Tiger Mothers

In the past month, Amy Chua became a national pariah and a publicity agent's dream. Her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, debuted at the same time her article, "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior," appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

A friend pointed me to the article first, and then the firestorm erupted. Amy Chua and her "Tiger Mothers" were everywhere -- in Time and Newsweek, on the Today show, featured in every blog, all over Facebook. Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School and a mother of two teenage daughters, became both a bad word and an entry in the American pop culture dictionary overnight.

Not very many of the writers talking about Amy Chua actually read her book. Most everything you read about her is the result of the provocative WSJ article. I haven't read her book either, in full disclosure. But I did listen to an enlightening interview with her on NPR's "Diane Rehm Show."

In the NPR interview, Chua elaborated on her article. At times she seemed to be back-pedaling something fierce, but she in no way seemed like the voice of the WSJ piece. She explained that the book was an arc, a journey in parenting, and that the article represented a sometimes slightly tongue-in-cheek view of how she viewed parenting at the beginning of her journey.

In fact, on the very cover of the book, the title reads: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and then in smaller (much smaller, not backed by red ink) print,

This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs.

It was supposed to be a story about how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones.

But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old girl.

Huh.

Well, that's not quite as provocative, huh? Right there on the cover of the book. That makes her sound jut like... hmmm... every other mother ever who had a definite, clear view of how she wanted to parent and what was right and what would work and then was humbled by the little person she gave birth to?

After the interview, I was very motivated to read Chua's book, not because I wanted to learn how to be a pushy parent and not because I want to unlearn pushy parenting, but because I thought the stories about her immigrant parents, who raised her and her siblings with nothing, was way more interesting than Amy Chua's story. I was especially interested in the story about her mother raising her sister with Down Syndrome and how it led her mother to learn about more "Western" ways of parenting. So much more interesting than hearing about Chua berating her daughter during violin practices.

In any case, I did read the titillating WSJ article that started the national campaign to squash Amy Chua. And even in that article, I agreed with her on a few points. It surprised me, believe me. But I did.

I agree with Chua that children do not like to do things at which they feel unsuccessful. Any time someone tells me that her elementary school age child dislikes school, I wonder what cog is out of place. In my experience, children like school until they feel unsuccessful at school, and for the average kid, that comes in middle school.

In my own children, I have watched them struggle with tasks that are awkward for them. Firstborn, with all his mild hypotonic floppiness, finds it challenging to play the violin. It's especially tough for him to hold his wrist straight and keep his posture correct. It feels unsuccessful, even though his teacher assures me that he "gets" the violin and could be a good player if he would practice more and stick with it.

It's been the same with handwriting for both boys, with swimming strokes and practices, even with reading at times. Kids like to be good at things. As an adult, I can be content -- even excited -- about things at which I do not excel: Karaoke. Baking. Swimming. Running. Decorating. But as a child, I liked to do what brought me praise and recognition and a feeling of competency.

I also agree with Chua that most people, given enough practice, can master tasks and skills. I have had to teach myself this as an adult. My "Western" parents didn't push me as a child, so I had exactly four months of piano lessons, no sports, and no domestic skills when I went off to college. I bake a lot now, but I don't think I am especially good at it. I am hoping to be good at it after I practice. A lot. I plug away at the gym, learning how to run better and more efficiently. But it often takes a trainer barking at me to get me to finish a run.

And so, I find myself becoming a pussycat version, perhaps, of a "Tiger Mother." My children balk at swim team practices because they involve a transition, a change of clothes, and sixty measly minutes of swimming drills, but boring drills, back and forth and back and forth across the pool. Well, I don't care if they balk. Swimming is non-negotiable. For Firstborn, it builds core strength in his floppy body and helps him do everything from sit upright in his chairs to holding his pencils at school. For C., my tall but more than solid six-year-old, it provides the only form of exercise he tolerates for any length of time.  There's no berating, but there is tenacity. Despite screaming, despite swimsuits being thrown back at me, despite complaints, we swim. We don't only swim, mind you -- Firstborn loves baseball, so he is playing that as well -- but we do swim, two to three times a week.

Violin, too, has become non-negotiable. Firstborn would rather learn the guitar, and several of my friends have let their kids start guitar lessons this year. Firstborn has a year and a half invested in violin, though, and I am determined for him to stick it out longer and learn it fully before he moves on to a more popular instrument. Anyone who knows how to play a violin can learn to play a guitar. So, despite complaints, despite the groaning, despite the declarations that I am officially the meanest mother in America, Firstborn goes to a violin lesson for thirty minutes every week. Someday, he can learn the guitar. For now, he will learn the violin.

I don't care to be the Tiger Mother depicted in Chua's article. My children do sleepovers and playdates and plenty of fun and distracting things. They might never be the best at anything and that would be fine with me because they are already the best kids ever (in my biased view). But I want them to have a range of experiences, and I want to feel that I gave them the best chance at having some skills that might move through life with them. Swimming and playing an instrument are both skills that can last a lifetime. Because they are children, they might fight back against the transitions and the boring parts of practicing and the daily grind some of these skills require, but that's why they have me.

So I want to thank Amy Chua for making these points of my own parenting clear in my head. I receive so many messages that I am harming my children by overscheduling them or demanding too much of them, but the truth is that when my children come out of the pool at swim practice, they are radiant. They are happy and engaged and feeling good. When Firstborn comes out of his violin lesson, he feels more competent than when he went in. They don't always want to get in the car or stop watching the TV show after school, but when they do, they get a lot out of it.

[This post brought to you by a dog crate and a three-year-old bribed by yogurt tubes and an insect net.]