7 ms·

I was under the impression that Amy Chua (the woman who wrote "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother") gave up the "tiger mom" strategy after one of her children had

I was under the impression that Amy Chua (the woman who wrote "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother") gave up the "tiger mom" strategy after one of her children had a breakdown: "What brings the situation to an end is two horrifying incidents. First, Lulu hacks off her hair with a pair of scissors; then, on a family holiday to Moscow, she and Chua get into a public argument that culminates in Lulu smashing a glass in a cafe, screaming, "I'm not what you want – I'm not Chinese! I don't want to be Chinese. Why can't you get that through your head? I hate the violin. I hate my life. I hate you, and I hate this family!" Her relationship with Lulu in crisis, Chua, finally, thankfully, raises the white flag." http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/15/amy-chua-tiger-mother-interview http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/15/amy-chua-...

fatjokes 13y ago
I'm not a fan of the Tiger Mother method of parenting, but the description of the incident hardly sounds like a breakdown. It describes Lulu when she was 4 years old, so it's more of a child's temper tantrum than a breakdown.
- dubfan 13y ago
  I think you're misreading the article. The first paragraph describes an incident involving a four-year-old Lulu. It's not very clear when the quoted incident occurred, but either way the language used in the outburst would almost certainly not be used by a four-year-old in a tantrum and is much more characteristic of an early teen.
  - prostoalex 13y ago
    Her daughter is on very good terms with her, and points out a lot of sentences in her mother's book were intended as dry sarcasm http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/why_love_my_strict_chinese_mom_uUvfmLcA5eteY0u2KXt7hM http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/why_love_my_strict_chi...
    - Klinky 13y ago
      That is the older daughter, not the younger daughter who had the outburst.
- ryanglasgow 13y ago
  It was when she was 13, not 4. At 13 she is certainly capable of understanding her environment, how she's being raised, and realize she's being raised differently than her friends.
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago
    >and realize she's being raised differently than her friends. I think this is an underappreciated point. It's not that this style of parenting is inherently flawed (aside from the emotional abuse), the biggest factor is that she can see that she's not like her friends and the comparatively easy life that her friends have leads to resentment. I'm sure she would be much better off if she were immersed in the Chinese culture where this style of parenting is typical.
    - alexqgb 13y ago
      You might think that, but evidence suggests you'd be wrong if the experience of Korean students is anything to go by. As Wikipedia notes in its entry on South Korea's extraordinary suicide rate "In cases of youth suicide, the most common cause is pressure related to the College Scholastic Ability Test." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_South_Korea#Causes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_South_Korea#Causes Indeed, social pressure seems to amplify the pain, rather than minimize it through normalization. "The obsession with academic success has even given rise to a new expression among young people: "umchinah," or my mother's friend's son – the elusive competitor who excels at everything." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/student-suicides-lead-to-_n_849541.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/student-suicides-le...
      - ryanglasgow 13y ago
        > "I'm not what you want – I'm not Chinese! I don't want to be Chinese. Why can't you get that through your head? I hate the violin. I hate my life. I hate you, and I hate this family!" Her relationship with Lulu in crisis, Chua, finally, thankfully, raises the white flag." You may be right, but in this incident she's is referring to specific Chinese cultural norms, not the high expectations in her upbringing.
mtowle 13y ago
Prior paragraph: >But the cracks beneath the surface begin to show. [...] Lulu becomes rebellious, openly defying her teacher and her mother and bitterly complaining in public about her home life. By the age of 13, writes Chua, "[Lulu] wore a constant apathetic look on her face, and every other word out of her mouth was 'no' or 'I don't care'." Looking back, I think I had a breakdown at 13, too.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  It is hardly unusual for a young teen to be rebellious, but there seems to be a wide variety in degree.
- bilbo0s 13y ago
  That behavior is fairly common in that age group. It's a bit hard to say what it means without more information.
ffn 13y ago
>The book bares all about how the parenting model worked for her older daughter Sophia, now 17 and heading off to an Ivy League college, but backfired dramatically for her younger girl, Louisa, or Lulu, who is now 14 Why do we associate attending an Ivy League institution as a 17 / 18 year old for an undergraduate education as some sort of metric for success? I mean, I'm not going to be naive and insist that the worthwhile life doesn't look at results and instead only looks at the journey, but to consider one's parenting model as "working" at age 17 because one's child is going to Ivy league is hilariously short-sighted (unless you're planning for your child to die a lot sooner than most people). My TL;DR point is follows: 17 years is too short to draw any conclusions on how successful a person's life is so the jury should still be out on Tiger Mothering.
- untog 13y ago
  Why do we associate attending an Ivy League institution as a 17 / 18 year old for an undergraduate education as some sort of metric for success? Because, by all accounts, it is one of the most reliable indicators that the child is going to be successful. but to consider one's parenting model as "working" at age 17 because one's child is going to Ivy league is hilariously short-sighted Well, at some point you- as a parent- stop being responsible for your child's life. Many would argue that occurs when the child goes away to college and makes their own choices.
  - hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
    > Because, by all accounts, it is one of the most reliable indicators that the child is going to be successful. Successful as in working for a Fortune 500? Or successful as in growing up to be a self-suficient, happy human being?
    - lacksconfidence 13y ago
      suc·cess·ful /səkˈsesfəl/ Adjective 1) Accomplishing an aim or purpose: "a successful attack on the town". 2) Having achieved popularity, profit, or distinction. Attending an ivy league school fulfills both definitions, depending on why you went.
sown 13y ago
> "I'm not what you want – I'm not Chinese! I don't want to be Chinese. Why can't you get that through your head? I hate the violin. I hate my life. I hate you, and I hate this family!" Her relationship with Lulu in crisis, Chua, finally, thankfully, raises the white flag." I started crying when I read that. I literally have tears in my eyes right now. I'm hardly surprised, though. I expressed my opinions years ago here on HN, about this tiger mom horseshit and how it's basically child abuse, to me, even though I'm into my 30s it's still with me. My mom did this shit to me and I had a couple of good, solid breakdowns. Constant pressure, college resume padding horseshit, extracurricular activities that I don't care about (kudos to you if you enjoyed them but most of the people at these things aren't enthused about it). NOthing I ever did was good enough, impossible busy work, constant comparisons to so-and-so kid's, being paraded out to brag about the family name, etc. Then I did the unforgivable. I flunked out of college. I got FAT -- the worse! And grew a beard. She told me I was a complete embarrassment and she didn't want me around. Because of a beard. I guess I was about 25 when she said that, and I've seen her a three times since then.
- vishaldpatel 13y ago
  I have a feeling that there's a certain crop of high-school overachiever who, upon finally being free, ends up failing for the first time and in a spectacular fashion after they go to college. How has your life evolved since 25? Did you end up losing the weight and the beard? Did they finally leave you be to pursue your own goals?
  - bruceboughton 13y ago
    >> Did you end up losing the weight and the beard? What if he didn't?
    - vishaldpatel 13y ago
      Hopefully it's by choice and he doesn't blame his parents for his beard and fatness anymore. I don't know anyone with perfect parenting and we all have our demons.
- 13y ago
rdtsc 13y ago
What is the infatuation with violins? Why not a Chinese folk instrument? Why are violins and tiger parents so closely related?
- Cadsby 13y ago
  Because they're associated with high status, culture and sophistication. It's a way to signal that you are part of the affluent, upper class. And no, I don't agree with the value/emphasis placed on it either.
  - RYUUSEiiSTAR 13y ago
    Funny that, my mum put me in piano lessons as well, but she absolutely hates me practicing because I spend 2-3 hours at a time when I get really focused. But fair enough I practice the same few bars continuously until they're perfect :P she also hates orchestral music and finds it all rather boring when I've grown to indulge in it.
- bithive123 13y ago
  It's not violins specifically, it's any western orchestral instrument that you can carry to and from school (or piano lessons). My mother and I were frequently at odds about my violin lessons and practice habits but she was also a nurturing person and tried to explain the benefits of deliberate practice and musical training, which as an adult I now recognize. Full-on "tiger" parents may be more fixated on western instruments because it's meant to be a status symbol not a means to enrich the child.
  - gwern 13y ago
    > western orchestral instrument that you can carry to and from school (or piano lessons). Explaining why piano is even more stereotypical an instrument?
    - gruseom 13y ago
      I've always assumed that the violin and piano are favoured by tiger parents because they are high-status instruments. (Please excuse this off-topic rant: it dismays me that the violin is so high-status. The damn things are so shrill and squeaky they make me cover my ears. Meanwhile, the viola and the cello sound exquisitely resonant, yet they, especially the viola, are the ones who got second-class status. It is a tremendous musical injustice. I wonder if it has something to do with violins having been more suitable for virtuoso performance and thus more likely to be written for by primo composers.)
illuminate 13y ago
I'm so very surprised that the media didn't put as much energy into her retractions that people heard about this.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

fatjokes 13y ago

I'm not a fan of the Tiger Mother method of parenting, but the description of the incident hardly sounds like a breakdown. It describes Lulu when she was 4 years old, so it's more of a child's temper tantrum than a breakdown.

dubfan 13y ago
I think you're misreading the article. The first paragraph describes an incident involving a four-year-old Lulu. It's not very clear when the quoted incident occurred, but either way the language used in the outburst would almost certainly not be used by a four-year-old in a tantrum and is much more characteristic of an early teen.
- prostoalex 13y ago
  Her daughter is on very good terms with her, and points out a lot of sentences in her mother's book were intended as dry sarcasm http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/why_love_my_strict_chinese_mom_uUvfmLcA5eteY0u2KXt7hM http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/why_love_my_strict_chi...
  - Klinky 13y ago
    That is the older daughter, not the younger daughter who had the outburst.
ryanglasgow 13y ago
It was when she was 13, not 4. At 13 she is certainly capable of understanding her environment, how she's being raised, and realize she's being raised differently than her friends.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  >and realize she's being raised differently than her friends. I think this is an underappreciated point. It's not that this style of parenting is inherently flawed (aside from the emotional abuse), the biggest factor is that she can see that she's not like her friends and the comparatively easy life that her friends have leads to resentment. I'm sure she would be much better off if she were immersed in the Chinese culture where this style of parenting is typical.
  - alexqgb 13y ago
    You might think that, but evidence suggests you'd be wrong if the experience of Korean students is anything to go by. As Wikipedia notes in its entry on South Korea's extraordinary suicide rate "In cases of youth suicide, the most common cause is pressure related to the College Scholastic Ability Test." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_South_Korea#Causes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_South_Korea#Causes Indeed, social pressure seems to amplify the pain, rather than minimize it through normalization. "The obsession with academic success has even given rise to a new expression among young people: "umchinah," or my mother's friend's son – the elusive competitor who excels at everything." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/student-suicides-lead-to-_n_849541.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/student-suicides-le...
    - ryanglasgow 13y ago
      > "I'm not what you want – I'm not Chinese! I don't want to be Chinese. Why can't you get that through your head? I hate the violin. I hate my life. I hate you, and I hate this family!" Her relationship with Lulu in crisis, Chua, finally, thankfully, raises the white flag." You may be right, but in this incident she's is referring to specific Chinese cultural norms, not the high expectations in her upbringing.

mtowle 13y ago

Prior paragraph: >But the cracks beneath the surface begin to show. [...] Lulu becomes rebellious, openly defying her teacher and her mother and bitterly complaining in public about her home life. By the age of 13, writes Chua, "[Lulu] wore a constant apathetic look on her face, and every other word out of her mouth was 'no' or 'I don't care'." Looking back, I think I had a breakdown at 13, too.

sliverstorm 13y ago
It is hardly unusual for a young teen to be rebellious, but there seems to be a wide variety in degree.
bilbo0s 13y ago
That behavior is fairly common in that age group. It's a bit hard to say what it means without more information.

ffn 13y ago

>The book bares all about how the parenting model worked for her older daughter Sophia, now 17 and heading off to an Ivy League college, but backfired dramatically for her younger girl, Louisa, or Lulu, who is now 14 Why do we associate attending an Ivy League institution as a 17 / 18 year old for an undergraduate education as some sort of metric for success? I mean, I'm not going to be naive and insist that the worthwhile life doesn't look at results and instead only looks at the journey, but to consider one's parenting model as "working" at age 17 because one's child is going to Ivy league is hilariously short-sighted (unless you're planning for your child to die a lot sooner than most people). My TL;DR point is follows: 17 years is too short to draw any conclusions on how successful a person's life is so the jury should still be out on Tiger Mothering.

untog 13y ago
Why do we associate attending an Ivy League institution as a 17 / 18 year old for an undergraduate education as some sort of metric for success? Because, by all accounts, it is one of the most reliable indicators that the child is going to be successful. but to consider one's parenting model as "working" at age 17 because one's child is going to Ivy league is hilariously short-sighted Well, at some point you- as a parent- stop being responsible for your child's life. Many would argue that occurs when the child goes away to college and makes their own choices.
- hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
  > Because, by all accounts, it is one of the most reliable indicators that the child is going to be successful. Successful as in working for a Fortune 500? Or successful as in growing up to be a self-suficient, happy human being?
  - lacksconfidence 13y ago
    suc·cess·ful /səkˈsesfəl/ Adjective 1) Accomplishing an aim or purpose: "a successful attack on the town". 2) Having achieved popularity, profit, or distinction. Attending an ivy league school fulfills both definitions, depending on why you went.

sown 13y ago

> "I'm not what you want – I'm not Chinese! I don't want to be Chinese. Why can't you get that through your head? I hate the violin. I hate my life. I hate you, and I hate this family!" Her relationship with Lulu in crisis, Chua, finally, thankfully, raises the white flag." I started crying when I read that. I literally have tears in my eyes right now. I'm hardly surprised, though. I expressed my opinions years ago here on HN, about this tiger mom horseshit and how it's basically child abuse, to me, even though I'm into my 30s it's still with me. My mom did this shit to me and I had a couple of good, solid breakdowns. Constant pressure, college resume padding horseshit, extracurricular activities that I don't care about (kudos to you if you enjoyed them but most of the people at these things aren't enthused about it). NOthing I ever did was good enough, impossible busy work, constant comparisons to so-and-so kid's, being paraded out to brag about the family name, etc. Then I did the unforgivable. I flunked out of college. I got FAT -- the worse! And grew a beard. She told me I was a complete embarrassment and she didn't want me around. Because of a beard. I guess I was about 25 when she said that, and I've seen her a three times since then.

vishaldpatel 13y ago
I have a feeling that there's a certain crop of high-school overachiever who, upon finally being free, ends up failing for the first time and in a spectacular fashion after they go to college. How has your life evolved since 25? Did you end up losing the weight and the beard? Did they finally leave you be to pursue your own goals?
- bruceboughton 13y ago
  >> Did you end up losing the weight and the beard? What if he didn't?
  - vishaldpatel 13y ago
    Hopefully it's by choice and he doesn't blame his parents for his beard and fatness anymore. I don't know anyone with perfect parenting and we all have our demons.
13y ago

rdtsc 13y ago

What is the infatuation with violins? Why not a Chinese folk instrument? Why are violins and tiger parents so closely related?

Cadsby 13y ago
Because they're associated with high status, culture and sophistication. It's a way to signal that you are part of the affluent, upper class. And no, I don't agree with the value/emphasis placed on it either.
- RYUUSEiiSTAR 13y ago
  Funny that, my mum put me in piano lessons as well, but she absolutely hates me practicing because I spend 2-3 hours at a time when I get really focused. But fair enough I practice the same few bars continuously until they're perfect :P she also hates orchestral music and finds it all rather boring when I've grown to indulge in it.
bithive123 13y ago
It's not violins specifically, it's any western orchestral instrument that you can carry to and from school (or piano lessons). My mother and I were frequently at odds about my violin lessons and practice habits but she was also a nurturing person and tried to explain the benefits of deliberate practice and musical training, which as an adult I now recognize. Full-on "tiger" parents may be more fixated on western instruments because it's meant to be a status symbol not a means to enrich the child.
- gwern 13y ago
  > western orchestral instrument that you can carry to and from school (or piano lessons). Explaining why piano is even more stereotypical an instrument?
  - gruseom 13y ago
    I've always assumed that the violin and piano are favoured by tiger parents because they are high-status instruments. (Please excuse this off-topic rant: it dismays me that the violin is so high-status. The damn things are so shrill and squeaky they make me cover my ears. Meanwhile, the viola and the cello sound exquisitely resonant, yet they, especially the viola, are the ones who got second-class status. It is a tremendous musical injustice. I wonder if it has something to do with violins having been more suitable for virtuoso performance and thus more likely to be written for by primo composers.)

illuminate 13y ago

I'm so very surprised that the media didn't put as much energy into her retractions that people heard about this.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]