By Leo Shaw
Editor-in-Chief
The internet lit up two weeks ago at the publication of an excerpt from Amy Chua’s new book, “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” in which the author vigorously defends her decision to raise her two daughters in the strict tradition of her Chinese immigrant parents.
While the brouhaha has played itself out online in the angry arguments of other concerned mothers, the teenage viewpoint has yet to be explored.
At a school as academically competitive as Mira Costa, there are undoubtedly hundreds of students who have experienced some form of the aggressive parenting that Chua advocates, and even more that have looked on in envy at the former group’s success. Chua’s measure of that success, however, isn’t a standard that all students should be subjected to.
We all know someone who plays both piano and violin perfectly, is disappointed with receiving an A minus, and maybe has a black belt in a martial art to boot. This is nothing new, but the media is in an uproar because Chua has given a detailed account of the stressful lives that their parents have cut out for them.
Chua, who herself attended Harvard and Harvard Law and now teaches at Yale, can speak from her own experience in asserting that the “tiger mother” method gets results. But while she maintains that her parents’ brand of “motivation” was worth it to prepare her for adult life, the same logic would likely damage more fragile adolescent psyches than it would fortify.
Her daughters were not allowed to attend sleepovers, not allowed to get a B, not allowed to choose their extracurriculars and are forced to play the piano and the violin. The list goes on and on, and she writes that she would scream at them, threaten to burn toys and lock them outside in order to keep them on track.
While Chua maintains that she has been as loving with her daughters as she has been exacting, commentators online have reacted in horror at her perceived cruelty, one even sharing a story of a daughter driven to suicide by similar parenting tactics. And all the while, Chua sees the generational softening of Western parents to their children’s preferences as dangerous steps in the wrong direction.
At a public high school like Mira Costa, the products of similar parenting walk down the halls every day, as do students who get paid by wealthy parents for getting B’s, students whose parents gave up on their academic prospects a long time ago, and yes, students who manage to motivate themselves.
True academic success, though, occurs when a student excels in a subject he or she is passionate about. A parent can inspire, support and motivate, but beyond that there is no point in trying to foist upon children a love of learning advanced calculus, for example. High school becomes a journey for students to discover what they love and pursue those interests rather than follow a preordained path.
That isn’t to say that some students lack the self-direction to create a path for themselves, as there are definitely those that drift along without any source of discipline. If there is any value in the tiger approach, it is the level of involvement and investment of time and care on the part of the parent. Chua is justified from this perspective in criticizing the opposite in some Western parents, a damaging apathy.
Some of the complacency Chua diagnoses in Western parenting is just as malignant as she says it is, but I also refuse to believe that children under the pressure of their own tiger parents are much better off. Four years of high school, especially in a community that offers as many opportunities as ours does, should be open to self-exploration and the discovery of interests that will be both challenging and fulfilling.
Leave a Reply