Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
I started reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chau a few days ago and I’m completely gripped.
It’s a memoir written by a Chinese American woman who insisted on raising her two girls according to the Chinese way – pushing them to get straight A’s, training them to play the piano and violin to concert standards, and emphasising respect for their elders. They were also never allowed to be in a school play, have a play date, watch tv, choose their own extra mural activities etc etc.
You may have read about the book already, there has been lots of coverage online and interviews with Amy Chau, most notably the one in the Wall Street Journal titled ‘Why Chinese Mothers are Superior’ that had 8000 comments the last time I checked.
It’s a fascinating book that raises a number of highly controversial questions. She asserts that ‘Western’ children are lazy and that parents underestimate their ability by assuming fragility, instead of believing in their children’s strength and pushing them to achieve more than they (the children) think they can.
I’m a little undecided about what I think of Chau’s parenting methods.
Don’t get me wrong, in many ways the comes across as an over achieving psycho who can only do long term emotional damage to her children – insulting them, not taking their opinions into account and forcing them to practice their instruments for six hours a day, everyday, regardless of whether they are in a foreign country on holiday, whether it is their birthday or if they are sick.
But some of her points do ring true – children will often give up on something if it is ‘too hard’ before they have mastered a skill, thereby never learning what they can actually achieve through perseverance (I gave up ballet when I was seven because I was bored and couldn’t wait to start on pointe shoes, something that I regret to this day. I wish my parents had pushed me to continue); and not excepting mediocrity.
But she completely disregards personal freedom – freedom to find one’s passion through doing something that you love; learning through play and quite simply being a child and doing ‘nothing’ (for example, Chau says she hated summers as a child because her parents made her learn computer programming, rather than having a normal summer like every other child).
She also has no room in her partenting philosophy for creativity and innovation - a skill that children will need in every area of their lives as adults, whether professional or personal.
Chau doesn’t mention anywhere in the book whether she played an instrument as a child – so it comes across that she may be forcing something onto her girls that she wished she had achieved in her life.
While some of her points are worth pondering – not to be too soft and to give in because you as a parent actually don’t want to put in the extra work, and that everything worth achieving is hard, she overlooks the fact that one of a parent’s most important role’s is to teach their children to rely on themselves, without a parent always pushing them to achieve.
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Interesting!
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