The Tiger Mom versus the House Cat Mom

I have been reading excerpts from Amy Chua's book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and I have been both horrified and fascinated by her logic. If you haven't read it' there is an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal that you might check out. Amy Chua is a 48 year old Yale Law Professor, wife and mother of 2 teen daughters. Born in the United States, Chua is the daughter of immigrant Chinese parents who raised her by strict Chinese standards. She is married to a product of American upbringing, Jed Rubenfeld, who is also a Yale Law Professor.

In her book she talks about forcing her, then 7 year-old daughter, Lulu to practice the piano tune, "The Little White Donkey" for hours - no drinks of water - no bathroom breaks - nothing but practice until she got it right. I was horrified. I guess I would be a House Cat Mom. Both of my kids took lessons - all kinds of lessons - art, piano, trumpet, drums, gymnastics, taekwondo, and probably some more that I've long since forgotten. I don't remember ever making one of my kids continue practicing. I probably begged them to stop.

She also called one of her daughters "garbage" because she behaved disrespectfully. My kids probably were disrespectful a few times but I never called them garbage. I probably told them that Santa Claus was watching.

In yet another part of the book she threw a birthday card that her daughter had made her back at the daughter saying that she didn't want the card, that she deserved better than this. "So I reject this." I hung little cards with misspellings, finger prints and Elmer's Glue proudly on my refrigerator for all to see.

But, according to Amy Chua, this is why Americans are falling behind in education. She says that we don't expect enough from our children. She did not allow her daughters to have sleepovers, never accepted less than an A, required spelling and math drills daily, required violin and piano practice daily, no playdates, no tv, no computer games or even school plays. I have hosted my share of sleepovers, sat through countless school plays, endured the Nintendo games, Nickleodeon, Fraggle Rock, and on and on.

Now, how do our kids compare? One graduated from Hendrix with honors, the other decided to pursue home and hearth first and attend college later. Are they more or less happy than Amy Chua's kids? I can't say. But as I'm typing this I am looking at a little blue clay turtle. It sits on my desk and holds my paper clips - has for 27 years. It has little fingerprints all around it and it doesn't really look like a turtle - Ryan had to tell me what it was, because the tail got broken off on the bus ride home. On the bottom in squiggly 2nd grade writing, it say's RR, 2A. Amy Chua would have thrown that little turtle back at her child. I cherish my little turtle.

Amy Chua says that China is far surpassing our students and their economic growth is much higher because we are not practicing strict enough parenting skills. Maybe so, but how are they doing in the nurturing department? And, if China is so great, why did my college classes have so many Chinese students in them?

Amy Chua teaches law at Yale. Her students want to be there. Most of my students don't want to be there. I have learned that if you tell them they worked really hard that they will ask you for an even harder challenge. I don't have to throw work back at them or call them garbage to get them to try harder.

I might recommend that Amy Chua read "Love and Logic" by Dr. Charles Fay and "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" by Ruby Payne. It might help to "tame the tiger mom."