Am I the Spawn of a Tiger Mother?

Amy Chua’s latest book has certainly been causing quite a stir, hasn’t it?

I’ve come across several opinion and editorial articles on CNN.com. Ms. Chua herself has been making the rounds through the media trying to provide some clarification in the wake of a very controversial Wall Street Journal essay, which brought the world’s attention to the book just before it was published.

As a response to the WSJ article, GeekDad Jonathan Liu weighed in on his personal experiences as an offspring of Chinese immigrant parents, and his take on Amy Chua’s parenting style.

So this past weekend I picked up a copy of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I finished it last night, and boy did it strike a chord with me. Not a “Wow, that’s my life exactly!” chord, but a “Wow, even though I experienced SOME of the Tiger Mother, my Mom balanced it with western methods quite well!” chord. As Jonathan hypothesized in his post, the point of the WSJ article was to generate buzz (which it did), and sell books (which I can attest to after spending $25.95  so I could start reading it right away!). That article was only a small part of her story.  Read the book and you will learn the rest.

The book itself was a fast, surprisingly easy, read.  It took me about four hours total over three days, and I’m not usually a super-fast reader. The book is a succinct chronology of Ms. Chua’s 18 years of parenthood, with some brief family history to set the stage. You learn how she is the daughter of immigrant Chinese parents (Ms. Chua herself is not an immigrant, which to me was ironic), how she “rebelled” against her father by applying to (and getting accepted into) Harvard without his consent, and how she attempted to balance a very busy career while starting a family.

Her stories of how hard she pushed her two daughters are beyond psycho. You’ll want to hate Ms. Chua from the start. You want to call Child Services on her. You want to scream at the book! Her oldest daughter Sophia takes the pressure pretty well, but you find out that her youngest daughter Louisa, or Lulu for short, was the strong-willed one, and towards the end you see how Ms. Chua has no choice but to relent if she was going to save her relationship with Lulu.

On the other hand, you’ll be awe-inspired by the stories of how prodigious her daughters were at music. They won numerous competitions, and were invited to play concerts worldwide. The oldest daughter played piano at Carnegie Hall at age 14, the youngest daughter was invited to study violin with a Julliard professor at age 11. While there was likely some natural talent there, Ms. Chua’s incredible drive to not only make her daughters practice practice practice, but stand by their sides during the practice session, and develop practice session outlines and drills was pretty amazing. Would I do it with my own kids? No, not at all! I guess I’m too lazy. But despite how psycho I thought she was, I had to admit that took a lot of motherly dedication.

I recommend reading this book to get the full gist of Ms. Chua’s journey through parenthood. The media blitz isn’t quite doing it justice. While you’ll be in shock with much of it, there are several laugh-out-loud anecdotes, and in the end you are hopeful that she continues to accept “Western” parenting little by little.

I think she’s trying to make two things clear. First, all-out total “Chinese parenting” isn’t always the best method, especially in America. Americans aren’t wired to be automatons. Secondly, she contends that there are many positive facets of “Chinese parenting,” such as instilling a good work ethic, helping your child realize his/her full potential, and teaching children the importance of respect for their elders. If you’re a parent, reading this book will force you to explore your own upbringing, and what ideas you have for bringing up your own kids.

On a personal level, I want to share what I was expecting going into reading the book, and what I came away with.

I thought this would be like reading a book about my mother, and the way she brought me up. Like Ms. Chua’s daughter Sophia, I’m also the oldest daughter to a Chinese mother and a Caucasian father. Like Sophia I have a younger sister. Both my sister and I were also musicians; I played the violin and my sister played the cello.

After reading this book, I think my mother raised my sister and me in a decent balance of “Eastern” and “Western” (by Ms. Chua’s standards) styles of parenting.

Obviously things weren’t perfect. When I began to exhibit signs of being left-handed as a toddler, Mom wanted to “train” me with my right hand. She apparently was nervous about my being different, being a standout. Perhaps she was nervous about teaching me to eat with utensils, chopsticks, or learn to knit/crochet (her favorite hobby!). My father, one of the most sensible, reasonable people I know, convinced Mom to let me instead perfect being left-handed. For some reason, I play sports and my violin right-handed just fine.

Mom’s idea of keeping my sister and me out of trouble was to keep us (in her words) “busy busy busy.”  Music, sports, Girl Scouts. She was unfailingly strict; doing our best was expected of us always. That just went without saying. Straight A’s were expected (although I only ever earned straight As once in my life). I’m still like that now with myself. On the other hand, I was never punished for bringing home bad grades. (I knew several non-Tiger-parented kids who were!).

Similar to the book, I seemed to be the daughter who abided with whatever was cast upon me, layering on the sports, music, grades, and social life. If I complained, my parents’ steadfast stance was usually enough for me. I was good at violin, but I’d never have considered myself great. I’m incredibly grateful to my parents for pushing me to excel at violin, but not fanatically so. Parents SHOULD wring every ounce of potential they can out of their kids. My parents worked very hard to make sure I had the best music teachers, and drove me all over the state of Virginia for assorted auditions and performances. While I chose to pursue science instead of music in college, I’m grateful I was good enough at both science and music to have that choice in front of me at the time.

My sister was the rebellious one. If I was considered “good” at the violin, she was exceptional at the cello. She attended Virginia’s Governor’s School for the Arts, and played for the Guam Symphony Orchestra as a high school student in Guam. I can’t say whether it’s a consequence of her having to move from one end of the earth to the other not once but twice during high school, but her rebellion was met with less resistance. The logistics of traveling to/from potential college auditions from Guam was near impossible, and she ended up heading in a different direction than music after she graduated from high school.

In contrast to the book, my sister and I were allowed to make numerous choices with what direction we wanted to take with our music. The same went for many of the major decisions in our lives. Whatever choices we made, our parents insisted we performed to our maximum potential. They set the stage for us to succeed on many fronts: athletically, academically and with good common sense.

So…am I the spawn of a Tiger Mother? I think I am, but mildly so. I look back on my childhood positively, and I’ve found that I’m tapping into some of my parents’ tactics with my own kids. Thanks Mom and Dad!

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