Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger mother - Book review

Synopsis:

Published in 2011, Battle Hymn of the Tiger mother chronicles the experiences of a Philippines born Chinese Yale University law professor married to a Jewish American, in raising their two daughters Sophia and Loiusa, in Cosmopolitan 21^st century America. The book is written with a somewhat ironic tone suggesting western parenting fosters the idea of children’s individuality whereas ‘Chinese’ parenting cultivates competitiveness based on arming children with strong work habits and several hours of practice. The book has since its publication ignited a lot of debate with most westerners questioning Chua’s methods of parenting as many westerners believe the strict regime infringes on children’s rights. Even though her methods have been questioned, the results are quite great as Sophia and Lulu excelled at most of their activities, no grade below an A, and always excelling in their musical lessons travelling to perform violin and piano around America and Europe.

“This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. It’s also about Mozart and Mendelssohn, the piano and the violin, and how we made it to Carnegie Hall. This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.” – Amy Chua

Publisher: Penguin Press

Pages: 240

Review:

Battle Hymn of the Tiger mother opens with a very interesting line that makes the reader want go on and on without putting the book down, even at the end of each of the three parts each with its own titled and numbered chapters.

‘A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereo-typically 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’

For a book that begins in such a grandiose fashion with a mother bragging about how a certain demographic she belongs to is so successful at ‘producing’ math whizzes, one would be forgiven for thinking the book is a parenting guide. Contrariwise, the book is full of somewhat controversial statements most of which contributed to the author being demonised after the book was published.

‘Fifteen minutes later, she was still yelling, crying, and kicking, and I’d had it. Dodging her blows, I dragged the screeching demon to our back porch door, and threw it open. The wind chill was twenty degrees, and my own face hurt from just a few seconds’ exposure to the icy air. But I was determined to raise an obedient Chinese child—in the West, obedience is associated with dogs and the caste system, but in Chinese culture, it is considered among the highest of virtues—if it killed me. “You can’t stay in the house if you don’t listen to Mommy,” I said sternly. “Now, are you ready to be a good girl? Or do you want to you want go outside?”  Lulu stepped outside. She faced me, defiant.’

The excerpt above is one of the many parts of the book where the reader may be forced at ‘face value’, to question Ms Chua’s model of parenting. I mean, what kind of parent throws her three year old child in the freezing cold? This was all for ‘refusing’ piano practice, or as it was, Amy demonstrated to the toddler how to play a single note with a single finger, evenly, three times, but little Lulu instead smashed at many notes at the same time with two open palms. Amy asked her to stop but the toddler smashed harder and the whole piano lesson escalated to a big furore where Lulu smashed at the piano with both hands faster and harder and reacting to attempts to pull her away from the piano by “yelling, crying, and kicking furiously”.

Like I say at face value one can judge Ms Chua harshly. As a parent, I have come to learn that there will be moments like that in parenting. I am a product of strict parenting myself thus the book made for very interesting reading. As a matter of fact, I too espouse strict parenting. This is more so during the formative years between birth and fifteen years. Thereafter, I strongly recommend the idea of easing up slightly. However, there is no manual for parenting that can be applied universally even among communities in the same geographical locations or with the same cultures.

What makes Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother such a wonderful read is the fact that it’s not a ‘how-to’ book or any guide/parenting manual. In the book, Ms Chua writes about many events where she pushes her two children to work extra hard in academics and the extracurricular activities she chose for them, putting many hours of practice. The girls were not allowed to have sleepovers, no playdates and most importantly no grade lower than an A on report cards. The results from her parenting style were great as her daughter were ‘perennial overachievers’,

She writes, ‘Sophia excelled in nursery school, particularly in math. While the other kids were learning to count from 1 to 10 the creative American way—with rods, beads, and cones—I taught Sophia addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, and decimals the rote Chinese way.’

In another passage she writes, ‘But probably most important, we stuck with the Chinese model because the early results were hard to quarrel with. Other parents were constantly asking us what our secret was. Sophia and Lulu were model children. In public, they were polite, interesting, helpful, and well spoken. They were A students, and Sophia was two years ahead of her classmates in math.’

The truth of life is that children will only be performers in whatever they do if they are pushed. A lot of talented sportsmen have fallen by the way side because of lacking discipline and putting in extra hours of practice. Sir Alex Ferguson is famously quoted as saying, "David Beckham is Britain’s finest striker of a football not because of God-given talent but because he practises with a relentless application that the vast majority of less gifted players wouldn’t contemplate." Another fact of life is that children will not work hard on their own unless given a push. They will prefer a lot of hours playing video games or watching television. In order for children to spend hours practicing, there has to be a deliberate push and Amy Chua’s Tiger parenting model may just be that push that is needed in order to ensure that children attain excellence and not mediocrity.

Nonetheless, while I may be a proponent of strict parenting, Ms Chua’s style was over bearing. In a way, it was almost as if she was trying so much to achieve her own dreams through her children which most times is never the best way to raise children. In doing so Ms Chua portrays herself more of a callous and over bearing mother. This is more so portrayed by the imperceptible role her husband, also a Yale University law professor, Jed Rubenfeld plays. Jed is not mentioned many times in the book unless the whole family is on a trip overseas or a mention of his family especially his mother who did not particularly get along well with Amy. Other moments when Jed is mentioned are when he tries to reign in on the excesses of his wife’s ‘Tiger parenting’ but he clearly didn’t get his way and there isn’t much mention of him.

Despite the book being controversial in many aspects according to western parenting standards, it is sure a good read and will ask a lot of introspective questions to many a reader. But take nothing 'too serious' from the book, it is just a tongue-in-cheek memoir. 
It is definitely not a parenting manual!