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.
