Book Review: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Amy Chua

Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The

Published: January 11, 2011

This book, by Yale University Law Professor Amy Chua, is meant to be a memoir, rather than a parenting guide, and it is certainly not meant to be a scholarly research piece.  At times funny because the descriptions were so over-the-top that it sounded unreal, and at times sobering because those of us who were born of Chinese parents have actually witnessed behaviors displayed by Chua in our own parents or in our friends’ parents and know the yelling and nagging and berating statements were in fact quite real, the book is nevertheless meant to be read as a memoir, and not as an instruction manual.  But the book is not meant to be pure entertainment either, Chua’s acerbic sense of humor notwithstanding.  So, what is the reader supposed to take away from the book?

The book itself declares at the beginning,  “This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kinds 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.”

With this preface, the reader is led to believe that even though Chua seems confident at the beginning that her very parent-directed, focused, and rigid method of raising children was the best way to go, she will eventually learn the error of her ways and repent.  But disappointingly we never got to that point.  With a staccato style and deadpan humor, Chua’s writing is as task-oriented as her parenting philosophy.  Making broad generalizations with neither evidence nor analysis, Chua marches on with her narrative as decisively without much pondering as with her actions.  Pausing only briefly to digress on major life events such as taking in a dying mother-in-law, or writing her second book, or getting another dog, or having her favorite sister face life-threatening illness, Chua’s writing is remarkably lacking in introspection.  Even the big dramatic moment when Lulu was yelling “I hate you” at her mother was recorded so devoid of emotions one just can’t help think that Chua is simply incapable of confronting her own emotions.

The epilogue explains that the book was started right after the Russia trip, during which Lulu had her rebellion episode, and the book suggests that some way of reconciling the “Chinese way” and the “Western way” may be the best way to go.  Yet Chua stops short of pointing out the limitations of the Chinese way and at the same time stops short of articulating the benefits of the Western way.  Even at the end of the story, Chua was reading up on tennis, Lulu’s new chosen hobby, gloating over Lulu’s wins, and yelling out instructions from the sidelines in the same way she used to write piano and violin practice notes for the girls.  Will this woman ever learn?

The lesson is actually much deeper than whether the Chinese way is best or whether the Chinese way combined with the Western way is best.  By her own admission, Amy Chua finds it hard to have fun.  That is the ultimate drawback of an achievement-oriented life, the Chinese way Chua touts in the beginning.  There is no time to reflect because there is always the next task to do, the next piano piece to master, the next trophy to win.  Chua criticizes Western parents for praising every wiggle a toddler makes.  Her extreme of never rejoicing in the moment is that no accomplishment, however large or small, can ever be enjoyed.  The achievement-oriented mentality makes you think that you will only satisfied if the next big thing is accomplished.  But since there is always something else to be accomplished, satisfaction is always out of reach.

Amy Chua’s task-oriented life and task-oriented writing style makes no room for gloating.  It also makes no room for soul-searching.  Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”   Do we choosing achieving over living?  That is what we should take away from the book.

Make no small plans...

Daniel Burnham quote is a familiar one, particularly to Chicagoans.  He said, "Make no small plans; they have no magic to stir a man's blood."  The quote itself has taken a life on its own, and has been used to inspire generations of planners and planner wannabes.  Burnham was in the middle of designing the 1893 Columbian Exposition when he uttered this famous sentence, and the Exposition itself was of course a grand example of how great plans can be greatly executed.

I am a born planner.   I love spreadsheets, checklists, flow charts.  I love organizing things.  When I was little, I would take all the wire hangers and organize them by color, red, orange, yellow, but then pink would go on the other side of red because it is relates to red in a different way, then purple can go on the other side of pink, then blue next to purple...  Everything in my world has its own order, with logical reasoning behind it.  In the same way, I loved organizing people.  At age 5, my girlfriends and I organized a singing group on the nursery school steps because the boys were not sharing the big plastic ride toys with the girls and rather than competing with them for the toys (which some of my other friends did) I chose to organize a different activity.

This flair for planning, organizing, implementing, coupled with a tendency to not give up and a talent for sleeping in three-hour chunks has served me well over the years.  I am the only person I know who plans childbearing the same way I plan other things.  My plan to reach four children was to start having the first child at age 25 and have the children spaced about two to three years apart.  Even a miscarriage between the second and third child did not derail me for long.  I rested a few months, and caught right back up with Vanessa born two weeks short of Jacob's birthday.

This love for putting everything in its rightful place in time and space spills over to my entertainment life as well.  I love puzzle games, whether they involve words, numbers, shapes, etc.  Growing up, I was often seen with crossword puzzles, or "logic" puzzle books in hand.  I enthusiastically participated in riddle games, spent hours playing Tetris as a teenager, eagerly joined the office card game with co-workers decades my senior, and took up Sudoku in the last decade.  When I sit down at the computer, I usually instinctively start or continue a Wordscraper game.

It's in Wordscraper that I recently learned a life lesson about plans and outcomes.  I was playing a game with someone and it was a close game.  I was a few points ahead, and then my opponent was a few points ahead.  That kind of a close game.  In the end I had three tiles left, but the board was so tight that I could only place these tiles one tile at a time.  My opponent was also putting down her tiles one tile at a time.  Then it came down to two tiles left for me.  I placed my tile--a measly six point move.  At this point I could see that my opponent only has one tile left.  I was only three points ahead and even though the tile I had remaining was only worth one point, I thought my opponent would win for sure.

Imagine my surprise when she passed her turn and wrote, "can't place my last tile" in the chat box!  Life does take a surprising turn sometimes.  Even when everything seems to be going in one direction.  There can be unexpected twists and surprising bumps ahead.  The planner in me loves seeing steps accomplished one at a time and like checking off items on a list one at a time.  The planner in me also gets very frustrated when I could not move forward to the next step, or when circumstances change that add additional steps in between where I was and the end point.  In the decades I have lived since organizing singers on the nursery school playground I have learned to be more flexible and to plan for contingencies.  But while I have gained skilled to be a more effective planner and project manager, my ability to handle the emotional reaction to setbacks and detours had only slightly improved since I was a 5 year old.

The Wordscraper game is a practical and poignant illustration of one small tile can be an obstruction.  In this case it works in my favor.  But at another time, there may be another small tile that works against me.  Hopefully I can be as emotionally prepared for that as I am logistically prepared when that happens.

Friends

I decided to start a new blog that's separate from my old blog, which was mostly about recipes I create.  This blog will cover other topics.

Today I am thinking about friends.  I have a wide circle of friends, coming from a wide diversity of backgrounds, engaging in a wide range of professional and personal endeavors, and spreading out all over the world.  I am thankful for all these friends.  Sharing time with them, in person or even virtually, enriches my life so much.

Tonight we had another family over for dinner.  The wife is half-Indian and half English and the husband is African American.  The two of them met in Germany, when the wife was a student and the husband was a traveling blues guitarist.  Today the husband still performs with his band, and is a blues legend.  The wife manages the business side of his performances, booking tours, and arranging gigs.  We have known these friends since our children were small.  It was fun today interacting with this family.