Amy The Tiger Mother

Zijian Liu

110424163

Amy is a good mother

A lot of criticism points to Amy Chua and her “tiger” parenting after her book Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother was published. These criticisms come from people in different cultures, some even from China, and mostly focus on Amy’s strict attitude and dominant control in her parenting. According to the book, Amy made many strict rules for her daughters, Sophia and Louisa (Lulu), and forced them to practice musical instruments many hours a day. In her book, Amy explains many ideas of her Chinese parenting in simple words and compares them to Western parenting, but many people cannot accept her ideas and consider such a parenting is harmful for children. They consider good parents should not be that

These qualities fit the standards of a good mother. First, Amy, a stubborn Chinese “tiger” mother, is willing to make changes for her daughters. Those really unreasonable parents can always insist on very strict rules they believe are beneficial and never make a compromise. Amy indeed is strict to her daughters, but she is not unreasonable and sometimes she would break her rules for her daughters. The most obvious change she mentions in her book is allowing Lulu to give up practicing violin. It is easy for Western parents to allow their children to give up, but not for Chinese mothers, including Amy. Playing the musical instrument was so significant in Amy’s eye, especially because both Sophia and Lulu had a talent in playing their instruments. Amy had a very high expectation of her girls, so she spent lots of money on hiring professional music teachers for her girls and kept her girls practicing hours a day. Lulu even complained to Amy once that six hours a day of violin practicing scared her friend Daniela, since she had no time left for anything else besides playing violin (62). One result of her strict attitude on practicing is that Sophia was appreciated by a Yale professor Wei-Yi Yang, who “taught only Yale piano graduate students and a