Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

By Amy Chua

Ah, the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Reminds me of a story...

One Christmas during elementary school my parents bought me a guitar. I was ecstatic! My mother signed me up for lessons at a place downtown called Hi-Note and I hauled my new guitar in a pillowcase down there week after week to get private lessons with a teacher there. Problem was, I hated, hated, HATED my teacher. She scared me and didn't really inspire me to play. I was too embarrassed to tell my mom that my teacher scared me so I simply told her I wanted to quit.

She let me.

To this day, it is one of my greatest regrets. I wish I had had the vocabulary to express that it wasn't the guitar I wanted to quit but rather the teacher. But there is a part of me that also wishes that my mother had forced me to continue. I would have done so kicking and screaming, but it would have worked out in the end (or at least I imagine it would have). Long story short, with all due respect to my mum, I suspect that there are advantages to having a tiger mother.

I heard about this book about a year ago when the media circus surrounding Amy Chua's "defense of the Chinese parenting technique" sent Western parents into a feeding frenzy of contempt and scorn. Having spent the past decade living in Taiwan and dealing with parents of Chinese decent (Taiwan is 98% ethnically Chinese), I was more than a little intrigued about what Chua had to say and was curious to see how close she was to what I see from the parents of my students. More on that in a moment.

First, the nuts and bolts of this book have been discussed to death in the media and on blogs all over the Internet and I have no intention of summarizing the book here. The crux of Chua's argument (at least in the first two thirds of the book) is that, by and large, what she calls the "Chinese Parent" is far superior to the Western parent in producing math whizzes, musical prodigies and all-around model children. In the beginning, Chua lays out the checklist of things Chinese parents simply never allow their children to do:

• Attend a sleepover
• Have a play date
• Be in a school play
• Complain about being in a school play
• Watch TV or play computer games
• Choose their own extracurricular activities
• Get a Grade less than an A
• Not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• Play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• Not play the piano or violin

I can say with a degree of certainty that the above checklist describes a good number (though not all) Chinese parental expectations in Taiwan. So if anyone out there who doesn't live in or near a Chinese (or Taiwanese or Korean or Japanese) society and is appalled at that list, check yourself at the door. She's right. It's true. This is not tongue in cheek humor. This is very much the expectation for all Asian parents, more or less. Deal with that and let's move on. 

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a very interesting and often thought-provoking memoir about Chua's experiences as a Chinese-American mother raising her children (Sophia and Lulu) in the traditional Chinese fashion. Sophia and Lulu were brought up in a strict, no nonsense environment that stressed excellence and achievement over all else (happiness included). This included five to six hours of piano (or violin) per day, every day, even when they went on vacation and a strict and unbendable academic schedule that allowed the children absolutely no time for social engagements.

But one must remember that it is a memoir. A humorous memoir. A humorous memoir about parenting.  Sure, it's a humorous memoir rife with the sort of family tumult and turbulence that one only sees in the most dysfunctional families in film. But it is humor and it is a memoir. Furthermore, the last third of the book is an open admission that the Chinese parenting model isn't necessarily the best (I am a firm believer that theoretical models, especially those of the social science variety are best left in textbooks and classrooms. They never work in practice. See: communism, Chinese and Soviet application of, but I digress). It is not a guide on how to raise your child in the Chinese fashion no matter what .

Despite what so many media hounds and angry soccer moms seem to think, Chua's book, while often pretentious and snobby, isn't a validation of the Chinese model nor is it a crusade against Western methods. Rather it is one woman's experience as a mother. Chua started out with a particular goal for her children and dedicated herself and her children's childhood to achieving that goal and I believe her when she says that she did it all for her children. I know because I see it every day with the parents of my students. 

That being said, I think Chua went overboard, even by Chinese standards. I'm not vilifying her, I'm just expressing what I think based on what I've seen. While I have absolutely no doubts that Amy Chua is not even close to the most ambitious Tiger Mother in the world (the worst example most definitely lives somewhere in Mainland China and I would never, ever want to meet her or her mutant, freaky children) she is not a typical example of a Chinese mother, either. The checklist above is most certainly standard fare among Chinese parents, however I have never met a parent during my decade in Taiwan that took excellence, achievement and perfection so seriously or so far. Nor have I ever met any parent that has dedicated so much time, effort and money toward their children's education.

What Chua fails to mention is the aloofness that Chinese parents often have for their children. Succeed, yes. Parents will give children the resources in which to achieve that success. But children must do it by themselves. Parents are busy. They have jobs working for bosses that couldn't give a damn about Junior's piano recitals and I don't think I have to explain that Asians tend to work longer hours and take less vacations (if any). This system works because of the ingrained system of shame inherent in Asian cultures (guangxi). Parents push their children because they don't want to lose face among their friends and neighbors (also because until recently, there was no notion of pension in Asian countries and children were seen as insurance policies for aging parents. Push the children into high paying jobs so that the parents can live in relative comfort in their old age. Furthermore, children lose their hair and become suicidal while studying because they do not want to shame their parents or lose face among their peers. Simply put, Lulu (Chua's second, rebellious daughter) wouldn't exist in a traditional Chinese society. Lulu is a product of the west. And that's OK.

Although I have never seen a parent as involved as Chua, during my years in Taiwan I have seen glimpses of what she describes. Parents in Taiwan have the capacity to drive their children to levels of excellence that one rarely sees in Western children of the same age (especially in math, science and classical music). Much of this is rote learning, something that is very much shunned in the West in favor of making learning fun. As well, Taiwanese parents view their children as an investment for the future and therefore spend lavishly on their education. Parents enroll their children in endless after-school programs (cram schools) to give them a leg up among their classmates in everything from English, science and math to music, sports and logic. Due to this over-emphasis on study many Taiwanese children lack basic social skills and have trouble thinking critically, but that's a rant for another book.

But for every overachieving child prodigy I meet and teach in Taiwan there are dozens and dozens of entirely mediocre students. And beyond that there are just as many lazy, incompetent students who would rather sleep through class, flip the bird to their teachers and waste time until they can get home and play online games until they die in front of their computer screen at the age of 26. I would even hazard a guess that the proportion of overachievers, regular achievers and slackers is virtually the same in Asia as it is in the West. We often forget that China, alone, has over a billion people. It is over four times larger than America alone. Add Japan, Taiwan and Singapore to that mix and the numbers are staggering. Of course it produces more prodigies. It's a simple numbers game.

So I'm not sure whether Chua is entirely correct in her assertion that she raised her children in the traditional Chinese way. It is a Chinese way, but not the only way. There are variations. I would hazard a guess that what she has mistaken as the Chinese method is in actuality an immigrant method or a lower-class method. A section of parents who whether for geographical or social reasons feel the need to horse whip their children toward greatness in an attempt to drag their families from what they perceive as the margins of society into the limelight. I don't know. I'm not a social scientist, but I do know that I've never met a tiger mother of Chua proportions anywhere in Taiwan and there's more Chinese people here than anywhere in America.

But I liked this book and I learned a lot. And despite the fact that I am not the product of a tiger mother (far from it) nor do I see either myself or my (Taiwanese) wife being tiger parents I have taken a lesson or two from this book and intend to implement them, namely choosing their extracurricular activities and not allowing them to quit simply on a whim. A little pressure and a little coercion never hurt anyone and acquiring a skill is an invaluable asset later in life whether it's violin, tennis or flower arranging.

But if there is one single lesson I learned after finally reading Amy Chua's parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother it is that Americans (especially those in the news media industry) seem to have problems with reading comprehension, nuance and irony. The shit storm and fallout that pulsed, radiated and mutated from the pages of Tiger Mother seem so unwarranted and completely fabricated once you actually read the entire book (which leads me to assume that a good amount of people who did raise a fuss about this book didn't finish it). Chua's memoir is an truthful account of how she raised her children and she should be commended not only for her candid honestly but also for her ability to change gears mid-race. Furthermore, it is not a vilification of Western parents. I suspect that much of the furor this book garnered has more to do with Western fears about China than it does about Chinese parenting and that's a different issue altogether. If Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother had been written by Amitava Battacharya, it would not have generated the volume of bad press Chua's book did.

Toward the end of the book Chua seems to be obsessed with finding a  way in which to conclude, but I figure that her conclusion is embedded in the narrative. Aside from the fact that the book must have been a therapeutic exercise for Chua and her daughters, whether she intended it or not, Chua seems to suggest that parenting cannot be boiled down to models or tradition or theories. I couldn't agree more. Parenting (I imagine) is an organic process and it's fundamentally uneven, unjust and unscientific. You can impose certain ideals, but in the end each experience, each ordeal is going to be entirely different from the last. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother has little to do with raising children the Chinese way and far more to do with the human adaptability, acceptance and love.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture

By Peggy Orenstein

This morning a student asked me: "What is the most frightening book you have ever read?"

I answered: "The one I am currently reading."

Of course I was being snarky, but only a little.

I have had Peggy Orenstein's book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, on my reading radar since before my wife got pregnant. When we learned that we were expecting, it jumped up a place or two in my reading line-up. When we learned a couple of weeks ago that we are expecting a daughter, it shot right to the top.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter is a disturbing exploration of princess culture, a marketing phenomenon spearheaded by Disney. In 1999 Disney hired a man named Andy Mooney to help declining merchandise sales. When he attended a production of Disney On Ice he noticed that a huge number of little girls attended the show wearing home-made princess dresses. Home-made, as in not purchased from Disney. This, of course, was lost revenue. Revenue that Disney intended to recoup.

Over the course of five years (from 2001 to 2006) Disney merchandise division rebounded from $300 million dollars in sales to over $3 billion, the majority of which was made off the sale of Disney Princess merchandise. Mooney and Disney were laughing all the way to the bank, but what sorts of effects did all these pink gowns and tiaras and pampering have on an already increasingly entitled generation of girls?

Orenstein's book delves deep into the social and psychological implications of princess culture from its impact on girl's self-esteem, body issues and the sexualization of girlhood. Some pretty heavy issues for children to deal with. Hell, those are some pretty heavy issues for parents to deal with. It all made me a little queasy about raising a daughter equipped to deal with the insidious manner in which companies market their products to children, and girls specifically.

Certainly everyone in the world is classified and exploited by marketing execs. That's hardly news. However, unlike adults who are (supposedly) consumer savvy, children are in an unfair position in that they are unaware of the rules of the marketing game, making them easy pickings for the likes of consumer divisions at Mattel, Fisher-Price, Disney etc... Children are sort of like animals who participate in the sport of hunting. Only one side of the game is aware of the game being played, and they are armed with the latest technology, while the other is entire oblivious to even the existence of the game. The odds have always been stacked against children.

But when exactly did things get so entirely out of hand? When did every single girl in the world become the incarnation of Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty or Snow White? Are these the role models we want for out girls? What exactly do these princesses do aside from wait around for Prince Charming to do all the heavy lifting? Do these princesses instill even a single positive value into our girls? While she has no love loss for any of the current Disney princesses, Orenstein hold a special place for Ariel (The Little Mermaid) who gives up her voice for a man (the metaphorical implications of that are astronomically abhorrent). Furthermore, as these girls grow up they tend to cast these princesses aside for a different sort of princess in the like of Hannah Montana or other non-animated Disney concoction of fabricated girlhood. And given the recent behavior of some of these former Disney protégés (Brittany Spear, Linsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus), we all know where that leads.

I imagine there are a number of parents who would tell me (who isn't even a parent yet and hardly in the position to say what is right and wrong in the world of parenting) and Ms. Orenstein (who is a parent of a girl -- Daisy) to lighten up. It can't be all that bad. Fantasizing is a natural, integral phase of any childhood. And certainly Orenstein oscillates between indignation and acceptance, resistance and resignation during the course of the book, often more than once. She stresses that modern girl culture’s emphasis on beauty decreases (or, at the very least confuses) a girls’ self-esteem which, in turn, can lead to the traditional parental nightmares: depression, eating disorders, distorted body images and risky sexual behavior. Furthermore, parents are being assured by marketing execs that it's all just normal. I'm not so sure.

With the sheer volume of media that bombards our children in this day in age (and certainly this generation of children are a hell of a lot more tech savvy than any generation in the history of mankind) our girls are being told that being cool is tantamount to popularity and the only way to achieve this is by being sexy or (in Taiwan) cute. While this is isn't a new phenomenon, it's one that is accelerating. As Orensteain notes in the book: "our daughters are getting older younger." Much like the quote, it's all enough to make your head spin.

I didn't agree with everything that Orenstein wrote (some of her conclusions were a tad heavy-handed and a few others are going to need a few weeks of digestion) she has given me and my wife a lot to think about in the months ahead. While my wife and I will be spared a lot of these worries due to our distance from the North American media monster (Taiwan's marketing execs are nowhere near as depraved as their North American counterparts and much of what Orenstein warns against will not be of any consequence to us due to the relative trickle of American culture that makes it's way to our corner of the world) it has made me a lot more mindful of the way products are marketed toward girls. I've never liked the color pink before, but I have an extreme aversion to it now. If you are the parent of a young girl or are planning to have children in the near future, I would jot this title down as required reading.

For anyone who wants so further reading, I recommend Peggy Orenstein's website which is an extension of the ideas expresses in her book and well worth the look.

Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads

Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads

By Gary Greenberg and Jeannie Hayden

As I mentioned before, there's a few of these books coming down the pipe.

I have a nine month (six to go) book competition playing out in my head. I am currently auditioning the role of go-to manual for fatherhood. You know, the book I will keep tethered to my end table in my bedroom until my son or daughter turns 18 and I kick them out the door. I'm looking for that all-encompassing guide that will tell me how to do as many things as I will need to do and best prepare me for the unexpected while making me look like I was born to do the job (and somehow maintain my cool card). As of right now, I'm holding the book that is the odds-on favorite to win this competition.

And that's not to say reading a book is going to prepare me for fatherhood. I'm perfectly aware that nothing will prepare me, least of all a book. But I feel a little less not-ready now. And that, at this point, is comfort enough. So please, parents out there, don't give me a hard time about how a book isn't going to do much good when the shit hits the fan. I know. And I'm ready to not be ready.

Anyway...

Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads is exactly the sort of book I was looking for. It offers easily digestible material about a wide range of issues ranging from the day of birth through to the baby's first birthday. It covers the standard questions such as "How do I change a diaper?' and "How do you baby-proof a room?" to the more complicated issues such as "How to insert a rectal thermometer without traumatizing the child?" and "How do I best handle a slippery wet baby?" (with a clean sock). It's the sort of book that answers the questions you have and the questions you didn't even know you were supposed to ask. Reassuring, to say the least.

Aside from the obvious stuff, there seems to be an expert level involved in fatherhood and this book covers some pretty cool territory in that respect. Greenberg and Hayden offer all sorts of fathering gold such as constructing emergency diapers, creating a decoy drawer with old electronics for the toddler to "destroy." and how to stay awake at work after your twelfth sleepless night in a row. There is also a great section on traveling with a baby (camping and how to survive long-haul flights), which I am certain will come in very handy over the next couple of years. While I'm certain there are things this book is not covering, from my perspective, it's as comprehensive as Britannica.

And it's funny. From what I have been perusing, other books about child-rearing oscillate between panic and irreverence. My wife seems to favor the former while I tend to frequent the latter. The only problem with humor is that it often gets in the way of actual advice, which is why I'm reading the book in the first place. Be Prepared seems to know when to remain deadly serious, when to yuck it up and when you can blend the two. For instance, this sage piece of advice concerning dining in restaurants with small children:

When going out to a restaurant with your small fry, keep your expectations low. Don't expect to enjoy your meal. Don't expect to converse with your partner. And don't expect your fellow diners to be anything but irritated by your presence. And if by chance your baby is angelic, count your blessings and wolf down your meal as quickly as possible.

Indeed.

And then there are the pictures. Jeannie Hayden's style is evocative of the bygone dad of yore. The 1950s/1960s Ward Cleaver figure with pants cinched up to the solar plexus, pipes firmly clenched in their square jaws and perfectly parted hair. There are lumberjackets and Stetson hats and enough Aqua Velva to drown Mary Tyler Moore. One gets a sense of timeless comfort from the images. Each image is a sort of Superdad with a steady hand, a firm grasp of all situations and a quick sitcom-ending lesson to impart on wrong-doers at every corner. I like that. It's comforting to think I'm taking fathering advice from Alan Thicke.

This isn't to say this book is perfect. I would have liked to have had a chapter or two concerning the father's role in the weeks prior to birth as well as some lessons on protocol and etiquette concerning the announcement but these are minor complains. As it stands, this book is taking it's place on my end table until such time as a better book unseats it. Given the sheer volume of solid advice, I suspect it would take nothing less than Alan Thicke's Guide to Fatherhood (God, I hope that actually exists) to remove this book from its place.

What To Expect When Your Wife Is Expanding

What To Expect When Your Wife Is Expanding

By Thomas Hill

Well, I suppose that more than a few titles such as this one will appear on my blog over the coming months for reasons that should be implied. I'll try to keep nervous father-to-be angst off the blog as best I can, but since I vowed to write something about everything I read, I am forced by my own dogmatism to write about them. Please bear with me.

Actually, I should take this moment to plug my side-blog: Birthing the Dragon. I started another blog that will chronicle my wife and my experiences of (cross-cultural) pregnancy and birth in Taiwan, one of the world's most superstition nations (and, yes... out child will be a Dragon, though we didn't plan that nor does it mean anything to us). Most of the blog content will be relating then furrowing my brow at the nonsensical advice doled out by old (and not so old) Taiwanese women about how pregnancy and babies. Should be enlightening.

Anyway, back to the book at hand. I suppose that it was smart of me to start with a parody. A nice, short, light-hearted little booklet for new fathers. While most of the advice is silly and irreverent ("What to Name Your Baby If You Are Not Serious About Naming A Baby," "What To Take To The Hospital For Myself," "What Your Wife Will Be Complaining About This Month") some of the advice is quite useful (although you often have to dig through layers of sarcasm and dimwittedness to get there).

Despite the light-hearted approach to a serious subject, I'm not going to get on this book's case. It is what it is. It's a fun little book you might would in the humor section of the bookstore. It's the sort of gag gift you buy for a guy whose wife is expecting their first child (me) but wouldn't necessarily buy for yourself. And since it was given to me by a very good friend in exactly that sort of vein, I'm happy with it. A solid morning's read.

I'm not going to give this book a whole lot of space for obvious reasons. I have more serious books on the subject piling up around the house that will get closer attention. But if I took one lesson away from this book it is this:

If our baby is a girl, her name will not be Bertrude.

Shout Out!

Unless you live under a rock, you've been to visit Sheila over at Book Journey. She is a book blog hub and a wonderful blogger with lots of fun stuff going on. Always deserving of an extra visit.