Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

This is indeed a great book which talks about how a Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But, instead, it's a bit of clash of cultures. Amy Chua, as an immigrant striver, determined to make a better life for herself and his family, especially her daughters. The central tenet of Chinese parenting- that children gain confidence by being good at things, and the only way to be good at things is to work at them. This statement is quite hard to argue with.

But, in my point of view, i really agree with her way of raising kids in a certain circumstance.  Somehow, I really hope Amy Chua were my mother(XD), so that i can be excellent in music and also academic. For your information, these are some things that Amy's daughters 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 extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the no. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano and violin
• not play the piano or violin

ps: Can you see how strict she is? But, I think it is worth enough if these can lead a kid to success.

Comparing Amy Chua to my mother, of course my mother is not as strict as her. At least, my mother is a little tiger mother too.  Among the 10 not-to-do-list, my mom did 5 of them. Haha! But some of those she did were not lasted after a sickness struck on me. Perhaps on that time, I think that it was a relief for me as to not able to achieve what she wanted or I should say without her forcing, I did not work as hard as before.

Seeing her daughters able to perform in concerto, I wonder if I could ever have such a chance. If I were to practice 6 hours of piano playing per day, I think I could make a difference.

After reading the letter of Amy's elder daughter to her, I know her way of raising her up is not bad at all. Proven tat her daughter is glad that Amy and her husband raised her the way she did. Her strict parenting forced her to be more independent and taught her that even creativity takes effort. She said, "The desire to live a meaningful life is universal."( Yes, so true!)

One more sentence of hers touched my heart - If I died tomorrow, I would die feeling I've lived my whole life 100 percent. And for that, Tiger Mom, thank you."

Deep inside my heart, I hope my mom was really a Tiger Mother before. If she were, I think things definitely will be different now.