If you’ve read or watched the news you’ve probably heard of the book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” by Amy Chua, it’s all over the news a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t read the book and don’t plan to, but from the reviews and excerpts that I’ve read, it really pisses me off. Both she and her husband are college processors (Yale no less), and her father was Ph.D and college professor as well. She and her family has the means and the ways to properly teach their children for success. I would go as much as to say she came from a privileged family, but she tried to make it out like that is not the case.
So from what I gathered about her upbringing: Privileged Family + Educated Parents + Good Genes = Successful Children
What a shocker. I’m afraid some people will read this book and imitate Ms. Chua’s physco parenting and end up ruining their children’s childhood and life. There is a very fine line between being motivated to work harder and just plain giving up because they can’t live up to expectations. Ms. Chua is lucky her children were motivated by her ultra strict parenting, but it could have easily been the other way. What Ms. Chua has done is rob her children of their childhood, it doesn’t sound like they got to do anything that normal children got to do. I won’t be surprised if her children would wakeup one day when they are in their 30’s or 40’s, very successful, and regret their life and hate everything that they’ve done because they did not get to choose any of it.
I have another theory related to the different philosophies on education between the US and China and how that affects innovation, but that’s for another time.
