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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
This was a very interesting, thought provoking book. I think that a lot of parents tend to raise their children this way in the town that I live in although not to the extreme that this mother did.
This is an easy read. I guess i just didn't 'get' it. She tries the "Chinese way" in an environment that is completely different from where the "Chinese way" has ever succeeded before but she presses on. She comes across as a type A martyr. I don't know how it is feasible that she did all the things she said in the book. Then when I read the afterword, she said it was supposed to be a FUNNY book. That she was mocking herself?!?! I totally missed that.
conflicted as to the rating, to be honest. my two best friends when i was in high school were asian ( ... still are, i assume) and this is how they were raised and it makes me sad, b/c there was evident damage at the time and it just seemed so unnecessary. so subject-matter-wise, i hated it--though i knew i would. the writing, on the other hand, was engaging and accessible--worth 3 out of 5 stars. obviously, i split the difference. and for what it's worth, i think there are positive aspects of that particular parenting method--but the serious emotional abuse sure isn't one of them.
I usually only rate books that I read and don't write reviews for them (b/c I feel that I can never succinctly/correctly say how I feel) but in this case, I thought I'd try to explain why I gave this book such a high rating. I found her writing to be humorous and her parenting style struck a chord with me. While she did go way too far in some of the parenting that she did, she does acknowledge her mistakes and sees that parenting styles have to adapt to each individual child. Over and over again, she is humbled by her children and husband. I see that she has been criticized for her parenting and for taking credit for her children's successes but I think that every parent deals with this. Who doesn't proudly exclaim - "That's my kid!" when they succeed and cringe when kids act out? I have to give her props for doing so much and spending so much time with her kids. You can't fault her for not being there for them. I also give her props for putting it out there and willing to take the criticism from others for some of the terrible mistakes she made. I absolutely saw the love that she had for her girls and husband. I liked that she had her family read and edit this book so that their memories match with what was written in the book.
Being a mom to 4 kids, I understand the fear and worry that comes with parenting and making sure that each child is getting what they need to succeed and find their place in this world. I absolutely understand the belief that children are strong and wonderful and wanting to push them so that they see/feel it in themselves because you love them so very much. Being neither "Chinese" nor "Western" I feel that I do straddle the "Chinese" and "Western" parenting styles. I understand that she wasn't trying to represent everything that a "Chinese" or "Western" parent does but only trying to explain where she was coming from. Favorite quote - “Be modest, be humble, be simple.” Love this.
Being a mom to 4 kids, I understand the fear and worry that comes with parenting and making sure that each child is getting what they need to succeed and find their place in this world. I absolutely understand the belief that children are strong and wonderful and wanting to push them so that they see/feel it in themselves because you love them so very much. Being neither "Chinese" nor "Western" I feel that I do straddle the "Chinese" and "Western" parenting styles. I understand that she wasn't trying to represent everything that a "Chinese" or "Western" parent does but only trying to explain where she was coming from. Favorite quote - “Be modest, be humble, be simple.” Love this.
Very engrossing. Simultaneously, I feel better about my parenting and worse. Haha
EDIT: Reevaluating the book the second time through. Looking past the initial desire to stab myself in the eyes when I read, I realize that I hated the book because it hit too close to home. Taking a step back, I remembered that this is someone's actual life.
The biggest problem, then, is this: society tends to read works of nonfiction and use them as how-to guides. You have to remember that they're not really telling you how to live your life, they're just reciting theirs for you to hear. If I read "Whip Smart", I'm not going to take my life and become a dominatrix overnight. See, I've had a bit more training in the world of biographies. Perhaps it was just a mistake to read Chua's first.
Personal bias aside, I've raised my rating. As I said before, the book is well-written and deserves the title of page-turner (if only due to intrigue or blind fury). The paperback version included extras like interviews, where Chua defends her book (and well, I guess her life, too), which was helpful. With that, it's easier to see that the story was closer to a coming-of-age thing rather than a how-to guide that bashes Western thinking. Two stars are still knocked off, though, because no matter how much she says it's basically therapy for her life after her daughter rebelled, the writing itself came off as too arrogant to deal with. That, and have you seen her articles on Eastern vs. Western culture and why Chinese mothers are superior? Okay, tell me THAT wasn't a criticism on the west and a mini-how-to...sure, there were no explicit directions told in the second person, but I swear, I could just feel her breathing down my neck.
(Things were made worse when she came into our store to sign the books. The book made me feel very conflicted; her daughters were super cool and nice; the author herself was really peppy; and her husband looked like he was determining whether he should berate at me or not when I said that I had read the book and that I related. At the time I didn't say whether I enjoyed it or not. Yikes.)
--
I will give this two stars, because it was written well and it kept be reading actively.
But it's the content of the book that is not something I agree with at all. In fact, I sincerely hope that no one out there starts stereotyping us Asians all over again, because she's just confirming all these things that could only apply to her family. Is it even okay to judge someone's life like this? Is it okay to feel like I'm reading a villain's perspective on life? Is it all right to confirm this Asian stereotype? Hmm. I'm not too sure. I guess there was a good reason why this book was in the biography section of our store -- it's essentially a book to brag about the author's accomplishments. If this was in psychology and parenting, the world is going to burn. It's almost like she's trying to create some sort of wicked formula to turn children into musical prodigies, and all you have do is sacrifice your children's ability to think for themselves or have their own minds.
I'm not sure how to feel about this family. In fact, reading this made me question what it even means to be Asian-American, and it infuriates me. I would say that this book got me to think, but topics like this are things I have thought about before...since, well, I AM Asian-American. For another audience, I'm sure it would induce some novel thoughts, but for me, it just stirred up a whole lot of irritation. Where was the direction of this book, anyway? Was it just a journal for her to write in after her youngest daughter broke her heart in two by actually having a personality and her own mind? She writes this as if she's speaking for all the "Chinese mothers" out there. It almost feels like she's making herself seem privileged and that she's the only person fit to do so in this world. Is she really the only person who can "explain" how a "typical" Asian parent acts? The High Expectations Asian Father meme comes to mind.
She is constantly talking about the battle that is being a "Chinese mother" to her daughters, and she doesn't care if she's the one that's hated. But she whines about it. It's a very whiny book, actually. There are several parts where you just want to groan and tell her to just shut up already. By the end of the book, it sounds like her daughters are praising her, but read that big ol' paragraph again and you'll find that she's just praising herself. If she had a thousand hands, she'd try to give herself a pat on the back for every breath her children have taken thus far.
I honestly would not be surprised if the author had planned this all along so her two children and husband could write their own lengthy responses to this woman. It's a pretty good strategy, and I'll bet everyone would rather read her daughters' stories rather than hers. This book has absolutely no heart, and I didn't really find any of it funny. I don't think I've held such contempt for a person since Cathy from Steinbeck's East of Eden. And that woman actually killed people, and it was a work of fiction.
The biggest problem, then, is this: society tends to read works of nonfiction and use them as how-to guides. You have to remember that they're not really telling you how to live your life, they're just reciting theirs for you to hear. If I read "Whip Smart", I'm not going to take my life and become a dominatrix overnight. See, I've had a bit more training in the world of biographies. Perhaps it was just a mistake to read Chua's first.
Personal bias aside, I've raised my rating. As I said before, the book is well-written and deserves the title of page-turner (if only due to intrigue or blind fury). The paperback version included extras like interviews, where Chua defends her book (and well, I guess her life, too), which was helpful. With that, it's easier to see that the story was closer to a coming-of-age thing rather than a how-to guide that bashes Western thinking. Two stars are still knocked off, though, because no matter how much she says it's basically therapy for her life after her daughter rebelled, the writing itself came off as too arrogant to deal with. That, and have you seen her articles on Eastern vs. Western culture and why Chinese mothers are superior? Okay, tell me THAT wasn't a criticism on the west and a mini-how-to...sure, there were no explicit directions told in the second person, but I swear, I could just feel her breathing down my neck.
(Things were made worse when she came into our store to sign the books. The book made me feel very conflicted; her daughters were super cool and nice; the author herself was really peppy; and her husband looked like he was determining whether he should berate at me or not when I said that I had read the book and that I related. At the time I didn't say whether I enjoyed it or not. Yikes.)
--
I will give this two stars, because it was written well and it kept be reading actively.
But it's the content of the book that is not something I agree with at all. In fact, I sincerely hope that no one out there starts stereotyping us Asians all over again, because she's just confirming all these things that could only apply to her family. Is it even okay to judge someone's life like this? Is it okay to feel like I'm reading a villain's perspective on life? Is it all right to confirm this Asian stereotype? Hmm. I'm not too sure. I guess there was a good reason why this book was in the biography section of our store -- it's essentially a book to brag about the author's accomplishments. If this was in psychology and parenting, the world is going to burn. It's almost like she's trying to create some sort of wicked formula to turn children into musical prodigies, and all you have do is sacrifice your children's ability to think for themselves or have their own minds.
I'm not sure how to feel about this family. In fact, reading this made me question what it even means to be Asian-American, and it infuriates me. I would say that this book got me to think, but topics like this are things I have thought about before...since, well, I AM Asian-American. For another audience, I'm sure it would induce some novel thoughts, but for me, it just stirred up a whole lot of irritation. Where was the direction of this book, anyway? Was it just a journal for her to write in after her youngest daughter broke her heart in two by actually having a personality and her own mind? She writes this as if she's speaking for all the "Chinese mothers" out there. It almost feels like she's making herself seem privileged and that she's the only person fit to do so in this world. Is she really the only person who can "explain" how a "typical" Asian parent acts? The High Expectations Asian Father meme comes to mind.
She is constantly talking about the battle that is being a "Chinese mother" to her daughters, and she doesn't care if she's the one that's hated. But she whines about it. It's a very whiny book, actually. There are several parts where you just want to groan and tell her to just shut up already. By the end of the book, it sounds like her daughters are praising her, but read that big ol' paragraph again and you'll find that she's just praising herself. If she had a thousand hands, she'd try to give herself a pat on the back for every breath her children have taken thus far.
I honestly would not be surprised if the author had planned this all along so her two children and husband could write their own lengthy responses to this woman. It's a pretty good strategy, and I'll bet everyone would rather read her daughters' stories rather than hers. This book has absolutely no heart, and I didn't really find any of it funny. I don't think I've held such contempt for a person since Cathy from Steinbeck's East of Eden. And that woman actually killed people, and it was a work of fiction.
I read it in two days and didn't want to put it down. It's a satirical memoir, self incriminating, ironic, funny. It also gives some much needed perspective on Western parenting norms.
The premise of this book is quite well known and caused quite a stir worldwide at the time of publishing.
At first this looks like a parenting book: Amy Chau also presents some statistics on the relationship between parenting styles to success markers (these being academic performance, career and financial success). Quickly it becomes a cold, hot, and slightly manic story about Amy's own experiences of being parented, and how this has been factored into their own plans and desires for parenthood. It should be said that this is a satire memoir, first and foremost.
There were many outrageous anecdotes about placing both daughters competitvely against each other, 'encouragements', rewards and punishments, and so forth. Amy uses these as reflection points between Chinese and Western (she also acknowledged the term western is very vast and only uses this to contrast the main surface level differences) parenting styles to much humour.
Some fascinating points:
- the perception of filal piety on parenting and childhood.
- parents know and understand best, overriding interests and emotions.
-For the sake of the outcome, the process is worthwhile.
- compliance with authority is one of the upmost important points to learn
This point also landed with me and my experiences:
- parents are building up your skills for the future, so by arming them with skills and knowledge; this inner confidence can never be taken away.
Throughout the book, Amy has met each challenge head on. She is regularly challenged by her children, husband, family, friends, education and the western system. This is incredibly lonely; in fact her own affirming allies are global majority educators and parents who seem to understand her drive and passion.
At the end, both of her daughters reflected on their childhood and actually feel grateful that Amy pushed them to excel, curb their impulses and be confident in themselves.
At first this looks like a parenting book: Amy Chau also presents some statistics on the relationship between parenting styles to success markers (these being academic performance, career and financial success). Quickly it becomes a cold, hot, and slightly manic story about Amy's own experiences of being parented, and how this has been factored into their own plans and desires for parenthood. It should be said that this is a satire memoir, first and foremost.
There were many outrageous anecdotes about placing both daughters competitvely against each other, 'encouragements', rewards and punishments, and so forth. Amy uses these as reflection points between Chinese and Western (she also acknowledged the term western is very vast and only uses this to contrast the main surface level differences) parenting styles to much humour.
Some fascinating points:
- the perception of filal piety on parenting and childhood.
- parents know and understand best, overriding interests and emotions.
-For the sake of the outcome, the process is worthwhile.
- compliance with authority is one of the upmost important points to learn
This point also landed with me and my experiences:
- parents are building up your skills for the future, so by arming them with skills and knowledge; this inner confidence can never be taken away.
Throughout the book, Amy has met each challenge head on. She is regularly challenged by her children, husband, family, friends, education and the western system. This is incredibly lonely; in fact her own affirming allies are global majority educators and parents who seem to understand her drive and passion.
At the end, both of her daughters reflected on their childhood and actually feel grateful that Amy pushed them to excel, curb their impulses and be confident in themselves.
In theory, Amy Chua makes sense. I agree that the importance of hard work must be understood in childhood, and that letting children give up easily is detrimental to their development.
In practice, she doesn't. She shouldn't be denying Lulu's basic needs like drinking water or going to the bathroom while practicing violin. Sophia shouldn't be adjusting when Chua, the adult, says something hurtful. As the parent, she has the responsibility to keep her temper in check.
She dramatically knocks herself down slippery slopes. When Lulu doesn't do extra credit on a test, Chua implies her teacher will think poorly of her, and that she'll end up a bad student. When Sophia accidentally leaves the pantry door open and the dogs get into a bag of rice, Chua says the dogs will die and accuses her of never listening, never changing, never caring about anyone else, only caring about staying out of trouble.
Chua's own parents disapprove of her making Sophia and Lulu practice while on vacation. They are the first-generation immigrants and yet!!! She insisted and it negatively affected everyone's vacations as a result. She clearly went too far.
The girls' music teachers motivate them by appealing to their eagerness for a challenge without guilt-tripping or yelling at them. Seeing these moments sprinkled throughout the book, along with one of Chua's earlier lines ("This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old."), got me thinking she would see the error of her ways. And she did that when she relaxed her authoritarian grip on Lulu's hobbies and when she admitted Chinese parenting doesn't always succeed based on her father's estrangement from his own family.
However, the conversation between Chua and her daughters in the conclusion hand-waves these developments. I expected the final message would be about getting the best of both worlds rather than sticking to the simple dichotomy of Chinese vs. Western parenting, but we got a monologue about the supremacy of Chinese parenting.
I mean, it's her book and it's more a biography than a treatise on Parenting 101. But still! Don't just shove the nuances of both parenting styles under a rug!!
Thought Dump
- "When my friends hear these stories [of how my parents raised me], they often imagine that I had a horrible childhood. But that's not true at all; I found strength and confidence in my peculiar family. We started off as outsiders together, and we discovered America together, becoming Americans in the process." Very much like Alex Tizon's "My Family's Slave" in how, in a foreign land, both oppressor and oppressed receive an additional layer to their relationship because they have that shared experience of being discriminated against for some trait of theirs (being Chinese in America). Relationships are also complicated in both pieces.
- When she scolded her daughters for laughing at foreign names I was on her side until she said, "Even in third grade, classmates made fun of me. Do you know where those people are now? They're janitors, that's where." Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
- "With her shiny black eyes, her shiny bowl haircut, and her rosebud lips, she was constantly attracting the attention of strangers ..." Rock Lee is that you?
In practice, she doesn't. She shouldn't be denying Lulu's basic needs like drinking water or going to the bathroom while practicing violin. Sophia shouldn't be adjusting when Chua, the adult, says something hurtful. As the parent, she has the responsibility to keep her temper in check.
She dramatically knocks herself down slippery slopes. When Lulu doesn't do extra credit on a test, Chua implies her teacher will think poorly of her, and that she'll end up a bad student. When Sophia accidentally leaves the pantry door open and the dogs get into a bag of rice, Chua says the dogs will die and accuses her of never listening, never changing, never caring about anyone else, only caring about staying out of trouble.
Chua's own parents disapprove of her making Sophia and Lulu practice while on vacation. They are the first-generation immigrants and yet!!! She insisted and it negatively affected everyone's vacations as a result. She clearly went too far.
The girls' music teachers motivate them by appealing to their eagerness for a challenge without guilt-tripping or yelling at them. Seeing these moments sprinkled throughout the book, along with one of Chua's earlier lines ("This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old."), got me thinking she would see the error of her ways. And she did that when she relaxed her authoritarian grip on Lulu's hobbies and when she admitted Chinese parenting doesn't always succeed based on her father's estrangement from his own family.
However, the conversation between Chua and her daughters in the conclusion hand-waves these developments. I expected the final message would be about getting the best of both worlds rather than sticking to the simple dichotomy of Chinese vs. Western parenting, but we got a monologue about the supremacy of Chinese parenting.
I mean, it's her book and it's more a biography than a treatise on Parenting 101. But still! Don't just shove the nuances of both parenting styles under a rug!!
Thought Dump
- "When my friends hear these stories [of how my parents raised me], they often imagine that I had a horrible childhood. But that's not true at all; I found strength and confidence in my peculiar family. We started off as outsiders together, and we discovered America together, becoming Americans in the process." Very much like Alex Tizon's "My Family's Slave" in how, in a foreign land, both oppressor and oppressed receive an additional layer to their relationship because they have that shared experience of being discriminated against for some trait of theirs (being Chinese in America). Relationships are also complicated in both pieces.
- When she scolded her daughters for laughing at foreign names I was on her side until she said, "Even in third grade, classmates made fun of me. Do you know where those people are now? They're janitors, that's where." Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
- "With her shiny black eyes, her shiny bowl haircut, and her rosebud lips, she was constantly attracting the attention of strangers ..." Rock Lee is that you?
I'm not going to write anything approaching a proper review of this book right now, because doing so would require a lot of time, would result in a few thousand words, would involve a ton of dissection of class and race and gender dynamics not to mention my own personal history, and would probably mean rereading the book. (Not that rereading it would be so difficult--it's a very fast read; I read it straight through in one sitting on a weeknight.) Instead, here are some scattered and inconclusive observations, in no particular order:
1. This is a book about being an American parent, not about being a Chinese parent.
2. The book does not in any way resemble the book that the media furor (and racially-tinged tar-and-feathering of Chua) made it out to be. This is obvious before you even open it: the front cover says "This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old." There are issues there for sure, but anyone who mistakes this for a parenting how-to needs their glasses checked.
3. This book is, often, hilarious. It's funny and tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating. It is, as another reviewer has pointed out, deceptively easy to read.
4. I'm not that bothered by Chua's parenting style. She definitely goes too far eventually, but the book is all about that fact. The writing of the book itself is precipitated by the near-disastrous crisis of her going too far, and seems to be in large part an attempt to work out what she did wrong. Chua doesn't spare herself here.
5. I'm a lot more bothered by the way that she makes generalizations and essentializes 'Chinese' and 'Western' parenting. There's a lot to unpack here, but my gut feels queasy at the sense that she's self-exoticizing, playing into the 'model minority' myth. It's more complex than that, though.
6. The book struck home for me pretty hard. Chua and her family are not exactly my family--my parents pushed hard, but did not go for the so-called Asian style of parenting--but they could be close relatives, or dozens of my friends' families. It's quite rare for me to see such an authentic representation of the kind of milieu in which I grew up.
7. Chua states early on that she wanted to write an intergenerational Asian-American family epic novel only to realize that she couldn't do it as well as Amy Tan or Maxine Hong Kingston. This book is clearly her epic.
8. It's interesting to me that while the area in which Chua really drove her daughters, and around which the book's narrative centers, is not an academic subject, not math or science, but music. She's not pushing her daughters to become doctors. She's pushing them in pursuit of art. Which raises a lot of interesting questions. What happens if we read this memoir in the context of the music world rather than the American mainstream parenting world? What does the signifier of classical music say about the persistence of racial barriers?
9. My main thought on finishing the book (aside from hoping that my little sisters somehow become BFFs with Chua's kids!) was that if you're going to drive your kids you need to be doing it for a reason. And I don't much like the default reasons that mainstream US culture provides.
10. I want to tell everyone to go and read the book, not just go by the media image, but I'm also a little hesitant to tell white people to read it, because of the way Chua uses stereotypes.
... I could keep going, but I really don't have time. If you're interested, other people have said more coherent things about this book:
This is the review that made me decide to actually read the book instead of ignoring it, and it makes a lot of insightful points:
http://rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com/410041.html
And this is a very interesting and perceptive response to the issues raised by the book but especially by the uproar, from an Asian-American perspective, very much worth reading (though I wish it weren't quite so male-skewed):
http://nymag.com/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/
1. This is a book about being an American parent, not about being a Chinese parent.
2. The book does not in any way resemble the book that the media furor (and racially-tinged tar-and-feathering of Chua) made it out to be. This is obvious before you even open it: the front cover says "This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old." There are issues there for sure, but anyone who mistakes this for a parenting how-to needs their glasses checked.
3. This book is, often, hilarious. It's funny and tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating. It is, as another reviewer has pointed out, deceptively easy to read.
4. I'm not that bothered by Chua's parenting style. She definitely goes too far eventually, but the book is all about that fact. The writing of the book itself is precipitated by the near-disastrous crisis of her going too far, and seems to be in large part an attempt to work out what she did wrong. Chua doesn't spare herself here.
5. I'm a lot more bothered by the way that she makes generalizations and essentializes 'Chinese' and 'Western' parenting. There's a lot to unpack here, but my gut feels queasy at the sense that she's self-exoticizing, playing into the 'model minority' myth. It's more complex than that, though.
6. The book struck home for me pretty hard. Chua and her family are not exactly my family--my parents pushed hard, but did not go for the so-called Asian style of parenting--but they could be close relatives, or dozens of my friends' families. It's quite rare for me to see such an authentic representation of the kind of milieu in which I grew up.
7. Chua states early on that she wanted to write an intergenerational Asian-American family epic novel only to realize that she couldn't do it as well as Amy Tan or Maxine Hong Kingston. This book is clearly her epic.
8. It's interesting to me that while the area in which Chua really drove her daughters, and around which the book's narrative centers, is not an academic subject, not math or science, but music. She's not pushing her daughters to become doctors. She's pushing them in pursuit of art. Which raises a lot of interesting questions. What happens if we read this memoir in the context of the music world rather than the American mainstream parenting world? What does the signifier of classical music say about the persistence of racial barriers?
9. My main thought on finishing the book (aside from hoping that my little sisters somehow become BFFs with Chua's kids!) was that if you're going to drive your kids you need to be doing it for a reason. And I don't much like the default reasons that mainstream US culture provides.
10. I want to tell everyone to go and read the book, not just go by the media image, but I'm also a little hesitant to tell white people to read it, because of the way Chua uses stereotypes.
... I could keep going, but I really don't have time. If you're interested, other people have said more coherent things about this book:
This is the review that made me decide to actually read the book instead of ignoring it, and it makes a lot of insightful points:
http://rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com/410041.html
And this is a very interesting and perceptive response to the issues raised by the book but especially by the uproar, from an Asian-American perspective, very much worth reading (though I wish it weren't quite so male-skewed):
http://nymag.com/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/