Understanding the tiger mom culture is hard for us kids. Amy Chua's The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother embodies what makes the concept of being a tiger mom rewarding. This book also served as a therapeutic outlet for her to vent when she felt her her control over her daughter slacking. It's not a guide for would-be tiger moms, but a memoir filled with her stories about the experiences she had being one and living under one when she was younger. She points out that while her parenting is not the best model, she believes parents in America could push their kids to achieve more to unlock their potential, as cliche as that sounds.
Link to her book
I am fascinated by Amy Chua because she was so vilified by the media when her book came out. So I read several articles about her in the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and the New York Times. And I agree with Alee's interpretation of the book. Ms. Chua herself said to the New York Times, "It was supposed to be a kind of tongue-in-cheek book. The stuff I had to address was so...degrading. It was like, ‘Did you burn the stuffed animals?...That was irony. That was irony!" To the Guardian, she said, "It's supposed to be funny, it's a self-parody."
ReplyDeleteI feel like Ms. Chua did indeed intend her book to be nothing more than a memoir. She said that she did not anticipate that people would read her book any other way than what she had intended. Several profiles have been written about her, including ones in the Guardian and the New York Times, and in every other article I’ve read as well, she charms the journalist. They describe her as “warm, down to earth, and quick to laugh” (Guardian) and “like a coach, nudging her students toward the answers and giving them smiles of encouragement. “Yes! Keep going!” and “You were all right!” I have yet to read an article that describes her as an accurate representation of the harsh, authoritarian figure she portrays herself as in the book.
Also, Amy’s own daughter Sophia came out in her mother’s defense by penning an open letter to the New York Post, dismissing some the more outrageous stories in her mother’s memoir and ultimately thanking her mother for pushing her to “[live] life at 110 percent.”
Another thing to consider is that Amy herself pulled back after things began to break down between her and her youngest daughter, Lulu. She realized that her method of parenting wasn’t working anymore and tried a different one that saw Lulu make more of her own decisions about sports and instruments. I think it is commendable that she was willing to change her ways for the sake of her relationship with her daughter. Ultimately, she’s like every other mother out there: she loves her children fiercely and wants them to be happy. If her children testify to the success of her parenting, who are we to judge?
Sources:
New York Post: http://nypost.com/2011/01/18/why-i-love-my-strict-chinese-mom/
Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/12/amy-chua-tiger-mother-returns
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/15/amy-chua-tiger-mother-interview
New York Post: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/magazine/confessions-of-a-tiger-couple.html