Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
I don't know what it is but lately I've been taking to more nonfiction books this year than any other year. While it doesn't dominate my read list, it now makes a significant portion, about a quarter compared to years before where the only nonfiction books would have been my textbooks. For Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, it was thanks to an article in Time magazine that peaked my interest for the buzz it caused, ranging from the adult and middle-aged who finally understood what their parents had been doing to parents horrified at Chua's tactics at raising her two daughters. Chua had clearly stated in the article that her intention was to write a memoir and not how-to manual for raising children.
It just so happens that when the book finally came into my hands on the hold list, my PSYC class was going over parenting styles and how they affect children. There are three main styles: authoritative, authoritarian, and passive. As much as there will be those who would like to pass Chua off as an authoritarian parent, she's more of an authoritative though at what most would view to be at the extreme end. She had her children's best interests at heart. When you get to the bare bones of it, she was faced with the same sense of being overwhelmed the second the topic of offspring was introduced: how do I raise my children?
Do I agree with her methods? Not all of them but I can understand that it's not so different from what I had thought to myself. I would rather have my kids hate me and have the skills and knowledge to take on the world. They'd survive in it and after 18, they can choose where they want to go because they'll be able to it with all the preparation given to them in their childhood. Most of all, I can't help but think back to my own mother who is one of the most non "tiger mothers" anyone would have ever met, including for being a Chinese woman herself.
She never pushed me for high grades. I say this with truth when up to fourth grade, I was lucky to make D's. Quite honestly, she was just happy with the fact that I barely passed each grade. It wasn't until the summer before fourth grade she started enrolling me in Saturday math classes which started my interest in math. These got stepped up when I went to a different elementary school, one very focused for academics, the next year and started getting A's instead. It was then I think I got my first taste of loving learning, not to mention reading. Other than that, my mother wasn't one of those stereotypical hardcore Asian moms despite being raised in Hong Kong. Now all the Chinese friends I've known in childhood, compared to them oh wow I had it easy. I went into piano only because a friend of mine was in it and it looked like fun but I quickly lost interest in it (I am hardly a die-hard for practising even though I'd advocate to do so does make perfect).
But for all of my mother's very easy-going method of raising me, I say as I left off to live a life of my own that I could have benefited from a lot of discipline. I find it harder to get myself to remain disciplined as the bad habit has been present most of my life. On the flipside, my friends were plenty ready to keep me in line. One friend relentlessly drilled me in social studies till I stood a chance at passing. My boyfriend has ingrained in me a respect for authority (there is a little story to go with this. A coworker of his wondered why his son listened to him but not his wife. M asked if when he threatened to punish the kid if he carried on through or if he caved and the guy said he carried on through. M asked the same of the wife except she did cave. Case in point, the kid knew he could push the line with) as I know I'm in trouble when I don't listen. I swear it was like this missing part of my childhood visiting me after he helped me clean my apartment and then turning to me stating I was never to messy my apartment in that manner ever again. I know this is sticking.
Reading over Chua's revelations, she realized her methods weren't perfect and that like many other methods of child-raising, it's a means of trial and error. What worked with one child (Sophie) didn't necessarily work with another child (Lulu) and most definitely didn't work with the dogs. Towards the end of the book, you can see her epiphanies that while her methods brought results, there were some methods that needed to be brought back to the drawing board. I'm sure if she had another child now her methods would have remained mostly the same with a few key differences. She is like any other parent when you get down to the bare bones of a parent who wants the best for their kids.
Quite honestly from that, I don't understand how anyone would think this was a how-to manual to raise children other than to show that the "whiz kid" Asians are nothing more than the result of hard work and that any child could do it too. It showed there were no true shortcuts. As for the outcries of Chua being abusive, while I do not advocate hitting or spanking a child, punishment is needed as reinforcement and only when necessary but not as a cause for respect and fear. I don't advocate hitting a child because with my own upbringing that taught me entirely the wrong message that if you're bad, someone else could hit you and thus I was a rather violent child hitting back when I thought it was the right way to do something.
Chua brought her children around the world and would rather venture out for poor hotel rooms just so everyone could go on a family vacation. She is spending hours herself in helping her children along. The question that she said was a very typical "Western" parent question of asking if she was doing this for herself or them slightly ticked me off with her answer. Ma'am, by now I hope you know rather than think you're doing it for children, otherwise the rest of the book is moot point. In my opinion the authoritarian parent would have demanded absolutely obedience from the child with no free thought of their own, the same school of through for the "seen and not heard" offspring, which is not what Chua was advocating because I doubt that sort of parent would have spent good money and time to driving their kids from lesson to lesson or on the materials needed for the piano or violin. I have enough musician friends that the prices of those have made me want to pass out, even with how much I spend on make-up.
It just so happens that when the book finally came into my hands on the hold list, my PSYC class was going over parenting styles and how they affect children. There are three main styles: authoritative, authoritarian, and passive. As much as there will be those who would like to pass Chua off as an authoritarian parent, she's more of an authoritative though at what most would view to be at the extreme end. She had her children's best interests at heart. When you get to the bare bones of it, she was faced with the same sense of being overwhelmed the second the topic of offspring was introduced: how do I raise my children?
Do I agree with her methods? Not all of them but I can understand that it's not so different from what I had thought to myself. I would rather have my kids hate me and have the skills and knowledge to take on the world. They'd survive in it and after 18, they can choose where they want to go because they'll be able to it with all the preparation given to them in their childhood. Most of all, I can't help but think back to my own mother who is one of the most non "tiger mothers" anyone would have ever met, including for being a Chinese woman herself.
She never pushed me for high grades. I say this with truth when up to fourth grade, I was lucky to make D's. Quite honestly, she was just happy with the fact that I barely passed each grade. It wasn't until the summer before fourth grade she started enrolling me in Saturday math classes which started my interest in math. These got stepped up when I went to a different elementary school, one very focused for academics, the next year and started getting A's instead. It was then I think I got my first taste of loving learning, not to mention reading. Other than that, my mother wasn't one of those stereotypical hardcore Asian moms despite being raised in Hong Kong. Now all the Chinese friends I've known in childhood, compared to them oh wow I had it easy. I went into piano only because a friend of mine was in it and it looked like fun but I quickly lost interest in it (I am hardly a die-hard for practising even though I'd advocate to do so does make perfect).
But for all of my mother's very easy-going method of raising me, I say as I left off to live a life of my own that I could have benefited from a lot of discipline. I find it harder to get myself to remain disciplined as the bad habit has been present most of my life. On the flipside, my friends were plenty ready to keep me in line. One friend relentlessly drilled me in social studies till I stood a chance at passing. My boyfriend has ingrained in me a respect for authority (there is a little story to go with this. A coworker of his wondered why his son listened to him but not his wife. M asked if when he threatened to punish the kid if he carried on through or if he caved and the guy said he carried on through. M asked the same of the wife except she did cave. Case in point, the kid knew he could push the line with) as I know I'm in trouble when I don't listen. I swear it was like this missing part of my childhood visiting me after he helped me clean my apartment and then turning to me stating I was never to messy my apartment in that manner ever again. I know this is sticking.
Reading over Chua's revelations, she realized her methods weren't perfect and that like many other methods of child-raising, it's a means of trial and error. What worked with one child (Sophie) didn't necessarily work with another child (Lulu) and most definitely didn't work with the dogs. Towards the end of the book, you can see her epiphanies that while her methods brought results, there were some methods that needed to be brought back to the drawing board. I'm sure if she had another child now her methods would have remained mostly the same with a few key differences. She is like any other parent when you get down to the bare bones of a parent who wants the best for their kids.
Quite honestly from that, I don't understand how anyone would think this was a how-to manual to raise children other than to show that the "whiz kid" Asians are nothing more than the result of hard work and that any child could do it too. It showed there were no true shortcuts. As for the outcries of Chua being abusive, while I do not advocate hitting or spanking a child, punishment is needed as reinforcement and only when necessary but not as a cause for respect and fear. I don't advocate hitting a child because with my own upbringing that taught me entirely the wrong message that if you're bad, someone else could hit you and thus I was a rather violent child hitting back when I thought it was the right way to do something.
Chua brought her children around the world and would rather venture out for poor hotel rooms just so everyone could go on a family vacation. She is spending hours herself in helping her children along. The question that she said was a very typical "Western" parent question of asking if she was doing this for herself or them slightly ticked me off with her answer. Ma'am, by now I hope you know rather than think you're doing it for children, otherwise the rest of the book is moot point. In my opinion the authoritarian parent would have demanded absolutely obedience from the child with no free thought of their own, the same school of through for the "seen and not heard" offspring, which is not what Chua was advocating because I doubt that sort of parent would have spent good money and time to driving their kids from lesson to lesson or on the materials needed for the piano or violin. I have enough musician friends that the prices of those have made me want to pass out, even with how much I spend on make-up.