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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
Super quick and easy read. The author, who is the mother, is hilarious but also slightly insane. I don’t know how her marriage managed to last because even though her husband butted heads with her over how to discipline their daughters he still mostly supported her. I eventually would’ve lost my shit on my s/o with some of the things she says to them.
It is a curious/fascinating look to see into the Chinese way and how their kids really aren’t prodigies but extremely hard workers ‘forced’ to practice all day every day until they become great. I do agree that kids need to be disciplined and somewhat forced through something to learn how to be great at it and love it. But their should be a start to loving it and it shouldn’t be so practiced that they hate it. I mean the amount of work and practice and paying teachers to practice and pulling lulu out of school to practice?? That is just insane. Way way too much.
Overall, great read.
It is a curious/fascinating look to see into the Chinese way and how their kids really aren’t prodigies but extremely hard workers ‘forced’ to practice all day every day until they become great. I do agree that kids need to be disciplined and somewhat forced through something to learn how to be great at it and love it. But their should be a start to loving it and it shouldn’t be so practiced that they hate it. I mean the amount of work and practice and paying teachers to practice and pulling lulu out of school to practice?? That is just insane. Way way too much.
Overall, great read.
I enjoyed this book--the initial media coverage it received really misrepresented the author's goal in writing the book. her writing is funny and she is able to poke fun of both western and Chinese parenting styles, while also pointing out their strengths.
ebook.
i found this book incredibly interesting. at times jaw dropping (like when she told her daughter that the home-made birthday card was unacceptable)...at times inspiring (her 14 year old daughter playing piano at carnagie hall)...at times sad, funny, crazy. it's really a roller coaster of a book. and it's all true.
i'm not sure if it's Western vs. Eastern parenting that is laid out in this book. i think it's Amy Chua parenting vs. what she perceives as 'Western' parenting....but it doesn't matter. there is a lot of interesting and model worthy behavior in this book. there is also a lot to learn on what not to do to your children.
i think that the outrage this book has stirred up in people is silly. she didn't abuse her children...she just didn't coddle them. and even if you or i wouldn't choose the same parenting model that she did...there are some parts that make sense. even if you don't want to admit that they do.
i think amy chau was extremely brave to write this book and share her life with the world...opening herself up to so much criticism. i also think she should be given some acclaim..because it doesn't seem like she did such a bad job raising her daughters.
i found this book incredibly interesting. at times jaw dropping (like when she told her daughter that the home-made birthday card was unacceptable)...at times inspiring (her 14 year old daughter playing piano at carnagie hall)...at times sad, funny, crazy. it's really a roller coaster of a book. and it's all true.
i'm not sure if it's Western vs. Eastern parenting that is laid out in this book. i think it's Amy Chua parenting vs. what she perceives as 'Western' parenting....but it doesn't matter. there is a lot of interesting and model worthy behavior in this book. there is also a lot to learn on what not to do to your children.
i think that the outrage this book has stirred up in people is silly. she didn't abuse her children...she just didn't coddle them. and even if you or i wouldn't choose the same parenting model that she did...there are some parts that make sense. even if you don't want to admit that they do.
i think amy chau was extremely brave to write this book and share her life with the world...opening herself up to so much criticism. i also think she should be given some acclaim..because it doesn't seem like she did such a bad job raising her daughters.
I enjoyed this book. It's funny, well written, and forthright. I definitely think the author goes overboard in her parenting style, but it's clear she recognizes that about herself. If anything, the book describes how the "Chinese style" of parenting doesn't work for everyone -- in her case, it worked with one daughter, and backfired horribly with another.
The beginning of this book is hilarious. I found myself laughing out loud several times. Most of the book talks about music lessons and musical achievement. Reading about what this family went through made me so thankful my mom was not a Tiger Mom! Sure she had high expectations, and I exceled at piano and violin and made straight A's, but I only practiced an hour (at most) a day, and didn't commute to different cities to study with top teachers (though I will admit my mom changed my violin teacher several times in order to make sure I had the best teacher). Of course, I never made it to concert musician level like these kids, but I'm okay with that.
There were several good points raised about child-rearing in this book, and reminded me of what I recently read in Nurtureshock (there's a whole chapter on kids who argue with their parents, and the need for autonomy in pre-teens and teens.) This book doesn't assume that the "Chinese style" is best, it just shows, through one family's experience, how it can both positively and negatively affect the entire family.
The beginning of this book is hilarious. I found myself laughing out loud several times. Most of the book talks about music lessons and musical achievement. Reading about what this family went through made me so thankful my mom was not a Tiger Mom! Sure she had high expectations, and I exceled at piano and violin and made straight A's, but I only practiced an hour (at most) a day, and didn't commute to different cities to study with top teachers (though I will admit my mom changed my violin teacher several times in order to make sure I had the best teacher). Of course, I never made it to concert musician level like these kids, but I'm okay with that.
There were several good points raised about child-rearing in this book, and reminded me of what I recently read in Nurtureshock (there's a whole chapter on kids who argue with their parents, and the need for autonomy in pre-teens and teens.) This book doesn't assume that the "Chinese style" is best, it just shows, through one family's experience, how it can both positively and negatively affect the entire family.
I'd really give this book a 3.5, but the end dropped off significantly for me. The beginning was really thought provoking and sparked a lot of great conversations between me, friends and family. But the end felt unfinished, or almost as if she got bored with it. The build up to the big teaching moment at the end never really happened.
Ok, actual review 8/18/16:
Story time. The first time I heard about Chua's book was when the WSJ article got really big in the news. I think I was in like early middle school then or late middle school. Well, flash forward to many years later when I am in high school and I'm looking up Chua's kids online because, well, I'm curious. (I ended up finding a nice study guide by one of her daughters who goes to Harvard, and I read another interesting article about her younger daughter who goes to Harvard too and well her children are kind of #goals. Sorry, I'm in that phase of my life where I applied to college and well Harvard was pretty nice, ok.)
Anyways, I remember being pretty conflicted about this book coming out because at that time in middle school I had a lot of resentment and anger towards my parents, so when Chua's article came out I was like OMG UGH, the source of my resentment personified!!! But I also remember reading Sophia's (the oldest) defend her mom at the time and that was perhaps the reason why I still remembered this book and why I kept up with her daughters. So, flash forward to 2016. I decided to read this book because I read this lovely LA Times article about Hispanic mothers who made a reading group together because of the high school principal and their next book happened to be this so I thought, OK I'll read this and that's when I finally read the whole book. Even though it wasn't published recently, it was actually pretty relevant (at least, to me) and Chua's thoughts were a lot similar to mine. And, like Sophia's article argued, the media was blowing her up to be a lot worse. Which I will discuss in the spoilers section.
1. Chua discusses the struggles her daughters faced when they went to China because they are half-Chinese half-Jewish. Her daughters aren't the type of mixed children who look more Asian (like some people I know), but instead look more Jewish. She discusses what her daughters faced in China, how people would stare at them, and this was actually something I wondered randomly as I was growing up, how her daughters faced. Also, I had been to Vietnam recently and I just felt a little lost. I'm completely Vietnamese so I wasn't treated as an outsider, but I thought that when I went there I'd be able to feel completely connected but I didn't and that was a bit jarring for me. I guess I'm pretty American.
2. Chua discusses how she felt letting down some 3000 year ancestry by not marrying some Chinese guy and I kind of chuckled and agreed because I actually thought this too? Honestly, it seems so silly because while I don't really have a preference about who I'd date, (Chua addresses Yellow Fever) I can't help but think about the whole 'Should I date somebody outside of my ethnicity?' I've reached the point in my life where I realize that it doesn't matter though, despite what my relatives might think. So I'll just date whoever I like, regardless of class, race, and looking closer, ethnicity.
3. OK, so this made me laugh but I totally agreed when she was talking about how she wanted to be the next Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, etc. etc. and wanted to write a great generational Chinese-American family epic (because I've thought this way too), but then she finally writes a snippet of it and her daughters (or her husband, I forget) tells her that what she wrote wasn't too good and she had to admit it too LOL
4. She addresses helicopter parents which I thought was pretty interesting because this was initially what a lot of people assumed she was like and I think why a bunch of Asians like me got kinda mad because we thought it was helicopter parenting (which is pretty damaging and can be seen in the stress involved in Asia's schooling system, where teens have to study a lot in many of those countries with that kind of education system, just for a test to get into a college, and they're told that if they don't do well, then it's pretty much over. Which explains the high suicide rates among teens.) But I think if you read the book, you can see that what Chua does isn't helicopter parenting and you can clearly see the love and intent that she has behind her parenting and it's not like she's one of those closed off stoic Asian parents. She clearly engages and talks to her daughters often and they have fun together so it's not 100% strict like helicopter parents who hover around. I'll discuss Chua's parenting in the next paragraph.
As I said before, her parenting isn't THAT bad because you can clearly see the love behind it. As somebody who's shit at music but was forced into piano lessons (and later cello), I actually really regret not doing well at the instrument and basically foresaking it like in Joy Luck Club's protagonist because damn do I wish I played, but I have little to no musical ability so I guess that's it. Anyways, what Chua does you can clearly tell she does with love, and like I said before, she's no helicopter parent. You can also see that she realizes she's too intense and her focus on what's important after her sister gets cancer, and when Lulu has a breakdown and gets pissed at her mom, and Chua is running around Paris (or some European city) emotional in flip flops. LOL.
Anyways, I didn't think she was too bad, but I did think at one point, 'Wow, this is overkill.' when you can see how intense Chua is being with her parenting that the person she credited for being the way she is and why she parents, HER OWN PARENTS are like, 'Amy Chua, maybe you're being too excessive with this whole playing thing?' and she's like, 'It's fine!!!!! Look, I'm just following your examples, parents! You parented me like this too, you know?' and her dad is like 'OK, but I think it's okay to stop and chill out.' So, for me, that was when I thought ENOUGH!!!!!! when her own strict father is like let's chill.
Well, thankfully, this is when Chua changes after her sister and Lulu's meltdown, so she clearly learns from her mistakes (especially when Lulu is like Mom chill, I'm going to go at my own pace with tennis, ok.)
So all in all this was an enjoyable, interesting memoir. I'm glad it wasn't as terrible as I had once thought many years prior, and that Chua is more insightful than I imagined. No wonder her daughters (who I admire so ardently that I follow them on social media LOL) are doing so well and think so articulately and eloquently.
Pre-review 2016:
Going to write a review for this. Probably going to be a long one because I wrote notes! Notes!!!!! It's also going to be pretty darn personal too. Anyways, I have to say, I actually liked this a lot.
Pre-review:
If you ask me what I have more conflict with in comparison to Amy Tan and Amy Chua, answer is Amy Chua, for obvious reasons. But while I was initially sure I would never read this, my friend told me about it because we are slightly obsessed (not sure if this is the right word) about looking up how her daughters are doing in college because they're pretty cool and neat. So I think I'm going to read this. Just, eventually.
Story time. The first time I heard about Chua's book was when the WSJ article got really big in the news. I think I was in like early middle school then or late middle school. Well, flash forward to many years later when I am in high school and I'm looking up Chua's kids online because, well, I'm curious. (I ended up finding a nice study guide by one of her daughters who goes to Harvard, and I read another interesting article about her younger daughter who goes to Harvard too and well her children are kind of #goals. Sorry, I'm in that phase of my life where I applied to college and well Harvard was pretty nice, ok.)
Anyways, I remember being pretty conflicted about this book coming out because at that time in middle school I had a lot of resentment and anger towards my parents, so when Chua's article came out I was like OMG UGH, the source of my resentment personified!!! But I also remember reading Sophia's (the oldest) defend her mom at the time and that was perhaps the reason why I still remembered this book and why I kept up with her daughters. So, flash forward to 2016. I decided to read this book because I read this lovely LA Times article about Hispanic mothers who made a reading group together because of the high school principal and their next book happened to be this so I thought, OK I'll read this and that's when I finally read the whole book. Even though it wasn't published recently, it was actually pretty relevant (at least, to me) and Chua's thoughts were a lot similar to mine. And, like Sophia's article argued, the media was blowing her up to be a lot worse. Which I will discuss in the spoilers section.
Spoiler
In that:1. Chua discusses the struggles her daughters faced when they went to China because they are half-Chinese half-Jewish. Her daughters aren't the type of mixed children who look more Asian (like some people I know), but instead look more Jewish. She discusses what her daughters faced in China, how people would stare at them, and this was actually something I wondered randomly as I was growing up, how her daughters faced. Also, I had been to Vietnam recently and I just felt a little lost. I'm completely Vietnamese so I wasn't treated as an outsider, but I thought that when I went there I'd be able to feel completely connected but I didn't and that was a bit jarring for me. I guess I'm pretty American.
2. Chua discusses how she felt letting down some 3000 year ancestry by not marrying some Chinese guy and I kind of chuckled and agreed because I actually thought this too? Honestly, it seems so silly because while I don't really have a preference about who I'd date, (Chua addresses Yellow Fever) I can't help but think about the whole 'Should I date somebody outside of my ethnicity?' I've reached the point in my life where I realize that it doesn't matter though, despite what my relatives might think. So I'll just date whoever I like, regardless of class, race, and looking closer, ethnicity.
3. OK, so this made me laugh but I totally agreed when she was talking about how she wanted to be the next Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, etc. etc. and wanted to write a great generational Chinese-American family epic (because I've thought this way too), but then she finally writes a snippet of it and her daughters (or her husband, I forget) tells her that what she wrote wasn't too good and she had to admit it too LOL
4. She addresses helicopter parents which I thought was pretty interesting because this was initially what a lot of people assumed she was like and I think why a bunch of Asians like me got kinda mad because we thought it was helicopter parenting (which is pretty damaging and can be seen in the stress involved in Asia's schooling system, where teens have to study a lot in many of those countries with that kind of education system, just for a test to get into a college, and they're told that if they don't do well, then it's pretty much over. Which explains the high suicide rates among teens.) But I think if you read the book, you can see that what Chua does isn't helicopter parenting and you can clearly see the love and intent that she has behind her parenting and it's not like she's one of those closed off stoic Asian parents. She clearly engages and talks to her daughters often and they have fun together so it's not 100% strict like helicopter parents who hover around. I'll discuss Chua's parenting in the next paragraph.
As I said before, her parenting isn't THAT bad because you can clearly see the love behind it. As somebody who's shit at music but was forced into piano lessons (and later cello), I actually really regret not doing well at the instrument and basically foresaking it like in Joy Luck Club's protagonist because damn do I wish I played, but I have little to no musical ability so I guess that's it. Anyways, what Chua does you can clearly tell she does with love, and like I said before, she's no helicopter parent. You can also see that she realizes she's too intense and her focus on what's important after her sister gets cancer, and when Lulu has a breakdown and gets pissed at her mom, and Chua is running around Paris (or some European city) emotional in flip flops. LOL.
Anyways, I didn't think she was too bad, but I did think at one point, 'Wow, this is overkill.' when you can see how intense Chua is being with her parenting that the person she credited for being the way she is and why she parents, HER OWN PARENTS are like, 'Amy Chua, maybe you're being too excessive with this whole playing thing?' and she's like, 'It's fine!!!!! Look, I'm just following your examples, parents! You parented me like this too, you know?' and her dad is like 'OK, but I think it's okay to stop and chill out.' So, for me, that was when I thought ENOUGH!!!!!! when her own strict father is like let's chill.
Well, thankfully, this is when Chua changes after her sister and Lulu's meltdown, so she clearly learns from her mistakes (especially when Lulu is like Mom chill, I'm going to go at my own pace with tennis, ok.)
So all in all this was an enjoyable, interesting memoir. I'm glad it wasn't as terrible as I had once thought many years prior, and that Chua is more insightful than I imagined. No wonder her daughters (who I admire so ardently that I follow them on social media LOL) are doing so well and think so articulately and eloquently.
Pre-review 2016:
Going to write a review for this. Probably going to be a long one because I wrote notes! Notes!!!!! It's also going to be pretty darn personal too. Anyways, I have to say, I actually liked this a lot.
Pre-review:
If you ask me what I have more conflict with in comparison to Amy Tan and Amy Chua, answer is Amy Chua, for obvious reasons. But while I was initially sure I would never read this, my friend told me about it because we are slightly obsessed (not sure if this is the right word) about looking up how her daughters are doing in college because they're pretty cool and neat. So I think I'm going to read this. Just, eventually.
It’s much funnier that I was expecting it to be, which was a pleasant surprise. Gold star, Amy Chua.
challenging
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
A memoir that I've been meaning to read for a long time, this book was and wasn't what I expected. I'm familiar with the "Chinese parenting" as the author refers to it, but I wasn't prepared for her to be so honest (and brutal) about how it's put into action with her two daughters.
There are comparisons to "Western" parenting, but that's not at all what the book is *about*. It's about raising children, loving them and being tough on them, and how suffering when you're young can make you a better person when you grow up. It's about the strong and complicated relationship between mother and daughter.
An interesting read for sure - my jaw dropped a few times - and a window into a childhood and family dynamic very different from my own. This book has made me more understanding of different kinds of mothers.
Recommended for people who can relate to "Chinese" parenting and want to relive the glory days, people curious about different cultures, and mothers.
There are comparisons to "Western" parenting, but that's not at all what the book is *about*. It's about raising children, loving them and being tough on them, and how suffering when you're young can make you a better person when you grow up. It's about the strong and complicated relationship between mother and daughter.
An interesting read for sure - my jaw dropped a few times - and a window into a childhood and family dynamic very different from my own. This book has made me more understanding of different kinds of mothers.
Recommended for people who can relate to "Chinese" parenting and want to relive the glory days, people curious about different cultures, and mothers.