Give Amy Chua credit. Not for the harsh ways in which she is raising her daughters. Not for calling them “garbage” if they don’t get straight A’s. Not for threatening to burn up their stuffed animals if they don’t practice on the piano long enough to get that piece just right.
Give her credit for her eventual flexibility.
Yes, I read the excerpt from Chua’s book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” in the Feb. 8 Wall Street Journal and was appalled by her punitive parenting methods.
But then I read more. First, Denver Post writer Claire Martin’s Jan. 18 report of hearing Chua at the Tattered Cover. Then to Chua’s own follow-up account in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 15.
Although Chua’s strict Chinese immigrant philosophy of child-rearing worked with her older daughter, Sophia — who, after years of piano practice, played at Carnegie Hall — they failed with her younger daughter, Lulu. Chua recalls the “darkest day of my life” was when Lulu, 13, rebelling against years of coerced violin practice, screamed and hurled a glass on the floor of a Moscow restaurant.
Chua did not make Lulu leave the restaurant, but left herself in order to calm down. When she returned, she told Lulu she would no longer be forced to practice.
She admits: “I certainly made mistakes and have regrets . . . . I get my comeuppance; much of my book is about my decision to retreat — but only partially — from the strict (Chinese) immigrant model.”
One of the biggest challenges in parenting is to know when to be tough and when to back off; to understand that your children are individuals; and that a method that will bring out genius in one could cause a mental breakdown in another.
At least Chua eventually learned from her mistakes.
Dottie Lamm, former first lady of Colorado, was Colorado’s 1998 Democratic U.S. Senate candidate.
