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A review by lucrezi
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
3.0
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?