battle hymn of the tiger mother

I think Amy Chua is what Wonder Woman would be like if she became a mom. Harvard-educated, with a high-profile husband, a lifestyle that includes frequent travels around the world, and children who are straight-A students and music prodigies. One child, a pianist, performed at Carnegie Hall. The other is a violinist who would later give it up to play tennis.

She has a family of super-achievers. Her story is both inspiring and daunting. It makes you think about the way one mother's force can make her children achieve glory, and it makes you want to say, Why not me? What mother would not want her child in the spotlight, the one being applauded instead of the one who applauds?

You have to give it to her for sheer persistence, but what I truly admire is the way she did it with her children. Learning piano and violin lessons with them, so that she could better teach them at home. So that they could practice to perfection. I cannot imagine holding a full-time job, then rushing off to one practice or another, and supervising the school work as well.

And then for all the effort, there's the question: who do you do it for? For all the trophy children out there, for the most part it's the parent who gets showered with praise. You did a good job! What fine children you raised! You must be very proud! There's an uncomfortable thought that you drive your children to achieve because it's proof of your greatness as a mother.

I once wrote a story in Reader's Digest, about growing up in my grandmother's house. I called her a tyrant; she was a 'Chinese mother.' I hated her for making me take piano lessons and ballroom-dancing sessions in the summer while the other children played. I hated her when I always had to get first prize in quiz bees. I hated her when she sent me to Manila when I was thirteen-- by myself-- to study high school there, while my classmates stayed in the little town and got boyfriends.

No, I did not become a famous pianist, or a great dancer, or the most expensive psychiatrist. I have not traveled around the world. I am only a working blogging mom with two daughters. But what the Tiger Mother says and what my tyrant grandmother taught me is that it can be done. A mother like that succeeds in teaching her child that one can always do more; one can always be more than what she is.

And what mother wouldn't love to do just that?