Amy Chua's new book, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" recently made headlines with her essay published by the Wallstreet Journal. The essay, titled, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior," caused an media sensation as readers bashed Chua for threatening to let her daughter use the bathroom until she perfected her violin piece--among other actions Chua admits to doing in order to raise her two daughters. At first glance, Chua's article may appear as a methodology on how to raise the perfect child and all the things not to let them do, but in a separate interview with The New York Times, Chua says the book is a memoir, reflecting on what she did and what she learned as a result of that. Stripping away the specific examples Chua states in her excerpt, the underlying message in her piece shows her belief that children need structure and guidance in order to grow up and eventually develop the ability to form their own decisions. Developmentally, children cannot fully think critically as adults or older individuals. They cannot rationalize through situations they have not yet experienced. A child's view point is limited to the present and the sliver of future. In her essay, Chua distinguishes two types of nurturing--Western and Chinese--although she does clarify that she uses these terms in the loosest sense. She defines the Chinese style as the strict way of raising children that leads to the stereotypical successful Asian prodigy. Western methods, she believes, generally cannot compare against that of the Chinese because parents try too hard to pad their children. They worry about their children's self-esteem and praise effort more than achievement. To view this idea with the lens of differentiation, I think Eastern and Western parenting styles are varied--although the variation stems from historical roots more than anything.
A refugee, my mother endured hardships I will never fully comprehend. Her journey to the United States is a story of strength and courage, and an inspiration to me. She had to work twice as hard, if not more, to first become admitted into a high school, and to eventually graduate with honors. Her resulting ideology is that education is the key to success. She believed that knowledge is the most power attribute one can possible have. Anything else that took up time or deviated from that effort to achieve a degree, was a waste of time in her eyes. Because she had to work harder than those who were born with English as a naive language in order to reach the same finish line, she understood the value of determination and perseverance. As a result, she raised me with a push to always do the best that I could. I saw this as strict. She would be very hesitant/suggestively against letting me go to a friend's house, attend sleep overs, or walk around town. She said my choral activities and wanting to join the tennis team in middle school was a waste of time. She said I was naive for wanting to do most activities that were generally the norm for children my age because I didn't know any better. I didn't know what was out there. This was very insulting to me because I felt that she was berating my abilities as a person to reason. She was belittling me. Internally, I argued, 'If you never let me go, how am I supposed to know what is out there?' In retrospect, she was concerned because she knew that I did not have the experiences she had. She wanted to protect me from the hardships she faced, the prejudices she encountered. Her parenting style was not a result of wanting to raise a prodigy child; it was a result of her experiences as an immigrant and how she grew up hundreds of miles away from her family surrounded by a foreign culture and language. Eventually, my drive was a result of my wish to make her proud and largely in order to prove myself to my peers and my teachers--which transformed into an internal drive to be the person I knew I could be.
Being raised the way I was, I can only attest to what I know. It would be unfair for me to say that I think one method of parenting is superior than another, and it would be equally unfair for me to hypothetically raise my own children based on how I was raised knowing my own background. My mother raised me based on what she knew, just as Amy Chua's parents raised her. How other children from a certain parenting style turn out do not indicate that the methodology in question is superior, nor does it indicate that it will rear universal results. There are a myriad of factors that play into how someone will develop--environment, family structure, personal beliefs, and social influence. As for those stereotypical Asian prodigies--that's all they are: Stereotypes. Ethnicity plays no part in determining a person's success. That depends on their will, drive, work. In fact, it is offensive to assume that if you're Asian, you known how to play the piano or violin and are somehow a math genius or a computer whiz. It creates a false identity for someone based on how they look based on a few select individuals popularized by media. Basically, it is unfair to the person encased in the stereotype. And taking Chua's excerpt for the labels that come with it, it is simply false to say there is a way to raise a stereotypical Asian prodigy. Parenting is a role of guidance, yes; but it does not call for an environment where a child is threatened to have his or her dinner denied, prevented from using the restroom, and threatened to have his or her favorite toy taken away. This methodology simply equates to: Do what I say, or else. Thus, the resulting product is not a "prodigy," but a creation of your own will.
It is difficult to adequately analyze or respond to Amy Chua's novel by only formulating opinions on a brief passage, but I sought to see both sides of the coin--one of basic structural meaning, and one of methodology with its decorative shell intact. One may leave the essay with a curiosity of where Chua takes her story, or one may argue that the book be removed from store shelves for its rash statements. Nevertheless, I think a definitive judgment on the novel would be greatly premature without first hearing Amy's full story. So let's hear your battle hymn, Mother Tiger. I'm all ears.
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Holly Tran, Staff Writer, is currently a sophomore at the University of Rhode Island pursing a major in Biological Sciences.
