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Book Review: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

I am a mom to a toddler and in the three years of parenting - I can confidently say - I do not know what I am doing. My mission since deciding to become a parent has been to research as much as possible about different parenting styles and therefore work on developing mine. I first read Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother when I was still toying with the idea of parenting 9-years-ago. I was fascinated by what she described as the Chinese method of parenting and raising high performance children. The question I had then, and the question I am left with today after rereading the book is: is my duty as a parent only to mold my child into a high performing person by any means necessary? 



Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is highly capturing, funny and filled with cringe moments. Chua goes into details on what motivated her to be an extreme parent, the goals she had for her daughters, her fears of the western influence on her parenting and the really dark side of her chosen parenting style. What I was mostly drawn too was how Chua was highly involved in raising her children - even as a career women. I admired that kind of involvement and have thus far tried my utmost to be that mom. Also note- my own mother was a very hands on mother. I also find how invested Chua is in ensuring her daughters only took part in sports/extra mural activities that had a purpose - piano and violin. She planted the seed of hard work, even when they did not feel like it. A character trait I admire in high achievers. 

Further more - I was mostly blown away by how competitive she was - 100% effort and more. What bothered me about the Tiger Mother method was how harsh it could be and did not leave room for failure - in fact it is highly frowned upon. The name calling, the shouting, the practicing until both mother and daughter hated each other. I found her methods too extreme and cold - too technical. 

As a regular social media user, especially Twitter, I understand where Chua's fear of Western type parenting comes from. I sometimes look at my timeline and cringe at the bottomless pit of victimhood people go into, 'Sadfishing'. I sometimes feel that the opposite of Tiger Mothering - is extremely soft parenting - raising of children that think the world will be fair some how just because we expect it to be. I do not want my daughter to live a life of fear, and to feel like failure is the end of the world. But I also do not want her to be oversensitive and expecting the world to treat her with kid gloves. 

So where does one leave us, as parents? It would be spectacular to raise children with the work ethic and success of Beyoncé, Tyger Woods, the Willam's sisters - but also as great to have wholesome children who understand balance and are happy in the direction they choose to follow. 

One thing I do know is, I am no Tiger Mother and after reading the book again, have  no aspiration to be that hard on my child. I hope to have the boundaries needed between parent and child but to also check myself when my methods are not working. I will continue to learn and unlearn parenting styles as I go. I hope to invest in their talents and notice their extreme unhappiness when it comes to life and their life choices. 

I recommend this book to all parents and hope in reading this we start to review the African style of parenting. How do we evolve it? How do we define it? Is it as extreme as the Tiger Mother or do we need a stricter style to plant the seed of success in our children? So many questions, and no one single answer. 

If you have read this book, I would love to know what your thoughts were on Amy Chua's dictatorship style parenting. Comment below.

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