Weighing in on the Tiger Mother

This Week’s Winner

Inez S. Reyes is a working mother of two boys, 13 and 10. She is a former corporate marketing executive and currently a food business owner. She hopes that her husband can inspire their sons to value hard work and to have the passion to one day take over, expand their business, and create more jobs. 

I heard about this lady author sometime last year. She wrote a book about how Chinese mothers have a superior parenting style to Western mothers, resulting in Chinese children being academically superior, more disciplined, more driven and consequently, more successful, than their Western peers. Her parenting style resulted in her own two daughters becoming academic achievers and musical prodigies.

I wasn’t really interested in reading her book, because my own view was that, at least in my own little world of middle-class Metro Manila, both Filipino and Filipino-Chinese parenting styles were equally effective. If Chua’s only criteria for comparative superiority was academic excellence, both Filipino and Filipino-Chinese parenting would score equally high in that regard.

Thus, during my regular bookstore visits, I would simply skip over Chua’s book (and other similarly themed novels) and move on to the other sections. Until, one day, for some strange reason, I chanced upon an open copy of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother on a display table, staring me in the face.

My instincts told me to read at least the first page. Shock. Shock. Shock.

I stood still and gasped for a few seconds, as I read from the first paragraph :

Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

attend a sleepover

have a playdate

be in a school play

complain about not being in a school play

watch TV or play computer games

choose their own extra-curricular activities

get any grade less than A

not be the #1 student in any subject except gym and drama

play any instrument other than the piano or violin

not play the piano or the violin

What was this? An extremist form of parenting tyranny? But wasn’t the book’s setting Manhattan, New York, in the year 2010 ?

Having had so unpalatable an introduction for me, I could not help but buy the book and spend the next two and a half hours reading it word for word, in an effort to understand the perspective of this tyrannical  Tiger Mother.

Indeed, the Tiger Mother was nothing short of a modern despot, if judged by the ruthlessness of her style. However, as one read how she kept up the pressure and momentum of her daily rigor, one realizes she was actually the most hardworking mother-tyrant there could ever be. Her goals for her children were clear, and to her credit, she was so focused and so driven…she had actually achieved them.

As I recall, the book sparked tons of emotional reactions from mothers across the United States. I even recall a news report stating that Miss Chua received around 500,000 emails, almost all of which were filled with anger and accusations of her “cruelty” to her children.

It amazed me, though, to read that the Chua’s daughters today do not regret how their mother raised them, and are, in fact, even grateful for what she has made of them.

I then got to reflecting on whether Amy Chua’s parenting style would be a good thing for us Filipino and Filipino-Chinese parents — given our unique cultural milieu, and the hopes and dreams that we have for our children.

Is it a good thing to raise our children with an iron hand, and focus their entire youth on academics and learning the classical piano and violin? Is it a good thing to prevent them from having play dates, from being in school plays, and from watching television and playing computer games? Is it a good thing to demand from them that their grades never fall below plus-90 percent? And, is it a good thing for us parents to be the ones to select our children’s extra-curricular activities?

Actually, when you really think about it, the rational answer to all these questions is, surprisingly but honestly… a fully capitalized YES.

But why does this “yes” not feel right for me?

It doesn’t feel right for me, I believe, because it lacks one cultural element that is integral not only to my parenting style, but even to my life: balance.

Unlike Chua, a Harvard-trained lawyer and law professor, married to an equally successful Jewish lawyer, my husband and I live in the world of food, managing a growing food chain business. And thus, our parenting style is focused on preparing our two young sons for the world of business. Academics are important to us (especially math, logic, reading and communication), but these are balanced with the “soft skills”(or life skills) that are typically not taught in school, but which, we believe, are just as essential.

We try to train our sons to be responsible for their academics, so when we spend time together, we don’t deal with their homework, but instead expose them to skills and thought processes that will be useful in managing a business. We eat out often, and when we do we teach them how to find the positive points about the establishments we patronize. We talk about the plans we have, the issues we face managing our organization, the decisions we make, and the reasons for such decisions. Most importantly, we talk about human psychology — how to be firm but fair, and how one should treat people to bring out the best in them.

We encourage balance. Academics are important, but pursuing a variety of hobbies is equally valued. Learning to play a musical instrument is a hobby, and does not need to be perfected, unless extraordinary talent is clearly manifest. Our children’s personal interests and views are never disregarded, and they certainly have a choice in what their extra curricular activities will be. Currently, it is soccer for both boys, with the elder one also into cooking and photography, and the younger one also into hip-hop dancing.

Both boys are allowed to watch digital videos (not television) and play computer games, within specific limitations. Bottom line therefore: we have goals for our sons and we work on them, but each boy has the freedom to pursue his other interests, and he will be supported in these. To us, parenting kids is about life preparation balanced with enjoyment. IQ must be balanced with EQ.

If one judges Chua today, based on her standards, and how her daughters have turned out, one cannot help but admit that she was totally justified in her claim of parenting style superiority.

But one can look at it in another way. Might not the final reckoning come 20 years from now, when her daughters have become mothers like herself? Let us see how they will raise their own children.

Meantime, I will continue with our style of raising our boys, but in my succeeding bookstore trips, I think I will now pay closer attention to books written by parents, especially parents raising children within different cultural contexts. Who knows,?I may not only learn a thing or two from them, I might also be justified in writing about my own parenting story one day.