I know many of you are tired of reading about Amy Chua, the self-proclaimed Tiger Mom who set the blogosphere ablaze when the Wall Street Journal published “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior ” in 2011. I fully empathize. Since then, the topic has been debated ad nauseam by a parade of moms from various ethnicities… except well, East-Asian-American moms. So before we banish her from the blogosphere, I want to set the record straight about this “Tiger Mom” stereotype.
In the WSJ article, Chua explained how Chinese and other East Asian mothers raise stereotypically successful children who excel academically and become math whizzes and child prodigies. She explained that Asian mothers instill discipline and the value of hard work in their children. And Asian mothers don’t coddle their children emotionally; rather, we can call them garbage, call them “fatties,” criticize their art projects, and dish out tough love to prepare their children for the rigors of life. Asian mothers are mommy tigers who teach their children to ferociously devour their competition and to achieve success at any cost, which includes never: attending a sleepover; having a playdate; being in a school play; complaining about not being in a school play; watching TV or playing computer games; choosing their own extracurricular activities; getting any grade less than an A; not being the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama; playing any instrument other than the piano or violin; and not playing the piano or violin.
As a Korean-American mom, there is much to like about the article and even Amy Chua herself. Yes, we want our children to be academically and professionally successful, and we make no apologies for it. If that means that our children have to study harder now, that is the price they will have to pay for a lifetime of financial security. We can also agree that nothing is fun until you’re good at it, and to be good at something, you need to practice every day with fortitude and discipline. Chua is also correct that many Asian-American moms assume strength, not fragility, in our children and that one of the worst things you can do for your child is to let them give up. And I found myself nodding when Chua tells her husband, “You just don’t believe in her.” This encapsulates thousands of years of Confucian ideology that anything can be achieved through hard work. “I’m just not good at math” is a phrase rarely heard in Asia because to many Asians, that simply means that the child is lazy and won’t apply himself. Despite the provocative title probably chosen to generate buzz, the article is, for the most part, an earnest inquiry into why some Western mothers don’t expect more from their children.
Chua’s book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was even better than the Wall Street Journal article. It was a hysterical, hyperbolic, self-deprecating memoir about a tiger mom who was humbled by her younger daughter’s sense of autonomy and eventually learned to let go of her control. Judging by the widespread criticism of her book, it seems most detractors didn’t even read the book or missed her self-satirical sense of humor. Strong, brilliant women are often misunderstood, and, next to Hillary Clinton, I think she is the most misunderstood person in America. Yet, despite thoroughly enjoying the book and respecting her as a devoted mom and an accomplished law professor, I cannot help but resent her because she has inadvertently reduced all of us Asian-American moms down to a caricature that has negatively affected how people view us and our children.
I have been called a “Tiger Mom” twice since my 6-year-old son started ice hockey two years ago. Ironically, the people who called me a tiger mom were hockey dads who make tiger moms seem like soft bunnies. These hockey dads are fierce. Hockey is their religion. Some are training their kids to become NHL players, a dream they were unable to fulfill themselves. I once witnessed a hockey dad chew out his son so viciously that even Chua would have cringed. But one hockey dad jokingly called me a tiger mom because when he complimented my son’s skating, I just humbly replied that his skating was developing along nicely but that it wasn’t translating into him being a great hockey player. The truth is, my son is a pretty good hockey player, and I am really proud of him. I just felt odd about acknowledging how great my son is to other people and felt the need to balance his strengths with a weakness. Perhaps it is my Asian humility, yin yang, whatever. Here in America, it seems this kind of conduct is viewed as being negative, overly critical, and unhealthy for the well-being of a child.
The second time I was teased as a Tiger mom was because I was teaching my 3-year-old son to read while my older son was playing hockey. My 3-year-old son wants to read because he sees his older brother read. It also seems like the normal thing to do when we’re waiting at the skating rink for two hours with absolutely nothing else around to entertain us. And honestly, I wouldn’t have been that offended because these hockey dads are friendly acquaintances who were just joking around, but I am noticing the negative repercussions these Tiger Mom stereotypes have on us and our children. My friend told me that her friend was called a “Tiger Mom” by her son’s teacher (yes, a teacher!) when she mentioned that the curriculum was too easy for her son. Why is it that when a non-Asian mom tells her child’s teacher that the curriculum is too easy for her child, she is admired as being an advocate for her child, but when an Asian-American mom does, she is dismissed as a Tiger Mom?
What’s worse is that this stereotype reduces our children to mindless, obedient and one-dimensional drones. Nothing angered me more than when some people in the American media blamed the deaths of students aboard the Sewol ferry on stereotypes of Asian culture: Reuters claimed “Many of the children did not question their elders, as is customary in hierarchical Korean society. They paid for their obedience with their lives.” CNN headlined “South Korean Cultural Values Played a Role in Passengers Staying Below Deck as Ferry Sank.” One Dallas blogger boasted: “If that was a boatload of American students, you know they would have been finding any and every way to get off that ferry.” A nation was in mourning and hundreds of parents lost their children and yet some in the American media insensitively blamed the Asian culture and the children themselves, for their tragic deaths. The media, however, never questioned the cultural norms or the obedience of passengers aboard Costa Concordia who returned to their cabins before the ship sank or thousands of people at the World Trade Center on 9/11 who remained inside or even returned to the building after the first plane crashed into the building. And no disaster victim, whether Korean or Amerian, should be blamed for obeying authority. It is well known to disaster psychology experts that when disaster strikes, the first stage is denial for most people. At this stage, obedience to authority is the norm and can be life saving under many situations. But the media is often clueless about how Asians really are (if we can even be characterized as a group at all) and books like Chua’s just add to the common stereotype that Asian children are obedient with no will of their own.
These negative stereotypes of Asian children can also be found in college admissions. One Harvard admissions officer noted on the file of an Asian-American applicant, “He’s quiet and, of course, wants to be a doctor.” One anonymous admissions officer at an Ivy League school said, “Let’s face it, some people are just more affable or more likeable than others. An admissions officer is really asking himself, ‘Would I like to hang out with this guy or gal for the next four years?’ So if you come off as just another Asian math genius with no personality, then it’s going to be tough for you. An admissions officer is not going to push very hard for you.” Apparently, it is not enough for Asian children to be math geniuses. They have to overcome some preconceived notions about their personalities to ever set foot in the Ivy Leagues.
What disturbs me the most about Chua’s book is that it implies that the achievements of Asian children are not their own but rather the achievements of their pathological tiger mothers. By focusing on her own parenting style, the book credits much of Chua’s daughters’ success to her parenting technique rather than the thousands of hours her daughters dedicated to studying and practicing the piano and the violin. The part that I found particularly deplorable was when Chua forced her younger daughter, despite her vehement protest, to play the violin at her Bat Mitzvah, a rite of passage in which a child becomes an adult, i.e. able to make her own choices. Such a display seemed boastful and narcissistic with little regard for her daughter – forget what my child wants, look how talented my child is because of my tiger parenting. If her daughter one day would have regretted not having performed at her Bat Mitzvah, she would just have to have lived with the consequences of her choices. We cannot save our children from every regret because we think we know better. And many of us believe in the capabilities of our children but we also understand their limits. Tiger parenting is not for every child, as Chua eventually realized with her younger daughter.
The truth is, I don’t know a single Asian-American mom who is as extreme as Amy Chua. And believe me, I know plenty of Asian-American moms. And although they may not be Yale law school professors, many of them have graduated from the Ivy Leagues and have successful careers as doctors, lawyers, and Wall Street bankers. Many of these women including myself enthusiastically arrange play dates because we want our children to be happy, sociable human beings. We love sleepovers, particularly if they are not at our house because sleepovers give us a chance to kick back with a glass of wine and catch up on The Game of Thrones. We also let our children choose their extracurricular activities because we want our children to find their passions. We enroll them in sports because we want our children to be healthy, learn to be team players, and because fresh air is good for the soul. Besides, here in America, an athletic kid is a popular kid and a popular kid is a confident, sociable kid who will carry this confidence into college and adulthood. Some of us even permit our children to watch mindless cartoons on the weekends (and gasp! TV even on school nights!) , and when we dine out, we give our kids our iPhones so they won’t keep interrupting our adult conversation. As for plays, I was the lead in my high school plays so you can guess where I stand on that issue.
What we do have in common with Chua is that we have high expectations from our children, and we believe that our children can accomplish almost anything with hard work and perseverance. But we believe that a child’s dream must be chosen by the child himself and the child must find the motivation within himself to pursue it. In that regard, we are just like any other motivated American mom who has high expectations from her children. I will ask my children what instruments they want to play and whether they even want to play an instrument at all. And I will ask my children whether they want to attend a computer programming camp or a sleep away sports camp. Childhood is fleeting, and I want my children to remember it as magical. What will these parenting choices mean for my children? Perhaps my children may not be admitted to Harvard or perform at Carnegie Hall, but I can live with that and so can a lot of Asian-American and American mothers. And maybe that is the real difference between all of us and Amy Chua.I know many of you are tired of reading about Amy Chua, the self-proclaimed Tiger Mom who set the blogosphere ablaze when the Wall Street Journal published “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior ” in 2011. I fully empathize. Since then, the topic has been debated ad nauseam by a parade of moms from various ethnicities… except well, East-Asian-American moms. So before we banish her from the blogosphere, I want to set the record straight about this “Tiger Mom” stereotype.
In the WSJ article, Chua explained how Chinese and other East Asian mothers raise stereotypically successful children who excel academically and become math whizzes and child prodigies. She explained that Asian mothers instill discipline and the value of hard work in their children. And Asian mothers don’t coddle their children emotionally; rather, we can call them garbage, call them “fatties,” criticize their art projects, and dish out tough love to prepare their children for the rigors of life. Asian mothers are mommy tigers who teach their children to ferociously devour their competition and to achieve success at any cost, which includes never: attending a sleepover; having a playdate; being in a school play; complaining about not being in a school play; watching TV or playing computer games; choosing their own extracurricular activities; getting any grade less than an A; not being the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama; playing any instrument other than the piano or violin; and not playing the piano or violin.
As a Korean-American mom, there is much to like about the article and even Amy Chua herself. Yes, we want our children to be academically and professionally successful, and we make no apologies for it. If that means that our children have to study harder now, that is the price they will have to pay for a lifetime of financial security. We can also agree that nothing is fun until you’re good at it, and to be good at something, you need to practice every day with fortitude and discipline. Chua is also correct that many Asian-American moms assume strength, not fragility, in our children and that one of the worst things you can do for your child is to let them give up. And I found myself nodding when Chua tells her husband, “You just don’t believe in her.” This encapsulates thousands of years of Confucian ideology that anything can be achieved through hard work. “I’m just not good at math” is a phrase rarely heard in Asia because to many Asians, that simply means that the child is lazy and won’t apply himself. Despite the provocative title probably chosen to generate buzz, the article is, for the most part, an earnest inquiry into why some Western mothers don’t expect more from their children.
Chua’s book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was even better than the Wall Street Journal article. It was a hysterical, hyperbolic, self-deprecating memoir about a tiger mom who was humbled by her younger daughter’s sense of autonomy and eventually learned to let go of her control. Judging by the widespread criticism of her book, it seems most detractors didn’t even read the book or missed her self-satirical sense of humor. Strong, brilliant women are often misunderstood, and, next to Hillary Clinton, I think she is the most misunderstood person in America. Yet, despite thoroughly enjoying the book and respecting her as a devoted mom and an accomplished law professor, I cannot help but resent her because she has inadvertently reduced all of us Asian-American moms down to a caricature that has negatively affected how people view us and our children.
I have been called a “Tiger Mom” twice since my 6-year-old son started ice hockey two years ago. Ironically, the people who called me a tiger mom were hockey dads who make tiger moms seem like soft bunnies. These hockey dads are fierce. Hockey is their religion. Some are training their kids to become NHL players, a dream they were unable to fulfill themselves. I once witnessed a hockey dad chew out his son so viciously that even Chua would have cringed. But one hockey dad jokingly called me a tiger mom because when he complimented my son’s skating, I just humbly replied that his skating was developing along nicely but that it wasn’t translating into him being a great hockey player. The truth is, my son is a pretty good hockey player, and I am really proud of him. I just felt odd about acknowledging how great my son is to other people and felt the need to balance his strengths with a weakness. Perhaps it is my Asian humility, yin yang, whatever. Here in America, it seems this kind of conduct is viewed as being negative, overly critical, and unhealthy for the well-being of a child.
The second time I was teased as a Tiger mom was because I was teaching my 3-year-old son to read while my older son was playing hockey. My 3-year-old son wants to read because he sees his older brother read. It also seems like the normal thing to do when we’re waiting at the skating rink for two hours with absolutely nothing else around to entertain us. And honestly, I wouldn’t have been that offended because these hockey dads are friendly acquaintances who were just joking around, but I am noticing the negative repercussions these Tiger Mom stereotypes have on us and our children. My friend told me that her friend was called a “Tiger Mom” by her son’s teacher (yes, a teacher!) when she mentioned that the curriculum was too easy for her son. Why is it that when a non-Asian mom tells her child’s teacher that the curriculum is too easy for her child, she is admired as being an advocate for her child, but when an Asian-American mom does, she is dismissed as a Tiger Mom?
What’s worse is that this stereotype reduces our children to mindless, obedient and one-dimensional drones. Nothing angered me more than when some people in the American media blamed the deaths of students aboard the Sewol ferry on stereotypes of Asian culture: Reuters claimed “Many of the children did not question their elders, as is customary in hierarchical Korean society. They paid for their obedience with their lives.” CNN headlined “South Korean Cultural Values Played a Role in Passengers Staying Below Deck as Ferry Sank.” One Dallas blogger boasted: “If that was a boatload of American students, you know they would have been finding any and every way to get off that ferry.” A nation was in mourning and hundreds of parents lost their children and yet some in the American media insensitively blamed the Asian culture and the children themselves, for their tragic deaths. The media, however, never questioned the cultural norms or the obedience of passengers aboard Costa Concordia who returned to their cabins before the ship sank or thousands of people at the World Trade Center on 9/11 who remained inside or even returned to the building after the first plane crashed into the building. And no disaster victim, whether Korean or Amerian, should be blamed for obeying authority. It is well known to disaster psychology experts that when disaster strikes, the first stage is denial for most people. At this stage, obedience to authority is the norm and can be life saving under many situations. But the media is often clueless about how Asians really are (if we can even be characterized as a group at all) and books like Chua’s just add to the common stereotype that Asian children are obedient with no will of their own.
These negative stereotypes of Asian children can also be found in college admissions. One Harvard admissions officer noted on the file of an Asian-American applicant, “He’s quiet and, of course, wants to be a doctor.” One anonymous admissions officer at an Ivy League school said, “Let’s face it, some people are just more affable or more likeable than others. An admissions officer is really asking himself, ‘Would I like to hang out with this guy or gal for the next four years?’ So if you come off as just another Asian math genius with no personality, then it’s going to be tough for you. An admissions officer is not going to push very hard for you.” Apparently, it is not enough for Asian children to be math geniuses. They have to overcome some preconceived notions about their personalities to ever set foot in the Ivy Leagues.
What disturbs me the most about Chua’s book is that it implies that the achievements of Asian children are not their own but rather the achievements of their pathological tiger mothers. By focusing on her own parenting style, the book credits much of Chua’s daughters’ success to her parenting technique rather than the thousands of hours her daughters dedicated to studying and practicing the piano and the violin. The part that I found particularly deplorable was when Chua forced her younger daughter, despite her vehement protest, to play the violin at her Bat Mitzvah, a rite of passage in which a child becomes an adult, i.e. able to make her own choices. Such a display seemed boastful and narcissistic with little regard for her daughter – forget what my child wants, look how talented my child is because of my tiger parenting. If her daughter one day would have regretted not having performed at her Bat Mitzvah, she would just have to have lived with the consequences of her choices. We cannot save our children from every regret because we think we know better. And many of us believe in the capabilities of our children but we also understand their limits. Tiger parenting is not for every child, as Chua eventually realized with her younger daughter.
The truth is, I don’t know a single Asian-American mom who is as extreme as Amy Chua. And believe me, I know plenty of Asian-American moms. And although they may not be Yale law school professors, many of them have graduated from the Ivy Leagues and have successful careers as doctors, lawyers, and Wall Street bankers. Many of these women including myself enthusiastically arrange play dates because we want our children to be happy, sociable human beings. We love sleepovers, particularly if they are not at our house because sleepovers give us a chance to kick back with a glass of wine and catch up on The Game of Thrones. We also let our children choose their extracurricular activities because we want our children to find their passions. We enroll them in sports because we want our children to be healthy, learn to be team players, and because fresh air is good for the soul. Besides, here in America, an athletic kid is a popular kid and a popular kid is a confident, sociable kid who will carry this confidence into college and adulthood. Some of us even permit our children to watch mindless cartoons on the weekends (and gasp! TV even on school nights!) , and when we dine out, we give our kids our iPhones so they won’t keep interrupting our adult conversation. As for plays, I was the lead in my high school plays so you can guess where I stand on that issue.
What we do have in common with Chua is that we have high expectations from our children, and we believe that our children can accomplish almost anything with hard work and perseverance. But we believe that a child’s dream must be chosen by the child himself and the child must find the motivation within himself to pursue it. In that regard, we are just like any other motivated American mom who has high expectations from her children. I will ask my children what instruments they want to play and whether they even want to play an instrument at all. And I will ask my children whether they want to attend a computer programming camp or a sleep away sports camp. Childhood is fleeting, and I want my children to remember it as magical. What will these parenting choices mean for my children? Perhaps my children may not be admitted to Harvard or perform at Carnegie Hall, but I can live with that and so can a lot of Asian-American and American mothers. And maybe that is the real difference between all of us and Amy Chua.