Tiger mum says so

Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother may be the story of one mother's journey in strict parenting techniques, but today this ‘comic' critique of what Chua considers the weak American parenting style, has created huge controversy internationally.

Here's what Amy's own extreme Chinese parenting style was like: Not one to settle for second best, the Yale law professor made sure her elder daughter, Sophia, was never “indulging” in typical American pastimes like malling or watching TV or playing video games. The youngster followed the well-practised drill of hours of studying followed by hours of music practice — she felt learning a musical instrument would be “civilising” for her girls. Even when the family went holidaying, like one time to Paris, Chua located a piano in a hotel lobby so that Sophia would not miss her daily practice.

Another jaw-dropping incident she recounts in her bestseller is the time she threw her younger daughter Lulu out in the freezing cold just because the little one refused to strike the right notes on the piano. This was when Lulu was just a toddler! Lulu eventually took violin lessons and here's one stressful practice session Chua recounts in her book: ‘…things were tough with Lulu, because my very presence made her edgy and irritable. Once, in the middle of a practice session she burst out, “Stop it, Mommy. Just stop it.”

“Lulu, I didn't say anything,” I replied. “I didn't say one word.”

“Your brain is annoying me,” Lulu said. “I know what you're thinking.”

“I'm not thinking anything,” I said indignantly. Actually, I'd been thinking that Lulu's right elbow was too high, that her dynamics were all wrong, and that she needed to shape her phrases better.

“Just turn off your brain!” Lulu ordered. “I'm not going to play any more unless you turn off your brain.”'

Mama Chua knows best?

The outcome of years of pressure and punishing schedules was that her obviously talented girls were straight A students throughout school. And today Sophia is a Harvard freshman, while Lulu is a concertmaster in an orchestra.

Does that really endorse Chua's no-fun parenting style? Not really. Her book may have been a runaway success but it sparked off a debate on the rights and wrongs of her mothering techniques. Many Americans did wonder whether there was something special about Chinese parenting methods, something that they were missing out on, and were paying for in terms of their own “underperforming” kids.

A second-generation Chinese-American, Harvard-educated Chua is married to Jed Rubenfeld, a law professor at Yale, who comes from a Jewish background. Worried that the all-American lifestyle — that believes in giving choices to children and making childhood fun — would overshadow her own Chinese identity, she adopted methods that would reverse this potential decline. Does the father ever figure in her parenting plans? No. Rubenfeld said he left the upbringing of their daughters completely to Amy and, predictably, he virtually doesn't find any mention in the book.

Extreme reactions

But when Chua wrote Battle Hymn… — on her Web site she candidly admits that the book was the product of “…a moment of crisis, when my younger daughter seemed to turn against everything I stood for and it felt like I was losing her and everything was falling apart” — she never expected such extreme reactions. Even today, she tries to underplay the tone and advice given in the book, saying that she wrote it in a lighter vein; that it was meant to be a satire and not to be taken literally.

When I met Chua recently at the Jaipur Literature Festival, where she came along with her daughter Sophia, she said, “I never intended the book to be a parenting guide, it's a memoir and its lighter vein has been missed completely. In fact, when I read the book to my daughters and my husband, they told me that it would not matter because ‘you are not famous so nobody is going to read it!'” Well, even to me, the humour is completely lost.

Clearly, Sophia and Lulu would never have imagined that their mother's parenting techniques would one day create such a stir — media reports have gone as far as calling them “fascist”. Of course, Chua firmly denies this. “Fascists never took self-criticism. American journalists have double standards. They seem to condone other parents [tennis star Serena Williams's parents came up in our conversation. I imagine they too would have put their daughter through rigorous schedules to ensure her Grand Slam status], but they immediately pounced on me,” she said. And she certainly has reported the worst about herself and has taken all the criticism she invited in her stride.

Indians on her side

To be fair to Chua, when she read out some portions of her book at the Festival, the crowds cheered, often lustily, and it prompted her to comment that perhaps Indians have similar parenting techniques because they seemed to understand her. She added that she would not recommend “my method” to the Chinese as their parenting and schooling is too regimented already. She added, “If I could choose either happiness or success for my children, I'd be happy to choose happiness in a second. But it's not so simple. I think having both is possible.”

© Women's Feature Service

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