Intercultural Magic

Britain’s Tiger Mums or tough love, chinese style

A few weeks back, I watched a programme on BBC Channel 4 titled, Britain’s tiger mums, which revealed that immigrant Chinese mothers in Britain were practicing draconian and grueling child-rearing measures to ensure their children’s place under the sun, similar to that practiced by American-Chinese immigrant, Amy Chua, controversial author of The Battle hymn of the tiger mother.

Tough discipline and extreme child-rearing practices have often been used to explain the reason why American kids are falling behind in school whilst Asian immigrant kids excel scholastically and are widening the gap in America’s ability to compete globally. Amy Chua's book unleashed an uproar around the world amongst Western mothers, who called her such names as nuts, Hannibel Lecter, erudite serial killer, accused her of abusive perfectionism and overpressuring her children.

My own take on this: the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle of this great big controversial divide. Perhaps Western-style parents should toughen up and worry less about hurting their children’s self-esteem and Asian-style parents should soften up and show more care about how they treat their children who come home from school with unsatisfactory report cards.

My own parents (2nd generation immigrants from Guangdong) understood the importance of hard work and discipline but they were not sufficiently educated themselves to enforce academic discipline upon me and my 7 other siblings. They left the task of monitoring our school work and exam studying to the older siblings, and I haven't turned out too badly, if I do say so myself. On the other hand, various of my classmates from more privileged backgrounds did receive ample doses of training and monitoring in their academic life from their parents as well as disciplined musical instruction and practice from professional teachers. One of these classmates is today a well-adjusted wife/mother and head of dentistry at an Ivy League school so yes, the results of tiger parenting are there to behold. 

Amy Chua on her day off

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/11/132833376/tiger-mothers-raising-children-the-chinese-way - audio critique by Maureen Corrigan

http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/01/18/the-tiger-cub-roars/- daughter of Amy Chua responds to readers’ questions about life in the tiger’s den.

Video: comments made by The Colbert Report, an American satirical television programme.

Battle hymn of the tiger mum:

Article in Wall Street Journal
A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities

Of all the responses to Amy Chua’s essay on Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, perhaps first and foremost you’d like to hear from one of her daughters. Well, Sophia, the older daughter, wrote a letter to her mom in the New York Post:

Tiger Mom,
You’ve been criticized a lot since you published your memoir, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” One problem is that some people don’t get your humor. They think you’re serious about all this, and they assume Lulu and I are oppressed by our evil mother. That is so not true. Every other Thursday, you take off our chains and let us play math games in the basement.

But for real, it’s not their fault. No outsider can know what our family is really like. They don’t hear us cracking up over each other’s jokes. They don’t see us eating our hamburgers with fried rice. They don’t know how much fun we have when the six of us — dogs included — squeeze into one bed and argue about what movies to download from Netflix.

I admit it: Having you as a mother was no tea party. There were some play dates I wish I’d gone to and some piano camps I wish I’d skipped. But now that I’m 18 and about to leave the tiger den, I’m glad you and Daddy raised me the way you did. Here’s why.

A lot of people have accused you of producing robot kids who can’t think for themselves. Well, that’s funny, because I think those people are . . . oh well, it doesn’t matter. At any rate, I was thinking about this, and I came to the opposite conclusion: I think your strict parenting forced me to be more independent. Early on, I decided to be an easy child to raise. Maybe I got it from Daddy — he taught me not to care what people think and to make my own choices — but I also decided to be who I want to be. I didn’t rebel, but I didn’t suffer all the slings and arrows of a Tiger Mom, either. I pretty much do my own thing these days — like building greenhouses downtown, blasting Daft Punk in the car with Lulu and forcing my boyfriend to watch “Lord of the Rings” with me over and over — as long as I get my piano done first.

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