Amy Chua’s “Tiger Mother” articles have combusted into a raging debate about east/west strategies. So when I met a lovely young woman, Jennifer, from Shanghai, I was particularly interested in her story.
Tiger Mother and Cub
Jennifer told me, “Two of us were picked from my grammar school to go to this elite middle school. But when we got there, all the other kids were way ahead of us in math and we shared the second-to-last and last-place in the class for the first year.” I asked her how she felt about that. “Awful,” she said. “I felt really bad about myself.”
So, I said, how did your mother feel about it? “Oh she never worried about it,” Jennifer mused. “She just said, ‘You’ll catch up.'”
“Did she pressure you to catch up? Or work with you to make sure you did?”
“Oh no, she never pressured me. She didn’t worry about me and when I felt terrible about myself, she reassured me.”
I asked Jennifer if she had read any of the “Tiger Mother” articles. She smiled, “Oh, I’ve heard about that. But my mother wasn’t like that. Not all Chinese parents are like that.”
Jennifer went on, “She never pushed me. She started me on an instrument but I hated it and she let me quit. I never took up another instrument. My mother never got on my case about homework either. After school, she would ask me, ‘How was your day?’ but then I would go to my room and she didn’t bother me.”
Cookies and Milk
So far, sounds like many American parents and teens. Personally, I always wanted to be a “milk and cookies mother” but was not always sure it was best for my kids until I did my own research. After seeing the many gifts that conflict with school and what matters most for success in life, I confirmed for myself that tiger-mothering is unhealthy, both for me and my daughters.
Chua claims that tiger-mothering shows kids you believe in them — and where the tiger-proponents get concerned is: what happens when you “don’t love a child enough to push him/her?”
Well, in Jennifer’s case, she got herself into Harvard Law School. And, not easily either. She signed up to take the LSATs four times (once she was so sick with fear that she didn’t take the exam). She said, “I did really bad on the exam the first two times I took it and I was so scared, I made myself sick.”
Finally, though, she got coaching to understand her emotions– and she relaxed. On her last try, she got a high score (she never told me what, but obviously enough to get her in). But that wasn’t the happy ending.
Once there, it was so hard for her and she wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to go into law, so she wanted to quit. She called her mother, who said, “If that’s what you want, that’s okay. Go ahead and quit.”
“But,” she added, “You know it would be a great credential, no matter what you decide to do later.” So, Jennifer decided to stick it out another week, and then a few more and now she is in her second semester and intends to finish. [Note: if you think I think Harvard Law School is a good thing, be sure to read my next post].
Chua tells us the Chinese feel they must push and punish so that their kids know that their parents believe in them– and develop a resolve to keep trying. Some Americans agree.
Jennifer, a happy, optimistic, Shanghai native, says it’s just not so.
Related posts: My Mother is Not a Tiger and So Am I
To Boost Your Teen’s Brain, Try Success