"This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. It’s also about Mozart and Mendelssohn, the piano and the violin, and how we made it to Carnegie Hall.
This was supposed to be a story of 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…"
(From the opening of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother)
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| Links: About Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother About Amy Chua Amy Chua about her book Link to Q&A between Amy Chua and readers of an article about the book |
A Couple Updates:
The Q&A above is a response to an article, Why Chinese Mother's are Superior, which is excerpts from the book, but there is one picture that's not in the book and there are a few pictures from the book but they are in color.
Also very interesting is that in response to that excerpt people went crazy with hate mail and such, but there was also a response from her daughter, Sophia. Dear Tiger Mom (make sure you read page 2 as well, I almost didn't see it).
I just got this book on Tuesday and I AM LOVING IT! I hope I can come to book club. It will be a great discussion. Thanks for the recommendation.
ReplyDeleteI think all of us who have read this book are thinking long and hard about our own parenting styles and what we really want them to be.
ReplyDeleteI think this mother was able to push her kids because deep down they knew that she loved them and it was when the younger one began to really doubt that that they had a lot of trouble.
Years ago there was an article in the Ensign, "Helping Children to Develop Feelings of Self-Worth" and they talked about how children who know they are loved by their parents and their Heavenly Father are more likely to do what they know to be right and it talks about specific things to do to help them know that you love them and to help them have a strong testimony of their own.
It was a really interesting article. You can find it here:
http://www.lds.org/ensign/2006/02/helping-children-develop-feelings-of-self-worth?lang=eng
So I think a lot of us have been thinking long and hard about our own parenting styles and the parenting styles we were raised with. And I was organizing some of my computer files (yes, this is related, and yes I had many things to do that were more important, but that's beside the point) and I came across a response I'd written to Tillie Olsen's short story, "I Stand Here Ironing". If you aren't familiar with the story you can find it here.
ReplyDeletehttp://alexanderbecquer.com/IStandHereIroning.aspx
Here is the opening of the story:
I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron.
“I wish you would manage the time to come in and talk with me about your daughter. I’m sure you can help me understand her. She’s a youngster who needs help and whom I’m deeply interested in helping.”
“Who needs help,”…Even if I came, what good would it do? You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. There is all that life that has happened outside of me, beyond me."
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So I think that even though I do feel like I understand my kids better than anyone, that I too am sometimes bewildered and tortured as I worry about finding the perfect parenting balance for each of my children?
But I found some comfort in what I wrote late in 2009.
" . . . .So in the long run yeah I think John Ray and my other kids will be fine and yet I strongly believe that they could be even more than fine if I could get my act together better.
My own mother was amazing in so many ways and yet she was far from perfect. She worked at a time when it would have made a world of difference to me to have her home and during one of the more trying times in my teenage years she managed to make me feel completely abandoned. I don't remember her playing with us as kids and she even had a bit of temper (yelled a lot) then she worked a lot and the 4 of us were left to fend for ourselves. And yet for all that I think I have turned out fine. There are issues I struggle with but I'm a sane, productive member of society and am pretty happy with life. And you all know that I still love and revere my mother greatly. She didn't play with us but those times when she was home she tried hard to show love through food, sewing, listening, and teaching and also with words, hugs and kisses. I know in later years, haunted by all the time she'd spent working away from home, she comforted herself with knowing she'd really tried to make sure we all felt loved. I suppose if that is the underlying goal for all you do as a mother you can't go too far wrong."
We talked a lot about finding a balance and I think that the key to finding might be to keep the underlying goal of helping your children to feel loved.
Now I have to go test that out by teaching my eldest what it means to be grounded and at the same time help him feel that I'm doing it out of love. Can I just say that I'd much rather take and nap, eat some chocolate and watch Castle. I really do admire Amy Chua's time commitment and self-discipline to work with her kids so much, but even with hired help I don't understand how she had the time for it.
So what sort of sweeping parenting declarations have you made in your house hold?
ReplyDeleteOr in other words, what precedes the 'Hiyah!'?
(Huh. I just noticed that my two comments above start out almost exactly the same. Even though I do go on to say other things, I do wish you were allowed to edit comments with out deleting and re-posting though. Sheesh.)