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| Tiger Mom |
Chua and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, a Jewish-American professor also at Yale and also an author, have two teenage daughters who are outwardly successful, whatever that means.
The children earn straight As, dress stylishly and appear to have nice teeth, which probably means they never accidentally threw away their retainers after eating at a Cracker Barrel.
I also doubt these children have ever enjoyed the delicious fizzy flavor of a Throwback Dr Pepper.
The book came out Tuesday and, in it, Chua proudly details her mothering techniques, which some are saying resemble those of Joan Crawford. But Chua knows better, and that's the point of her book.
Amy Chua, according to Amy Chua, is a traditional Chinese mother who knows a thing or two about success. Success is hard work, no matter the age, and success always requires suffering. It also means no real personal decisions during the growing years.
Consequently, her girls were never allowed to act in a play or join a sports team. No sleepovers, play dates or TV viewing. And certainly, no complaining.
What a fool I was - all those noisy neighbor kids running in and out, asking why we didn't have chips.
Being a good mother is a subjective thing - right? - full of emotion, self-doubt and indecision. It's also fine-tuned, kid to kid. What that means, basically, is some days you're out there, beaming, flying high, wearing your skinny jeans. The next day you're on the couch in your pajamas.
That's why Chua's memoir is so fascinating.
How can any one mother be so damn sure?
I'm from Ohio, so I can't comment on how she's affecting America's interpretation of the modern Chinese family, although some female Asian writers are having a heyday with this. I'm also not über-ambitious, as evidenced by my 2009 tax return.
But as far as mothering goes, I do know that one day this week, my 19-year-old son and I lounged on my bed, eating the limp veggies left over from Sunday football, watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.
After that, he ran some family errands, put the keys to the truck in the basket where they belong, and unloaded the dishwasher.
All in all, a nice day.
What this means, I guess - and this is Chua's social commentary - is that American parents are too kind. We don't expect enough. We worry about our children's self-esteem. We coddle and compliment when we should be criticizing and kvetching - all of which I tend to agree with.
Except, when did parenting become so black and white?
Good parenting is hard, even if you take the laid-back approach - which Amy Chua clearly did not. Here are some examples of her uncompromising techniques:
When her girls were little, say 4 and 7, she asked them to redo their homemade birthday cards because they weren't good enough. One was a piece of paper, folded over with a smiley face.
On one occasion, when Lulu - the youngest, and clearly the more spirited of the two girls - couldn't master a difficult piano piece, Chua began walking out with the girl's prized dollhouse, threatening to give it away. This practically sent Lulu over the edge. Later, when the girl mastered the performance, the two snuggled and giggled, talking about how great all that was in retrospect.
She once told Sophia, the older daughter, she was "garbage," and then had the social misfortune of relating this incredibly hilarious story at a dinner party, where the collective mood quickly soured.
On one occasion, when Lulu - the youngest, and clearly the more spirited of the two girls - couldn't master a difficult piano piece, Chua began walking out with the girl's prized dollhouse, threatening to give it away. This practically sent Lulu over the edge. Later, when the girl mastered the performance, the two snuggled and giggled, talking about how great all that was in retrospect.
She once told Sophia, the older daughter, she was "garbage," and then had the social misfortune of relating this incredibly hilarious story at a dinner party, where the collective mood quickly soured.
It's rare that a book hops onto Amazon's Top 10 list before it's even released, but this one did. Chua is both an interesting mother and a marketing genius.
But the reason she'll do so well with Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is simple.
The words "good mother" strike a nerve.
Always. In any culture.
It's like making a cat calendar. It's gonna sell.
Personally, I find Amy Chua a bit scary. I'm not sure she'd be all that fun at a party. I'd say her marriage sounds a bit one-sided. And she clearly views herself through the success of her children, which she explains is the old Chinese way.
But what's interesting is that Amy Chua mothers with conviction, turning her back on all the gray.
That's the intrigue.
Here I am, silly me, thinking you have to soldier through the gray areas - the rolling fog, if you will - to get to the sunshine. The rainy camping trips, the skinned knees, the sleepover where two kids threw up.
The bad report cards, the first loves, the fender benders.
The parts you laugh about later.
The pieces that make up your life.
