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18-Year-Old Cub Defends Her Tiger Mother In The Post
By
Jen Chung
Published Jan 18, 2011
Modified Jan 26, 2011
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Lulu Chua-Rubenfeld
By
Jen Chung
Published Jan 18, 2011
Modified Jan 26, 2011
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You're 18 years old and your mother's memoir on her intense, no-fooling-around "Chinese" parenting techniques has resulted in nearly 7,000 comments on the Wall Street Journal's website and a Today show segment that was repurposed into a NBC Nightly News. Oh, and there's a Taiwanese CGI, too. Now what? Well, besides taking down your Facebook page, you defend your mother in the NY Post, of course. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother author Amy Chua's daughter Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld has written an open letter to her mother, "One problem is that some people don’t get your humor. They think you’re serious about all this, and they assume Lulu and I are oppressed by our evil mother. That is so not true. Every other Thursday, you take off our chains and let us play math games in the basement."
Chua-Rubenfeld is joking (we think?) but she does allude to a now-infamous anecdote of where her mother rejecting a card sister Lulu made ("I get you magicians and giant slides that cost me hundreds of dollars. I get you huge ice cream cakes shaped like penguins, and I spend half my salary on stupid sticker and erase party favors that everyone just throws away. I work so hard to give you good birthdays! I deserve better than this. So I reject this"):
Everybody’s talking about the birthday cards we once made for you, which you rejected because they weren’t good enough. Funny how some people are convinced that Lulu and I are scarred for life. Maybe if I had poured my heart into it, I would have been upset. But let’s face it: The card was feeble, and I was busted. It took me 30 seconds; I didn’t even sharpen the pencil. That’s why, when you rejected it, I didn’t feel you were rejecting me. If I actually tried my best at something, you’d never throw it back in my face...
I admit it: Having you as a mother was no tea party. There were some play dates I wish I’d gone to and some piano camps I wish I’d skipped. But now that I’m 18 and about to leave the tiger den, I’m glad you and Daddy raised me the way you did...
A lot of people have accused you of producing robot kids who can’t think for themselves. Well, that’s funny, because I think those people are . . . oh well, it doesn’t matter. At any rate, I was thinking about this, and I came to the opposite conclusion: I think your strict parenting forced me to be more independent. Early on, I decided to be an easy child to raise. Maybe I got it from Daddy — he taught me not to care what people think and to make my own choices — but I also decided to be who I want to be. I didn’t rebel, but I didn’t suffer all the slings and arrows of a Tiger Mom, either. I pretty much do my own thing these days — like building greenhouses downtown, blasting Daft Punk in the car with Lulu and forcing my boyfriend to watch “Lord of the Rings” with me over and over — as long as I get my piano done first.
However, NY Times opinion columnist David Brooks thinks her mother is a wimp—his editorial, "Amy Chua is a Wimp," posits, " I believe she’s coddling her children. She’s protecting them from the most intellectually demanding activities because she doesn’t understand what’s cognitively difficult and what isn’t. Practicing a piece of music for four hours requires focused attention, but it is nowhere near as cognitively demanding as a sleepover with 14-year-old girls. Managing status rivalries, negotiating group dynamics, understanding social norms, navigating the distinction between self and group — these and other social tests impose cognitive demands that blow away any intense tutoring session or a class at Yale."
Whatever—Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is currently at #4 on Amazon.com, which says there's a 10-14 day wait for copies. It might making getting death threats better.
Tagged
amy chua
Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother
chinese mother
chinese parenting
sophia chua-rubenfeld
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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