Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

I read a super interesting book recently.  Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, to be precise.  I read it at the urging of my sister.  Well, more specifically, because my Chasm's Lady sister told me that my other Until-Recently In Denial About Reading My Blog sister liked it a lot, and it "revolutionized her life."  So I read it, and really liked it, but must admit, it didn't change my life.
Then again, I don't have kids, so...

The general idea of the book is as follows: a Chinese immigrant marries a Jewish guy and they have two girls--Sophia and Lulu.  She wants to raise them in the traditional Chinese manner (which is to say, all work and no play makes Sophia and Lulu very smart and focused children), and thinks the kids will be happy all working and no playing.  They learn musical instruments and how to do math and excel at every school subject.  These girls were set up to be the next Chopin/Supreme Court Justice.  Whatever they wanted.

Only...  the girls were less than enthusiastic about the fanatical practice sessions.  Less than warmed when their mother out-and-out rejected poorly made birthday cards and called the girls "garbage."  Not so thrilled that they couldn't have sleepovers, or go on vacation without their musical instruments in tow.  Even irked that they were taken out of school all the time so they could get "real work" (read, more musical practice) done.

Eventually Lulu, the younger daughter, figured out that her mother could be broken.  So, she broke her.  After enough times of refusing to practice her violin, and then even more times of refusing to practice her violin, her mother, Amy, let it stop.

And that, basically, was the end of the book.

That review sounded less than glowing, but, as I said earlier, I really liked the book.  It was well written, thoughtful, and easy to identify with (well, inasmuch as I know how to identify with either the parents or children in this situation).  Amy Chau was candid, and you could tell (she mentioned in the follow-up portion of the book, in fact) that her daughters had a say in what went in the book and what stayed out.  Not like I know what's not in the book, obviously, because, well, I'm not Amy's friend, and she didn't tell me.  I have no idea.

Besides all that thought-provoking stuff, the book was downright, genuinely amusing.  Between the discussions of why they had a dog--and then got another one--you'd find a paragraph containing a rant about school.  "...there's nothing I hate more than all these festivals and projects that private schools specialize in.  Instead of making kids study from books, private schools are constantly trying to make learning fun by having parents do all the work."

For some reason, I find that very amusing.  I was reading this book on a bus, by the way, and got some strange looks because I would inadvertently allow a laugh to audibly escape every once in a while.

The book came under a lot of criticism.  Which I partly understand.  I mean, calling your children garbage?  But on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that most of the people who hate it passionately (and the people who sent the author death threats and such--which actually happened) maybe didn't actually finish the book.  It's divided into three sections.  The first section: background story and stuff that went on when the girls were young and everyone got along well.  Section two:  when everything went horribly, terribly wrong and Amy realized that Chinese parenting maybe didn't work so well after all.  Section three:  Amy explaining why she wrote the book, and how the household dynamic changed now that there wasn't quite the same level of tyranny, as it were.  So yes, I cringed several times as I read it, but I also was impressed at the willingness of the author to bluntly share her faults and walk us all through what worked and what decidedly didn't.

I'm glad I read it.  It's true, I don't have children, but it was an interesting read if only for the things I learned about Chinese culture.  It was valuable for the things I learned about parenting (not just Chinese parenting, but general parenting) and, quite frankly, I found it an interesting study in human nature in general.

And now, in my opinion, the author owes us another book.  A book about her poor husband, Jed, who got basically no say in the parenting.  There needs to be an ode to Jed.  I feel sorry for that man.  But that's not the subject.

Anyhow, if, like me, you've ever read the articles about the book (first I heard about it was from Time magazine--both girls say, by the way, that as far as they know, they're going to turn out fine), or had it recommended (possibly even by my sister, haha), you should read it.  And then we can all discuss it.  I'd very much like to hear what other people have to say about it!