Jamie’s Book #1: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

I recently saw Amy Chua speak at a conference and have been wanting to read her book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” ever since. She is charming speaker and as it turns out, a pretty good writer, too.

This book was particularly interesting to me because Amy’s beliefs are so opposite of mine.  The book chronicles her struggles trying to raise her children the “Chinese way” in Western society.  Chinese mothers see childhood as a time of intense training for the future.  Her children were required to be two years ahead of their classmates in math, practiced their musical instruments every day for three hours, even when on vacation or sick, and were not allowed to watch TV or hang out with friends outside of school. Any grade less than an A, including an A-, was cause for great disappointment and ridicule. True to the Chinese way of parenting, Amy pushed her children toward perfection through steady criticism and guilt trips. I found her parenting style stifling, overbearing, even cruel at times, but her results were impressive. Both her daughters achieved immense success academically and musically at very early ages.  As Amy writes in her book, “What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences.”

 Amy does her best to push her daughters to their greatest potentials. The Chinese way of parenting certainly seems to result in children that are driven, hardworking, and talented… traits Western children sometimes lack, but is there a cost? Are those children missing out on a time of their lives they will never get back?  Are they missing out on friendships and the carefreeness of youth? Amy’s youngest daughter Lulu once told her mother “You’re a terrible mother. You’re selfish. Everything you say you do for me is actually for yourself.” What cost is the Chinese mother willing to pay to stay true to her methods of success?

Overall, this book was worth my time. It’s about much more than parenting. It’s about family, cultural identity, and compromise. If nothing else, it was interesting to get an inside look into a way of thinking so different from my own. It was a quick read and only took me two nights to finish. I hope the girls choose it as one of their books so we can get more than one opinion on it!