Tiger Mum's daughter wins places at Harvard and Yale

[tigercametotea]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1373921/Tiger-Mom-s-tactics-worked-Controversial-author-s-daughter-wins-place-Harvard.html#ixzz1ImWCoM3D

Let's hope she's enough of a self-starter and can keep up with the course without 'Tiger' being on her case 24/7 :)

my first thought was, yes but is she happy?

I'm sure I read somewhere that one of her kids is now estranged?

Incidentally, I noticed this morning that the bloody woman is doing a lecture tour, and appearing in a venue near me sometime soon. Blerk.

I'm sure I read somewhere that one of her kids is now estranged?

Well... I suppose it couldn't be this daughter then :D since she wrote this article recently in the NY Post about her mum :

www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/why_love_my_strict_chinese_mom_uUvfmLcA5eteY0u2KXt7hM

Yeah, and I know loads of kids with NORMAL mothers who got into Oxford and Cambridge (obv not both at the same time....)

On the Wall Street Journal, an article about Amy Chua's parenting here : blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/01/13/the-tiger-mother-responds-to-readers/
included a poll asking readers to vote for which style of parenting is best for children, and 62.3% (22031 votes) went towards "Demanding Eastern parenting".

I don't know... I do wonder if the kids do turn out happier being parented this way, or if it really depends on the type of family, parents, children, culture...

My cousin has also been accepted by both Harvard and Yale, plus by two other Ivy Leagues (Columbia and Princeton), as well as four other top US colleges (UChicago, Duke, Stanford and John Hopkins).

All this was achieved without the need for 'tiger parenting'. My cousin enjoys both academic success and a thriving social life. I'm sure she's much happier for it.

one of her daughters rebelled, not sure which one this is. And as everyone else have said, there are thousands of other people who got into Harvard/Yale/Oxford etc. without such domineering parents. (Although to be fair I'm sure the Bush's bought George W's place - it can't only be alcoholism that turned him into such a fuckwit, can it?)

'(Although to be fair I'm sure the Bush's bought George W's place - it can't only be alcoholism that turned him into such a fuckwit, can it?)'

He used to do a lot of blow, too. :o

Still don't think he can have been the sharpest knife in the block to start with.

I've just read her book and I really enjoyed it! A lot of it was tongue in cheek and she was hilarious.
I was a bit about all her place and name-dropping, and cringed at her not realising she was doing it all for her own narcissistic rewards (my DD goes to ballet and I'm under no illusions as to who gets a bigger kick out of it, and it's not DD) , but apart from that Tiger MOther made a lot of good points, especially: western kids are no happier and don't have better relationships with their parents.

I still wouldn't do it her way, though. I prefer the western method overall, but she was a good writer and it was worth a read.

I don't know about that Sakura, it's a bit of a huge claim.

She seems very different IRL if you've seen her in interviews. She's got a more Eastern Asian attitude towards parenting and education, though.

'On the Wall Street Journal, an article about Amy Chua's parenting here : blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/01/13/the-tiger-mother-responds-to-readers/
included a poll asking readers to vote for which style of parenting is best for children, and 62.3% (22031 votes) went towards "Demanding Eastern parenting".'

Oh yes, until they realise how much it demands of the parent as well as the child, and the warping of the relationship. Then they would want to hire someone else to do the hard bits. They have enough trouble coping with Supernanny, do you really think they could cope with being Tigermommy?

Betelguese, she does know western parents because she was born and raised in the U.S, her husband is an American Jew, and she doesn't live in a predominantly Chinese area.

But agree with you there edam, it is a rather large claim based on nothing...

I definitely wouldn't do it the Chinese way, but her book was definitely food for thought. The part when she called her daughter "garbage" was pretty shocking, but I saw her point when she went on to say that a student of hers once confided in her that her father had once made a toast to her saying she was a "beautiful girl full of self-confidence" but that had made the student in question feel like garbage. I can completely see that, because the father was objectifying his daughter without even noticing it.

I went to school with a girl, who had "tiger parenting".

She used to have to study all through half-term, every evening, and had piano lessons. Although she did rebel a little, she managed to keep the discipline up, that her parents had taught her, and got all her A*s at GCSE and A's at a-level. The main motivation was moving away from home!

At school, I thought it was awful that she had to work so hard, and she loved to moan about her parents. However, she went to Cambridge, has a fantastic well paid job, which she loves, and a gorgeous fiance.

We have kept in touch, and she has said that as an adult she is grateful for her strict parenting. I think the biggest benefit, has been the discipline and focus she learnt as a child. I have met adults who have complained about their laid back parents, who never pushed them at school.

A girl in my brothers year, had very clever parents, and was expected to get brilliant A-level results to study medicine, but committed suicide due to the pressure. I personally think it is important to motivate your children, but not pressurise them - if this is possible?

I think that strict parenting with lots of love is a good thing. My 7 y.o dd1 would do no work if given a chance (not just academics - have heard her instructing her 4 y.o sister to do stuff that dd1 can't be bothered to do).

While I don't want to be extreme I know that laying a foundation of discipline and structure is going to be very important for her especially.

My best friend is British Chinese. Her father (Malay Chinese by origin) was incredibly old-fashioned and strict. He expected absolute obedience. Sent them to Saturday Mandarin school and all that. Thing is, he didn't keep his side of the bargain as a traditional Chinese father and son. Left their mother with all the debts he had racked up, they lost their house, never paid maintenance even though because he was free of the debts he built up a very successful business and his second family have a very luxurious lifestyle. He still had contact with my friend and her sister and still behaved as if he was God and they must obey him. Including demanding that they worked for free in his restaurant when they were teenagers and never told the other staff they were his daughters - something his second family never had to do.

Today, he never bothers to go and see his own mother, who is elderly and vulnerable and possibly has the start of dementia - it's my friend and her sister who do all that. Father, stepmother and younger half-siblings never darken her door.

This is just one family, of course, but the father's strict parenting didn't do anything for my friend. (She is quite successful and happy but no thanks to her Dad - all thanks to her Mother who struggled as a single parent holding down three jobs to keep her family together.) She can't bear the idea of sending her own children to Saturday school even though she realises learning Mandarin and Cantonese would be a huge advantage to them.

Betelgeuse,

Of course you can generalize about cultures, as long as you can put in a disclaimer that not every person from said culture is exactly like this or that.

Cultural stereotypes come about because, even though not every person from that particular culture behaves in one particular way, statistically they're more likely to have certain attributes, mannerisms and values than people of other cultures. If they didn't all countries would be the same!

I actually think she did understand western parenting quite well in the sense that she was right: it is about building a child's self esteem, we do care whether or not our children find a subject they like, we do give them a sense of individualism.
She was right in saying if a western parent saw their child's grades slipping they would query whether the school was right for their child, or whether the class size was too big, or whether the teacher had a personality clash. Whereas a chinese mother would go ape shit and hunt around for test papers, going through them with her child until the grade is an A.

As I say, I agree with the western way.

Sakura - if ds wasn't doing well at school, I might look into those things, but I'd also be on his case - I'd consider both possibilities, that something might be wrong at school but equally ds might be being lazy or naughty. Don't think it's typically 'Western' to focus entirely on the school.

She's not saying it's typical of all westerners, she's saying it's a cultural trait that exists to a larger extent in the west than in China.

I think her point was that it wouldn't cross your average Chinese mother's mind to blame anyone but her child, and possibly herself.

It's Sophia, the never-rebelled DD who got into Harvale and wrote the I love my Mum article -- not Lulu the rebel.

I found the getting-into-Oxbridge thread revealing; that thread says that Oxbridge and Harvale are very different. Good grades are most important for Oxbridge, but Harvale relies on decent grades and amazing Extra-curriculars. That's what Amy Chua knew and why she drilled them so hard, as much as anything else.

Harvard/Yale really isn't everything to success in life. As a friend quipped, the main secret for getting into Ivy League grad schools is "having money". If you compare the most prominent American businessmen & politicians to UK equivalents, Harvard/Yale do not dominate their backgrounds the way Oxbridge does in the UK.