In Defense of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Don’t hate me now. I found it interesting that much of the vile bile thrown Amy Chua’s way came from those on the blogosphere that did not read the book. (I am about halfway through.) From the inside cover on out it is clear that it is less a textbook on how to raise children the “Chinese” way than it is a retelling of one woman’s journey through parenting in a biracial family and multicultural society. (Read the book and you’ll see that she often questions her actions, will admit at times to making mistakes and her Jewish American husband is more often than not viewed very favorably.) But what I really want you to marinate on is whether some of the visceral response to the Wall Street Journal article and book is due to an undercurrent of bias against Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in our society.
(Bear with me for a while, it’ll take some time to get there. And yes, I know that a lot of criticism levied against her was from Asian Americans.)
Asian Americans are “successful.” As a whole, Asian Americans have higher education and income levels than all other races (U.S. Census data), despite the fact that many Asian Americans—outside of Hawaii, more on this later—are descendants of recent immigrants carrying the requisite social baggage, refugees (Hmong, Vietnamese, etc.), unskilled laborers (railroad, plantations) and that for every professional that moved here, there are even more who derive from lower socioeconomic rungs in their respective homelands. It is this “success” that has branded Asian Americans as the model minority, a group of hard workers and high achievers who don’t complain or fight back.
Has this and other stereotypes of Asian Americans engendered an environment that facilitates bias towards Asian Americans?
- Despite the fact that Asian Americans comprise a smaller portion of society compared to African Americans, Latino Americans and Caucasians, affirmative action, for the most part, does not benefit us (this may be different if you are Southeast Asian)
- When I applied to medical school, Asian Americans had to score higher than all other races in order to get in
- It seems that whenever Asian immigrants or Asian Americans are targeted specifically for being such, the powers that be are loathe or are a lot slower to describe such acts as hate crimes (stand strong, bay area and South Philly!)
- Fear of a Chinese planet xenophobia was a theme that often popped up during the recent mid-term elections
- It’s sexy to speak with a Spanish or Italian accent in Hollywood, but Asian accents are for Asian computer geeks, Asian massage parlors and ninjas
- This past presidential election, both presidential and vice presidential candidates on both sides have had a history of unfortunate improper statements regarding Asian Americans, which received relatively minimal press
So the question remains, is the visceral response to Amy Chua by “western” parents emboldened, in part, by this societal undertone? She’s been criticized up the Yin-Yang, derogatorily called a MILF (don’t google that term if you don’t know what it is), and even received death threats simply for mentioning that using a “Chinese” method of raising her children led to academic success. In a recent issue of Sports Illustrated, Rafael Nadal, who along with Pete Sampras and Roger Federer is considered one of the best tennis players of all time, talked about how as a child his uncle (who was also his coach) would force him to go extended periods of time without water and practice longer in the hottest temperatures. Was there a reactionary wave of child abuse accusations over the blogosphere? Nary a whimper. Tiger Wood’s father also escaped largely unscathed for his Spartan upbringing of his son when it came to golf as well. I guess it is far worse for an Asian parent to risk soiling underpants during a piano lesson than a non-Asian relative to risk death by forcing children to do prolonged physical exertion in the hot sun while dehydrated.
In a “western” response piece to the book in the Wall Street Journal, Ayelet Waldman smugly mentions that Asian American females ages 15-24 have above average suicide rates. Ergo, Asian American parenting leads to suicides! Let’s leave out other factors, like, say, the difficulties of being caught between two diametrically oppposed cultures as the children of Asian immigrants, the presence of depression and other psychiatric disorders, the stigma of mental illness (shame!) in the Asian community, Asian girls having to fight the stereotype of being exotic yet submissive, growing up as the smallest minority in this country enduring the “ching-chong” taunts, etc. etc. It has to be the bad Asian parents! It is a completely acceptable rebuttal in the minds of America. And yet… Could you imagine if that same author made an inference that another race has above average teenage pregnancy rates because of that race’s parenting styles? Not only would it be declared a complete non sequitur, the author would be decried as racist and probably forced to resign.
Lost in the whole hysteria over the book and the fear of a Chinese planet are some of the core principles of “Chinese” parenting:
- Expectation of success over mediocrity (see the Samoyed section in the book)
- Parental involvement vs. laissez faire parenting
- Sacrifice over self-esteem
You cannot completely discard her discussion of the generational downward drift of Asian immigrants. Look at Hawaii. We have the most Asians who are beyond 1st- and 2nd-generation, and if you look at the educational achievements of those I grew up with (I love them dearly and this is not a knock against them, they know I’ll always have their back) versus 2nd-generation kids from the mainland, it doesn’t compare. The expectation is not the same.
Did Amy Chua and many Asian parents go too far at times? Of course. She acknowledges as much. Many of us raised by Asian parents do as well. But that does not necessarily mean that we should throw it all away. There is a middle ground.
My parents always expected success over mediocrity. They made sure we had tutoring and piano lessons instead of letting us run wild all the time. They never encouraged me nurture my inner child or to ask myself, “what’s my motivation?” Instead, they constantly reminded me of the sacrifices that were made to provide me with the opportunities I was blessed with. On the flip side, they never punished me for not getting straight As in school. They never, obviously to those who have seen a picture of me, sent me to bed without dinner for not practicing piano less than four hours a day.
I was a solid 3.0 student at the beginning of high school. Instead of screaming at me that I was garbage or conversely pat me on the head and say, “wow, good job!”, my parents simply would say, “you can do better” and remind me of where my family came from. They did this not to shame me into doing better, but rather to instill pride in me, pride that would drive me to perform better. They were never the bear-hugging affectionate type, but because of what they sacrificed for me (my dad came to America with $50 in his pocket and many nights early on couldn’t even afford to eat dinner) in the past and every day since, and how proud they were of me, I never went to bed worrying that they did not love me.
They loved me, but also wanted to prepare me for the future. They put in the time, knowing that it would pay off later in life. We all wish our parents could live forever, but they do not and we will all one day be on our own. They did not want to raise a child who would one day spend all his time playing the bongo drums and smoking out because they never said no for fear of harming my self-esteem. There is nothing wrong with not being an engineer, lawyer or doctor. My parents simply saw the latter of the three as a way to ensure stability in my life. (Trust me, there have been times in my life where I wished I had instead gone to trade school and became a unionized worker.)
Yes, I hated piano lessons at the time, but grew to appreciate music outside of pop radio, developed my proprioception (good for medical procedures!) and easily made the jump to other instruments both dorky (tuba, trombone) and for the wahines 
(guitar, ukulele) using piano as my base.
Spurred by the notion that I could do better and the legacy from which I was born of, I worked harder the rest of high school, and when you consider how very few of the millions of kids who start out taking organic chemistry actually survive to make it through medical school, residency and fellowship, I miraculously am now a subspecialty-trained physician. (I always tell my wife that the only reason I have made it this far is because I am good at fooling others into thinking that I am smarter than I actually am!) Despite the fact that I love to whine about it, I feel very privileged and lucky to be able to care for patients and have a recession-proof job that will ensure that my family will never be in want for food, shelter or warmth.
Knowing this, I have no reason to harbor any resentment towards my parents for anything that occured during my childhood.
We are imperfect beings in an imperfect world raised by imperfect parents. It is impossible to expect children to make it through childhood with their souls, psyche and hearts as nubile and innocent as they were the day they were born or to emerge as Übermensch lacking fallibility. There is no perfect way of raising children, whether “Chinese” or “western” or “Latino” or “African American.” But what we can do is try to find that middle ground, so that our children would know they are loved, know where they came from and be prepared for the future.
(And hopefully get to own a Samoyed. Those dogs are beautiful!)
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