Could I be a Tiger Mom?

With all of the recent controversy over Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, I’ve surprised myself by (very quietly) siding with Amy Chua philosophically. I don’t agree with her methods, but I do agree that parents should be making more decisions for their children, especially for their young children.

I’ll pause to note here that I’ve not read her book. I heard a review of it on NPR and I read the excerpt of it in The Wall Street Journal (Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior). I also saw an interview with Chua on The Colbert Report while we were on vacation (which is the only time we have cable). As I understand, the book gives a different, more complete story of Chua’s parenting experiences than the WSJ article does. In this post, I just intend to point out the ways in which the WSJ article did not shock me.

I also agree with Chua’s opinions about self-esteem. Chua says, “Western parents worry a lot about their children’s self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child’s self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there’s nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn’t.”

I agree that if we let our kids give up, they’ll never learn the satisfaction of meeting a challenge head on and overcoming it. And this doesn’t mean leaving our kids to tackle a challenge on their own.

In the WSJ piece, Chua describes a conflict with her daughter over a piece she was learning on the piano. Her daughter wanted to give up, but Chua wouldn’t let her. Now, I’m not a fan of the bribes and threats Chua employed to keep her daughter at the piano. But it’s important to note that Chua sat with her daughter for hours and hours, making sure her daughter practiced that piece. Not many parents I know (including myself) have the resolve to put that amount of time into parenting.

My daughter plays the flute. With her teacher’s help, she’s learned to break down larger challenges into manageable chunks. For example, when she was learning her Book 1 graduation piece, she was having trouble getting the long, long runs of eighth notes down. Her teacher suggested she divide them up into groups of four eighth notes, which she called “train cars.” My daughter was to practice the runs from the end, playing one train car over and over until she got it right five times in a row. Then she would add the next train car back, playing those two train cars over and over until she got them right five times in a row. She continued on like that, building the train from the caboose all the way up to the engine. She fought me on that to some degree, but we made a game out of it and got silly when she started getting upset. By the time she was through, she had that piece in her fingers and was so proud of herself. She’s not only learned that she can succeed at something that at first seems impossible, she’s learned a technique she can apply to other pieces of music, and to other challenges in her life.

And she’s not even six years old yet.

Another piece I surprised myself by agreeing with was the idea that children owe their parents something. Or as Chua says, “Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything.” My belief is a variation on that: I believe that my children owe the family everything. And the family owes them. Our family unit is the most important structure in our lives. We each owe it to the family to keep working and keep trying in the face of challenges. In addition, our family is a microcosm for the society around us. We owe it not only to the family but to society to challenge ourselves intellectually and emotionally. I think that this is the only way a democracy works, and it’s our responsibility as citizens to maintain a high level of interest and intellectual intensity to help build the strongest country that we can (as futile as that seems sometimes).

Like Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise say in their book about classical education at home (The Well-Trained Mind), we don’t get exceptional students by asking for mediocre performance. I think that asking more of my children will help them to do more and to feel confident that they can tackle audacious goals in the future. I might do it with love and patience and sitting quietly with my children rather than threatening to throw their toys out if they don’t do as I say, but I at least agree with the motives behind Chua’s actions.