fox News--with a 24 hour news cycle stories that were once just local become national news.

Occam's Tool| 3.24.11 @ 8:26PM

Dear Lance---may I suggest you check out small town Minnesota or Alabama? There is yet room for hope.

Doctor Right| 3.24.11 @ 10:14AM

Ms. Chua is a narcissist who is forcing her children to live her ambitions, not theirs.

In clinical practice, one of the most commonly heard phrases uttered by narcissists to describe their "victims" (for lack of a better word) is the following:

"I see them as an extension of myself. That's why I'm so hard on them."

Self-esteem DOES come from accomplishment, that's true - One's OWN accomplishments, based on one's own ambitions and one's OWN success.

Once grown, Ms. Chua's children will have a difficult relationship with her; that's as predictable as the sunrise.

Stuart Koehl| 3.24.11 @ 12:29PM

Well, yes. Of course. That's what being an Oriental woman is all about--living vicariously through your children, and making your daughter-in-law's life a living hell.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 1:53PM

Isn't that true in any traditional culture in which women have no personal outlet for their ambitions outside of being wives and mothers? Nothing particularly "Oriental" about it. My European mother-in-law is exactly as you describe.

Stuart Koehl| 3.24.11 @ 3:29PM

It may be true of other countries, but it especially true in China and Japan. See, for instance, what Ruth Benedict wrote about the lot of the Japanese wife in "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword".

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 4:36PM

After 65 years, I'm not sure C&S is the best reference for such things any more. It still provides insight into the culture write large, but a lot has changed and rather dramatically. I know several Japanese wives, none of whom exhibit the stereotype. But that's because they're too busy running medical practices and writing books themselves. The meddling European mother-in-law I mentioned, however, has never been anything but a housewife for all her adult life.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 1:50PM

"Self-esteem DOES come from accomplishment, that's true - One's OWN accomplishments, based on one's own ambitions and one's OWN success."

So if your kid's goal is to be a great porn star, you as a parent should step back and let them "find their own path"?

Read the book--she's actually being somewhat ironic about the extreme type of child-rearing found in (some) Asian cultures. I just think it's funny that people see her extreme but then, in reaction, go to the opposite extreme. I've got news for you--in America, we're already there. We could use quite a bit more structure-- we're certainly in no danger of becoming too strict as parents or teachers.

Doctor Right| 3.24.11 @ 3:04PM

You quoted me, but you obviously didn't read my quote very carefully. If you had, you'd see that I agree with Ms. Chua's primary point:

"Self-esteem DOES come from accomplishment".

The disagreement here is with Ms. Chua's means, as well as with her ends, but NOT with her overall philosophy.

First of all, admission to the Ivy League should not be the "sine qua non" by which one values one's life. Otherwise, most people will end-up very disappointed (and subsequently lacking in self-esteem).

Secondly, there's a distinct difference properly between loving and guiding one's child (as is our parental duty) and being a overly controlling, micro-managing parent. Forcing your child to live-out YOUR ambitions is often an example of narcissism. Again...I predict that Ms. Chua will NOT have close relations with her adult children. I believe that as they mature and gain independence, they will grow to resent her total control over their lives...And I base that on careful observation, as well as experience.

Finally, and this only my opinion, but Ms. Chua strikes me as the worst kind of elitist...The kind who lives in dread fear that the Constitution gives the hicks and rubes the power to vote and elect dim-witted, state-college people like Sarah Palin to high office (sarcasm intended).

In short...she's one of the last people I'd take parenting advice from.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 3:27PM

The argument is over the methodology rather than the specific goals. Her Harvard may be someone else's Notre Dame or yet another's Bringham Young--the point is that the kid won't get there unless his parents instill the right values and requisite work ethic from the get-go. In short, the kid is not going to figure out who he is without someone telling him who he is from day one and guiding him through what he needs to do to become that person step by step.

Ted| 3.24.11 @ 6:13PM

Mrs. Chua is instilling discipline. But it's still all wrong, because she is instilling in her children the discipline to accomplish Mommy's goals. Her methodology (her means) and her ends are the issue.

This should be about her in her role as a parent, teaching her children to be the best they can be, whatever THEIR chosen endeavor. But here, Mommy is forcing them to be the best at MOMMY's chosen endeavors. Big, big difference.

Dr. Right hit the nail on the head. This is all about Mommy. And some day those kids are going to realize it, and it is going to hurt.

Au Contraire, I understand and agree with you about instilling the right values and requisite work ethic from the get go in children. I do it with my own. However, this is all about Mommy Chua wanting to win bragging rights for Mommy Chua.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 7:17PM

Having read the book, I don't view her that way. But I understand the point about "bragging rights." No doubt there are parents who only think of themselves.

missbosslady| 3.24.11 @ 9:13PM

Doc,

As always we see things the same.

Yes, the narcissitic mother will likely not have a close bond with her children, it is the price she pays in exchange for their submission to her will in all things.

Sadly, the mother may figure this out all too late. The realization will be cold comfort.

My mother's death took one year and during that time her children cared for her very well. We made sure that she was never alone, at any time, and all of her needs and wants were met. We were dutiful children, in the manner we were raised.
It was quite painful to see the realization, of what she didn't share with her children, begin to dawn on her at the end.

Now, that's a life lesson.

missbosslady| 3.24.11 @ 5:50PM

Yes, Doctor Right, narcissist!

I was raised by an over-bearing, dominant, narcissist. The entire enterprise was a result of my mother's enormous ego. All things were measured by the yard stick that was, what would she do, say, think...

I realized from a very young age that what my mother desired was a carbon copy of herself. One could remain in her good graces as long as one marched in lock step with all of her edicts which covered everything from what you wore, thought, said and did, and this was not relegated only to childhood, this alligence was expected into adulthood.

My siblings feared my mother and never committed treason, myself, I rebeled at every turn. My sibilings and I are all adults now and my mother has passed. In the final analysis I am the one that had more experiences, took more risks, and overall am more content and happy.

I always felt badly for my siblings inability to break the chains, ultimately they are not the happiest people you'll ever meet and sadly they seem to have many regrets for opportunities not taken in fear of what our mother would think.

The "tiger" mom robs the child of self-discovery.

Shameful.

PJ| 3.24.11 @ 6:14PM

In many ways you are describing my childhood. My siblings are doing pretty well financially given the current state of the economy compared to me. But I have to say that I took more risks & am much happier than they are. I also believe I have less mother issues to deal with (at least that's what hubby says!). My younger brother has freely choose to alienate himself & his family from my mother because of a faux pas of a letter she wrote to him yrs ago. Only a letter!!! My lonely, older sister's problems are a bit complicated & very sad too.

Ted| 3.24.11 @ 6:15PM

"The "tiger" mom robs the child of self-discovery."

That right there says it all.

Alice Finkel | 3.24.11 @ 10:47AM

Amy Chua is correct that children need early direction and discipline to develop their own competencies, and to then begin to explore the rest of themselves and the outside world from a position of strength.

As described by Chua, it is largely a Chinese girl phenomenon, so all the criticisms regarding applying this technique to boys are misplaced and irrelevant.

Chua was brutally honest about her early childhood methods, and put it all out for the world to see. She has modified her methods, softened as the girls grew older and the American culture of individuality inexorably seeped into them. Chua laughs about a lot of the things she did and said -- and has since learned from.

Chua has received death threats and vituperative criticisms from an army of critics without standing or even a basic literary perception of what Chua was expressing -- much of it self-effacing and ironic. It all flies right past these righteously indignant zealots, too eager to put Chua in her place.

Chua's kids seem to be developing normally despite their strict upbringing. With their many competencies, they are unlikely to ever be wards of the state, or perpetual quasi-adolescent incompetents -- like many of today's university graduates are turning out to be.

Chua's greatest mistake is overlooking the effect of IQ and frontal lobe executive function on the life outcome of children. Both of those factors are between 60% and 80% heritable. Chua's children are half Chinese, half European Jew. The average IQ of Chinese is around 105, and the average IQ of European Jews is 110-115.

Combining the two strains will combine the differently evolved genetic factors responsible for the IQ and executive function advantages conferred by each individual strain.

Training is critical, but it helps to begin with the highest quality starting material.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 7:23PM

Couldn't have said it better.

RAGSDALE| 3.24.11 @ 10:52AM

And then, why are all our jobs and money ending
up in China.?

Stuart Koehl| 3.24.11 @ 12:20PM

They're not.

Too Many Tims| 3.24.11 @ 11:22AM

And here I thought that "Tiger Moms" referred to women raising Tiger Woods' illegitmate children.

Slacker In Chief| 3.24.11 @ 11:45AM

I have to laugh at Chau. All I did as a preteen was go fishing and roam free through the woods shooting everything in site with a .22 rifle. What would she think? Silly elites.

Perhaps what works for raising East Asian children is not necessarily what works best for western children. Just saying….

Slacker In Chief| 3.24.11 @ 11:59AM

Of course those tiger pups wouldn’t accidently write site when they mean sight.

Pelligrino| 3.24.11 @ 1:56PM

But can her kids even raise chickens and kill one to prepare it for a meal on the kitchen table? Can they grow garden vegetables? Fruit trees? Do they know sewing? Which of them has ever chopped wood? Would they know how to survive without optimal year-round artificial temperatures through AC and heating systems?

Or do they expect to always be earning enough in salary to pay for the plumber to do a $250.00 house call for a five minute and $3.50 part fix?

I'll take the people who have practical life skills any day.

Moving a mouse on a mouse pad and being a genius Internet Google searcher doesn't cut it.

And wanna bet if these kids can hold a real 12 minute conversation with someone keeping eye contact and truly listening? (and not constantly fiddling with their electronic devices telling them its time now for the next appointment, event, rehearsal, etc.)

gobnait| 3.24.11 @ 7:49PM

Your point is well taken. I am a American college graduate, happily married for over thirty years to a man who only finished the 8th grade and grew up on a tiny European island where he helped his abjectly poor family raise sheep, olives and grapes. They grew everything they ate and his mother made their socks from the sheep's wool and their shoes from old tires. We are as different as night and day but I'll tell you that I have always appreciated his vast wealth of native knowledge. He can predict the weather as accurately as NOAA just by observing nature and can grow anything from last year's seeds. If the 'big one' is ever dropped, our neighbors will be banging on our front door pleading with my husband to teach them how to live off the land! Not much nourishment in one's Hahhh-vard degree, is there?

Slingshot| 3.24.11 @ 2:05PM

And you used "they" wrongly there. The pup is singular, they is plural.

gobnait| 3.24.11 @ 7:53PM

There's one thing to be said for Asians and their cultures of respect and politeness. They wouldn't dream of embarrassing someone by pointing out his mistakes.

Stuart Koehl| 3.25.11 @ 11:36PM

That's the sort of attitude that leads to gross miscalculations about things like, oh, reactor cores melting down when the coolant circuits fail: nobody wants to embarrass anybody by pointing out obvious mistakes, as a result of which, face is saved, but a lot else is lost (like World War II, to cite another example).

Richard Baker| 3.24.11 @ 11:56AM

Good for Tiger Mom! She is involved with her kids and since she values accomplishment higher than self-esteem, that's bad. She is correct regarding here indifference to her critics. Don't think her kids will be living at home when they're in their 30s. The Boomers hate her because she doesn't act as they do regarding her kids education. Tough toenails!

Stuart Koehl| 3.24.11 @ 12:22PM

I don't hate her, and I don't envy her. I managed to do with my kids what she did with hers, without recourse to her draconian methods. And my kids are going to grow up a lot happier, saner and spiritually satisfied than those raised in the Tiger Mom tradition.

Doctor Right| 3.24.11 @ 3:05PM

Well said.

Paul McGrath| 3.24.11 @ 11:58AM

"I should know. But one can still have a fulfilling and productive career with a liberal arts degree from a Midwest state university.

(Pause till laughter subsides.)"

You are very funny man, Mr. Orlet.

Stuart Koehl| 3.24.11 @ 12:24PM

My wife would respond to Amy Chu by telling her the old joke, "What do all Harvard grads and Yale grads have in common"?

Answer: They all got into Yale.

Occam's Tool| 3.25.11 @ 12:29AM

You know, I once worked with a Yale PhD who was attempting to lord it over me until she realized that UCLA was higher ranked in psychiatry training than Yale was in psychology.

The point is, she was acceptably competent, but it was because she was a good student, not Yale, per se.

Petronius| 3.24.11 @ 12:32PM

Is the typical American middle class adolescent a self starter? Should we care? Yes. And it is not Mrs Chua's fault that we don't. Today, we are in thrall to the loser lovers and the losers who voted for this regime with the "hope" that he would plunder the assets of the "winners" and give it all to them. It's about the social food chain. Those who are not on top are door mats. Mrs. Chua knows this. And she doesn't want her daughter to be among the latter. Our children do not understand this any more than many parents. Most put stock in popularity and the clueless believe in luck. And we can all forget about that too.
In the future, financial security and good living will be beyond the ability of the average person to accomplish alone. So over management of a child's life by budgeting their time and prohibition of social activities won't mean much. Personal success will be determined by demand for one's knowledge or services.

cicero| 3.24.11 @ 1:18PM

One only has to read a few of the recent histories written about China to see the huge difference between Western culture, and the Chinese variety. They copy well, and can produce the copies. They don't innovate or invent well. However, transplant a chinese child here, and you get a world beater.
As far as the necessesity to having your offstpring attent one of the socalled elite ivy league schools, I'll pass. I financed my education at a city college in the midwest by working in an auto factory on the midnight shift, and attending during the day. I daresay that I learned more about working and human nature at night. I attended a midwestern city lawschool the same way. Law was attractive because it was a great vehicle to give back to the community and serve the society (if done right).
To sink hundreds o thousands of dollars into something that will produce young people who will be working only for money seems like a waste to me. Maybe that is why our legal system has fallen on bad (philosophical times), and our court system is peopled by fools.

Stuart Koehl| 3.27.11 @ 8:43PM

"However, transplant a chinese child here, and you get a world beater."

Or a neurotic burnout at age 20.

daddio| 3.24.11 @ 1:25PM

was Seung-Hui Cho's mother a tiger?

Richard Baker| 3.24.11 @ 1:34PM

cicero:
The same things regarding innovating and copying were once said about Japan. Kind of a lame way to denigrate the Chinese. Can't you come up with something besides shopworn excuses? By the way, I didn't realize there were so many clairvoyants and Ouija fans posting on this site because of all the comments regarding what the Tiger Mom's kids will be.

John Navratil| 3.24.11 @ 2:11PM

Richard Baker,

Cicero is right, but only when viewed in contemporary times. They haven't innovated in the last thousand years and the last century was not glorious for the Chinese. Arguably the Ming dynasty produced great agricultural production and led to a trading powerhouse four hundred years ago, but that dynasty ended in economic collapse.

Their production quality is not good. My personal experience has seen the saving pennies on capacitors which cannot handle ripple current and having the board fail prematurely, the construction the jaws of a pipe wrench out of mild steel, and simple coiled pipe pressure gauges which fail under the rated pressure. Their new J-20 fighter looks a lot like the F-22 since they bought the wreckage of an F-22 in the Balkans.

Still, there are intelligent people throughout the world who can advance when their governments permit it.

The Chinese are up against some powerful headwinds however. The one-child policy has led to both a smaller generation and one without many women. The rise of Capitalism is incompatible with Communism and their power transfer mechanism is not responsive enough to deal with it and, finally, once consumer demands begins to rise the export of cheap labor in the form of finished goods will drop.

Sally Morris| 3.27.11 @ 8:40PM

It is interesting to contemplate the recent Chinese contributions to the marketplace. We've had dog food infused with - what was it - silicon? Anyway, it killed the dogs to whom we fed it; we've had toxic toys, toxic clothig and toxic wallboard, resulting, in the case of the latter, in whole homes being destroyed. It does appear that honest dealings are outside of the teachings of whatever tigers are in charge of teaching the cubs over there. Again, it seems an elitist position and one which is married to the art of flim-flam. I guess if I, as an American, feel any "shame" it is because Americans are so easily duped by Asians, and the Chinese in particular.

Steve A| 3.24.11 @ 1:45PM

Say what you will but I'll take the Tiger Mom kid over the deadbeat, welfare queen kid any day.

Seek| 3.24.11 @ 2:21PM

So would I, but where does that leave 95% of the white families with fairly normal working parents?

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 2:23PM

95%? Try 50 and falling.

Steve A| 3.24.11 @ 2:33PM

Paying the bills, as always.

marilyn| 3.24.11 @ 1:50PM

I've not read Amy Chua's book, but I hope she is setting aside some of her royalties to pay the therapist bills for her daughters down the road. Sounds like she just didn't want to have to deal with all the messiness of actually trying to communicate with her children about goals and choices in life. It is possible to have high expectations for your children without terrorizing and degrading them, but if you don't really care about a child discovering her own voice in the midst of all this "excellence"; if it's more important that she reflect well on you with her "accomplishments", then go ahead and roar. Good luck getting them to visit you at the nursing home though!

another mother| 3.24.11 @ 1:59PM

Why is "success" measured by whether or not a kid gets into Harvard or makes a lot of money or plays Carnegie Hall? Seems like a rather limited definition of the word. If that is the message we give our kids, then many are doomed to despair for not meeting such goals. Isn't being a stay-at-home mother an admirable goal? Isn't having fun with your children an admirable goal? Isn't encouraging your children to find what makes them happy, whether it involves an elite university or not, an admirable goal? To focus your future on how the world will view you and your accomplishments is just sad.

Pelligrino| 3.24.11 @ 2:26PM

Yes, we need to put a knife to the notion that Tiger Moms working uppity full-time jobs somehow qualify as moms. She might have been the birth instrument...but...

Who raised her daughters? She didn't.

Looking from the outside, this seems to be just a slightly different (ever so slightly better) variation of the single parent.

And that is the destruction of our society.

If you've never worked with pre-teens, teens, and college aged kids, then you should. Within 6-8 weeks of working with the kids you know who comes from a stable home (mom & dad). And you know, particularly with the younger ones, rather quickly who had a parent there to greet them when school ended each day.

It's pretty striking.

albert constantine jr.| 3.24.11 @ 11:16PM

Sometime it pays to define the success bar down somewhat. "My 16 year old doesn't smoke in front of her children" might be the boastful bumper sticker that some start with and is preferable to the alternative. I've always felt that as long as my kids weren't "clients" of the criminal justice or welfare system, had marketable skills and some work ethic, and had some measure of happiness stemming from achievements and their knowledge derived from showing them we loved them, that my primary parental goals were met. Everything after that is gravy.

nofan tiger| 3.24.11 @ 2:06PM

No Asian male is good enough for the so-called Tiger moms and their offsprings. Hello alpha males.

Kerry| 3.24.11 @ 2:29PM

Wonder if this article will get the same number of comments as the original "tiger mom" article on wall street journal back in Jan-February? They were up to 4 or 5 thousand comments I think back in February, incredible.... Chua certainly hit a nerve!!!

Richard Baker| 3.24.11 @ 2:50PM

John Navratil:
Understand your post but my point is that the Chinese are where the Japanese were in the late '50s-'60s. I don't think that anyone would say that the Japanese can't invent or innovate. When I was a kid in the late '50s we referred to "Japanese junk" regarding their products. Lets not make the same mistake with the Chinese.

Doctor Right| 3.24.11 @ 3:08PM

Your point is well-taken, but I honestly can't recall a single, earth-changing innovation or invention since the start of the industrial revolution that originated in the far-east.

Europe and America? That's another story.

John Navratil| 3.24.11 @ 3:32PM

Richard Baker,

I don't think we are in disagreement. Will the Chinese get better at what they are doing? Almost certainly. Will they become the world's innovators? Perhaps. The cycle of history would suggest so. However, there isn't much evidence of that at the moment.

On of their current strategies is to purchase aviation manufacturing firms cheaply. The deals are in place to acquire TCM and Cirrus. This is hardly innovative.

I'll pull a Juan Williams here and say then when I get into a Chinese built aircraft, I will be concerned.

Stuart Koehl| 3.25.11 @ 11:08AM

I'm not losing sleep over China. To quote Mark Steyn, "They'll get old long before they get rich".

Skippy| 3.25.11 @ 3:25PM

Correct.
Steyn made the most relevant point of the century in his most recent book.
"When history comes knocking, the only response that matters is, 'who's there?'"
Having 30 million young men with no hope for a mate might just lead to a few unanticipated glitches in both the Chinese future and Tiger Mom's notions of what will be important in her kids' future.

Richard Baker| 3.24.11 @ 3:17PM

Doctor Right:
The number of patents is irrelevant as a gauge of innovation. I direct your attention to the VHS player. Invented here by Ampex, if memory serves, but the Japanese refined and took over that business. How many TVs are made in the US, as well? Learned in the Army many years ago to NOT underestimate your opponent. Besides, the Chinese military press often have articles from the military leadership stating that they want a brawl with us which they believe they can win.

Stuart Koehl| 3.25.11 @ 11:15AM

Should we be making TVs or VCRs? I doubt it. The entire point of the free market is relative competitive advantage. Low value added manufacturing tends to flow downhill from the developed economies to the less developed economies. Japan does not make that many televisions or VCRs (actually DVD players) anymore, having passed that business down to Korea. In a decade, the Koreas will have passed it down to Indonesia or Malaysia. Advanced economies focus on high value added manufacturing, as well as engineering and services.

In any case, all manufacturing sectors everywhere have been shedding jobs, and will continue to shed jobs for years to come, because such jobs are dangerous, boring and much better done by machines. Some may think this is a tragedy, but they have a very fuzzy and nostalgic view of what real manufacturing jobs were like. We see the same sort of nostalgia for farmers. But the size of the manufacturing sector in the U.S. has almost tripled since the 1970s (and accounts for the same proportion of our GDP), even though the number of manufacturing jobs has declined in inverse proportion (just as farms now produce exponentially more per acre than they did a century ago, though just 3% of the population works the land).

Barbara| 3.24.11 @ 3:58PM

I read Ms. Chua's article in the WSJ and I thought she made many good points about child rearing (and this is from a laissez-faire mother of four kids). She says that non-Asian American kids are lazy and that their parents are more convinced of their lack of ability to succeed than of their abilities. I would not be willing to spend the amount of effort she describes in supervising my kids' homework- I admit it. Why do people get so personally offended by a description of a different child-rearing method?

Ted| 3.24.11 @ 4:35PM

"Chua's response: Talk to me if and when your kid gets into Harvard. (Princeton doesn't count.)"

She does all that to get her children into Harvard? Please, spare me. Harvard is overpriced for the education. Once upon a time, Harvard was an educational crown jewel. Now, their educational standards are so watered down as to be almost meaningless. Pointing this out to the elite Harvard faculty is partly what got Larry Summers into hot water as Harvard's President.

And I am not knocking on Harvard specifically. The same watered down standards that exist at Harvard afflict most "top tier" schools today.

Pat| 3.24.11 @ 5:05PM

Amusing – and some truth to it here in California. All Asians, but the Taiwanese in particular, are big on education – and we’re talking about getting your kid a real education in California’s case. The young Chinese math whiz pulling straight A’s in pre-calc will still have a private math tutor for forced weekly sessions even though this kid’s native aptitude in math and study habits are the envy of every Caucasian parent. Self-esteem and popularity among peers carries considerable weight with Caucasian parents, but it’s knowledge and good work habits which Asian parents demand. Benefitting from a 5,000 year old culture, Asian parents know a thing or two about living a successful life. Getting your kid into Harvard or Stanford is important, mainly because they will then rub elbows with the future Movers and Shakers of our country – it’s still 75% who you know and 25% what you know.

50 years ago, Jews were the Asians of the East Coast and it was the same problem, except it was the Lowenstein’s kid instead of the Chung’s kid applying to Harvard. Harvard then, like UC Berkeley with Asian applicants today, had to impose “unofficial” quotas to keep the Jewish numbers low and satisfy the Old Guard legacy families in order to preserve their annual endowments.

And it’s a myth Asian kids aren’t good at sports or don’t try out for a spot on the team. Chinese moms know that sports or marching band need to be included on their kid’s college application, they even know the point value for a sport assigned by the college admission committees. But, it’s golf, tennis or softball – how many 350 pound Chinese offensive tackles or 6 foot 9 Cambodian power forwards do you see in professional sports?

But Mother Nature knows even more than Chinese – or Jewish – Tiger mamas. Well-endowed blonde girls will do things for and to their sons that their less well-endowed Chinese girls can’t do and these Chinese moms will have a Caucasian daughter-in-law, whether they like it or not. And with mainland China’s overabundance of males to females ratio, America may some day need to export blonde girls to China as mail order wives or mistresses in exchange for cheap cell phones. You can’t fool Mother Nature and ambitious girls will seek out and marry superior men - Dr. Chung will have his trophy wife and the balance of nature will continue to rule over all of us.

PJ| 3.24.11 @ 6:49PM

No well-endowed blond girl is going to marry Dr Chung, a medical doctor who gets paid by the government if not now then certainly in the future if you believe Obamacare will still be in existence. A millionaire, Dr Chung, will certainly not be with or without Ivy League credentials.

I know too many Asians with the education credentials who are having a hard time financially.

Au Contraire| 3.24.11 @ 7:22PM

Asians generally don't seem to be interested in blonde women's large "endowments." Other races have a reputation for that, but not really Asians.

Stuart Koehl| 3.24.11 @ 8:16PM

They like long necks. Had a blond friend who went to Japan and got lots of work modeling and in commercials. Mainly they posed her to show off her neck.

Pelligrino| 3.25.11 @ 4:11PM

Yes, PJ, this is the problem. "Education credentials" (various diplomas) DO NOT matter. Not one wit.

I'm glad that the pedigreed from our academia are struggling. It is folly to rack up years of doing nothing more than studying, library time and MASSIVE personal debt ($200,000 and more)

What life skills do most of them really have to offer?

They're all so self-absorbed. They've mastered quizes, 3-pages, diagnostic tests, and final exams. THAT AIN'T ANY MEASURE OF A MAN. Give 'em two text books and an exam in a fortnight, so what? They pass. Matters not.

Grades are all over-inflated anyway. Academia is 80% a joke. It's big business disguised as something worthwhile.

Notice not one entry here has talked about engineering degrees. Something you might consider: Schools like Colorado School of Mines. There's one in West Virginia, too.

Now...that's something worth pursuing.

BackToBasics| 3.24.11 @ 6:32PM

The American education system values high self-esteem even above high academic achievement. All this does is make people more arrogant when they are older. And the arrogance is even worse when it is not due to any accomplishments, but rather just a state of mind or emotion.

Tiger mother's, and teachers, are far better than "self-esteem enablers." When they are older, the grown up kids will thank them for their "tiger" mom approach much, much more often than not.

LMajito| 3.24.11 @ 7:43PM

Well the little charger that comes with the iPad says it al: 'designed in Palo Alto, manufactured in China' and this the crux of it al...chinese are great a copying and repeating what somebody else does but lousy at coming up with some new and innovative product like say Steve Jobs and his team...how about Bill Gates...how many years at Harvard? Ivy League means squat when it comes to real success...playing music like a robot? is this great? heck no...let Ms Tiger kids go and compose some music in part with Wolgang or Ludwig...

CalMark| 3.24.11 @ 7:46PM

Asians' obsession to succeed is bad for everyone. While they work like heck, many of them, especially immigrants and first-generation types, have no ethics as Americans understand the word.

First, they trample everything and everyone in their way. Then they form networks (cabals, really) to keep us white devils out of the picture, the kind of stuff that would not be tolerated (rightly so) if white men did it.

In my undergrad days Asian science/engineering professors were famous for driving off off white students. In one course, we had two professors. Under the white male, grade distribution was normal across all groups. He left mid-semester, and an Asian replaced him; miraculously, the Asians started acing everything in sight and the white folks started failing all the tests, even those of us in A-B territory. It took a deputation a half-dozen of us white boys visiting two department heads, two deans, and the campus ombudsman (a full professor) and the unspoken but hovering, threat of lawsuit to stop this guy from failing us all.

Finishing my graduate program, the only job offer I got was from a small family company who could only afford 20% less than the going rate for my academic credentials. That didn't even consider my decade as a military officer, which substantially helped the organization. Asian undergrads who spoke broken (to put it charitably) English had more offers than they could handle; I asked one such 22-year-old how he did it, and he literally stuck his nose in the air and airily informed me that "you have to have connections."

It's easy to succeed when you don't play by the rules.

Seek| 3.25.11 @ 4:04PM

Amazing anecdote. I had a different problem with my Chinese-born freshman physics professor: I could barely understand a word he said.

Pelligrino| 3.25.11 @ 4:21PM

Talked with a undergrad junior while jogging last fall around one of the nation's overall top 10 campuses. We had a long jog and talk.

His worst class: Calculus (no, he was not a math major) taught by a Chinese woman in her 7th semester teaching.

This was the worst class for him because she was completely unintelligible.

His secret to his B grades for the course: A grad student tutor and hours on YouTube looking up the correct way to understand the material.

Why the ______ do we have any nationality standing in front of our kids who you cannot understand?

This Chinese mathematician is NOT alone with her English language incompetency. They get teaching posts, doctoral study opportunities....Why?

marshcope| 3.24.11 @ 11:24PM

Tiger Mamasan Chua reminded me suddenly of an article by the late Dennis Bloodworth "Deadlier than the Male" about the Chinese Woman. In Master Kung's system the mother in law was permitted to browbeat the daughter in law, who got to browbeat the Amah, who got to browbeat the wash girl, and the husband, who was not allowed in the kitchen ever.And the imperial education system was designed to prepare one boy from the village to take the national civil service exam to prepare him to be a mandarin someday by drowning the kid in Chinese classical culture

Occam's Tool| 3.24.11 @ 11:45PM

I'm not too worried about ObamaCare. You see, I can count, and I know my baby boomers. If I ever go back into private practice again, I'll take no insurance and charge what I want.

Negro X| 3.25.11 @ 1:58AM

" Spare the taser, spoil the child".

marshcope| 3.25.11 @ 3:33AM

There is a Chinese opera called Beating the Dragon Robe, in which an Emperor discovers that an old market women he was rude to in his wild youth is really his mother, so, since he must be punished for being mean to his mother, but the Emperor can't be touched, his servants hang up his yellow royal robe and beat it, and justice is done. The Chua daughters should beat their mother's power suit out on the clothes line, and justice will be done in the Chua family.

Richard Baker| 3.27.11 @ 9:39AM

Seems as if this forum on this subject has degenerated into an "I hate Asians, especially Chinese, because they work together" spleen venting. As to language, ask those who had the European professors in the 40's and '50s whose language skills were heavily accented. Those students got on somehow, regardless. Yes, the Orientals work connections as did the Italians, Jews, Poles, etc. Y'all need to stop whining and maybe figure out WHY the Asian students excel instead of crying because of them. There are lessons to be learned here and it seems my fellow Americans aren't willing to even consider learning from this. Sad.

Stuart Koehl| 3.27.11 @ 8:48PM

They don't really exel, you know. Regardless of their academic achievements, most of them never really rise above project or mid-level management because, well, they're technically good at a limited range of skills, but not particularly imaginative, tend not to take initiative, and have horrible people skills. Add to that a strongly amoral ruthless streak, and you have a guy (or gal) with a built-in glass ceiling.

CalMark| 3.28.11 @ 10:34PM

"Add to that a strongly amoral ruthless streak..."

Precisely. Most Asians reject Western ethics. School or work, lots of Asians have literally laughed in my face about ethical considerations, which they condescendingly tell me are absurd scruples.

Are they more talented and deserving of success? It's hard to tell, because they get to play by different rules. That includes an increasingly unbreakable stereotype that Asians are inherently smarter, harder-working, and more talented--in other words, racially superior to white people.

No one should give anybody who relies on such stereotypes or cheats on ethics, including self-righteous white liberal enablers, any benefit of the doubt whatsoever.

Richard Baker| 3.27.11 @ 9:45AM

Also:
The quotas against the Jews in the '30s were wrong and the quotas against the Orientals, such as in the California University system, are wrong as well. Whatever happened to the Americans who just wanted an opportunity and the chance to succeed? I guess they died with the Baby Boomer mentality, or lack thereof. By the way, I'm 58 so don't give me this nonsense about being younger.

Stuart Koehl| 3.27.11 @ 8:55PM

The "O tempora, O mores" shtick grows old in a hurry. I'll just point out that people have been saying this about the younger generation of Americans since the second generation of colonists at Massachusetts Bay (described as lazy, spendthrift, hedonistic and impious). Let's look at some hard facts: American workers outproduce just about everyone else in the world, including the Chinese (who we outproduce by a very wide margin indeed), and American scientists, technologists and businessmen are far more creative and innovative than any others in the world to boot. Which is why, even when we are in the doldrums, we just stand head and shoulders above everybody else (despite our foolish political leaders).

Our real problem lies in our assumptions about education, which overvalues a four year liberal arts degree, and undervalues practical, hands-on experience. If we reformed the system according to the proposal of Charles Murray, not only would the number of people who shouldn't be anywhere near college drop like a stone, but those same people will be able to get useful and valuable training that will help them find gainful employment, at a fraction of the cost of an otherwise worthless BA.

Richard Baker| 3.27.11 @ 9:22PM

Stuart:
Verbosity ill becomes you.

Stuart Koehl| 3.28.11 @ 6:42AM

As faux indignation about the plight of the poor Asian kid next door does you.

Richard Baker| 3.28.11 @ 8:35PM

Stuart:
So you're saying that the quotas on Jews in Universities in the 1930's were ok? Hardly faux anything. I grew up an Army kid and I learned that it's what you do and not anything else that matters. Your complaints are, as usual, irrelevant to the subject at hand. Using the Asian kids as a whipping boy seems ok with you, as well, it seems. I'm ashamed that you're a citizen in this country. Faux, my butt.

Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 11:28PM

is good

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