Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (13 page)

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Authors: Amy Chua

Tags: #Asian American Studies, #Social Science, #Mothers, #Chinese American women, #General, #United States, #Mothers and daughters - China, #Personal Memoirs, #Mothers - United States, #China, #Cultural Heritage, #Biography & Autobiography, #Mothers and daughters, #Ethnic Studies, #Chua; Amy, #Mothers and daughters - United States, #Biography

BOOK: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
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By contrast, I can’t tell you how many Asian kids I’ve met who, while acknowledging how oppressively strict and brutally demanding their parents were, happily describe themselves as devoted to their parents and unbelievably grateful to them, seemingly without a trace of bitterness or resentment.
I’m really not sure why this is. Maybe it’s brainwashing. Or maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome. But here’s one thing I’m sure of: Western children are definitely no happier than Chinese ones.
16
 
 
The Birthday Card
 
Everyone was moved by what Sophia and Lulu said at Florence’s funeral. “If only Florence could have heard them,” Florence’s best friend Sylvia said sadly afterward. “Nothing would have made her happier.” How, other friends asked, could a thirteen-and ten-year-old capture Florence so perfectly?
But there’s a backstory.
It actually starts years earlier, when the girls were quite young, maybe seven and four. It was my birthday, and we were celebrating at a mediocre Italian restaurant, because Jed had forgotten to make reservations at a better place.
Obviously feeling guilty, Jed was trying to act jaunty. “O-k-a-y! This is going to be a g-r-e-a-t birthday dinner for Mommy! Right, girls? And you each have a little surprise for Mommy—right, girls?”
I was soaking some stale focaccia in the small dish of olive oil the server had given us. At Jed’s urging, Lulu handed me her “surprise,” which turned out to be a card. More accurately, it was a piece of paper folded crookedly in half, with a big happy face on the front. Inside, “Happy Birthday, Mommy! Love, Lulu” was scrawled in crayon above another happy face. The card couldn’t have taken Lulu more than twenty seconds to make.
I know just what Jed would have done. He would have said, “Oh, how nice—thank you, honey,” and planted a stiff kiss on Lulu’s forehead. Then he probably would have said that he wasn’t very hungry, and was only going to have a bowl of soup, or on second thought just bread and water, but the rest of us could order as much as we goddamn liked.
I gave the card back to Lulu. “I don’t want this,” I said. “I want a better one—one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. I have a special box, where I keep all my cards from you and Sophia, and this one can’t go in there.”
“What?” said Lulu in disbelief. I saw beads of sweat start to form on Jed’s forehead.
I grabbed the card again and flipped it over. I pulled out a pen from my purse and scrawled “Happy Birthday Lulu Whoopee!” I added a big sour face. “What if I gave you this for your birthday, Lulu—would you like that? But I would never do that, Lulu. No—I get you magicians and giant slides that cost me hundreds of dollars. I get you huge ice cream cakes shaped like penguins, and I spend half my salary on stupid sticker and eraser party favors that everyone just throws away. I work so hard to give you good birthdays! I deserve better than this. So I
reject
this.” I threw the card back.
“May I please be excused for a second?” Sophia asked in a small voice. “I need to do something.”
“Let me see it, Sophia. Hand it over.”
Eyes wide with terror, Sophia slowly pulled out her own card. It was bigger than Lulu’s, made of red construction paper, but while more effusive, equally empty. She had drawn a few flowers and written “I love you! Happy Birthday to the Best Mommy in the World! #1 Mommy!”
“That’s nice, Sophia,” I said coldly, “but not good enough either. When I was your age, I wrote poems for my mother on her birthday. I got up early and cleaned the house and made her breakfast. I tried to think of creative ideas and made her coupons that said things like ‘One Free Car Wash.’”
“I wanted to make something better, but you said I had to play piano,” Sophia protested indignantly.
“You should have gotten up earlier,” I responded.
Later that night, I received two much better birthday cards, which I loved and still have.
I recounted this story to Florence shortly afterward. She laughed in astonishment, but to my surprise, she was not disapproving. “Maybe I should have tried something similar with my kids,” she said thoughtfully. “It just always seemed that if you had to
ask
for something, it wouldn’t be worth anything.”
“I think it’s too idealistic to expect children to do the right things on their own,” I said. “Also, if you force them to do what you want, you don’t have to be mad at them.”
“But they’ll be mad at you,” Florence pointed out.
I thought of this exchange many years later, the day of the funeral. According to Jewish law, burials must take place as soon as possible after death, ideally within twenty-four hours. The suddenness of Florence’s death was unexpected, and in one day Jed had to arrange for a plot, a rabbi, a funeral home, and the service. As always, Jed handled everything quickly and efficiently, keeping his emotions to himself, but I could tell that his whole body was shaking, his grief too much to bear.
I found the girls in their bedroom that morning, huddled together. They both looked stunned and frightened. No one so close to them had ever died before. They had never attended a funeral. And Popo had just been laughing in the next room a week earlier.
I told the girls that they each had to write a short speech about Popo, which they would read at the service that afternoon.
“No, please, Mommy, don’t make me,” Sophia said tearfully. “I really don’t feel like it.”
“I can’t,” Lulu sobbed. “Go away.”
“You
have
to,” I ordered. “Both of you. Popo would have wanted it.”
Sophia’s first draft was terrible, rambling and superficial. Lulu’s wasn’t so great either, but I held my elder daughter to a higher standard. Perhaps because I was so upset myself, I lashed out at her. “How
could
you, Sophia?” I said viciously. “This is awful. It has no insight. It has no depth. It’s like a Hallmark card—which Popo hated.You are so selfish. Popo loved you so much—and you—produce—
this
!”
Crying uncontrollably, Sophia shouted back at me, which startled me because like Jed—unlike Lulu and me—Sophia’s anger usually simmers, rarely boiling over. “You have no right to say what Popo would have wanted! You didn’t even like Popo—you have this fixation with Chinese values and respect for elders, but all you did was mock her. Every little thing she did—even
making couscous—
reflected some terrible moral deficiency for you. Why are you so—Manichaean? Why does everything have to be black or white?”
I didn’t mock her, I thought to myself indignantly. I was just protecting my daughters from a romanticized model of child-rearing doomed to failure. Besides, I was the one who invited Florence to everything, who made sure she saw her granddaughters all the time. I gave Florence her greatest source of happiness—beautiful, respectful, accomplished grandchildren she could be proud of. How could Sophia, who was so smart and even knew the word
Manichaean,
not see that and attack me instead?
Externally, I ignored Sophia’s outburst. Instead, I offered some editorial suggestions—things about her grandmother that she might mention. I asked her to talk about Crystal Lake and going to museums with Florence.
Sophia took none of my suggestions. Slamming the door after I left, she locked herself in her bedroom and rewrote the speech herself. She refused to show it to me, wouldn’t look at me, even after she had cooled down and changed into a black dress and black tights. And later, at the service when Sophia was at the podium speaking, looking dignified and calm, I didn’t miss the pointed lines:
Popo never settled for anything—a dishonest conversation, a film not quite true to the book, a slightly false display of emotion. Popo wouldn’t allow people to put words in my mouth.
 
It was a wonderful speech. Lulu’s was too; she had spoken with great perceptiveness and poise for a ten-year-old. I could just imagine a beaming Florence saying, “I’m bursting.”
On the other hand, Florence was right. The kids were definitely mad at me. But as a Chinese mother, I put that out of my head.
17
 
 
Caravan to Chautauqua
 
The summer after Florence’s passing was a difficult one.To begin with, I ran over Sophia’s foot. She jumped out of my car to grab a tennis racket while I was still backing up, and her left ankle got caught in the front wheel. Sophia and I both fainted. She ended up having surgery under full anesthesia and two big screws put in. Then she had to wear a huge boot and use crutches for the rest of the summer, which put her in a bad mood but at least gave her a lot of time to practice the piano.
One good thing in our lives, though, was Coco, who got cuter by the day. She had the same strange effect on all four of us: Just looking at her lifted our spirits. This was true even though all my ambitions for her had been replaced by a single dynamic: She would look at me with her pleading chocolate almond eyes—and I would do whatever she wanted, which was usually to go running for four miles, rain, sleet, or shine. In return, Coco was compassionate. I knew she hated it when I yelled at the girls, but she never judged me and knew that I was trying to be a good mother.
It didn’t upset me that I had revised my dreams for Coco—I just wanted her to be happy. I had finally come to see that Coco was an animal, with intrinsically far less potential than Sophia and Lulu. Although it is true that some dogs are on bomb squads or drug-sniffing teams, it is perfectly fine for most dogs not to have a profession or even any special skills.
Around that time, I had a life-changing conversation with my brilliant friend and colleague Peter, who speaks six languages and reads eleven, including Sanskrit and Ancient Greek. A gifted pianist who had debuted in New York as a teenager, Peter attended one of Sophia’s recitals at the Neighborhood Music School.
Afterward, Peter told me that he thought Sophia’s playing was really extraordinary. Then he added, “I don’t want to meddle or anything, but have you thought about the Yale School of Music? Maybe Sophia should audition for one of the piano faculty there.”
“You mean . . . change teachers?” I said, my mind racing. The Neighborhood Music School had been one of my favorite places for almost a decade.
“Well, yes,” said Peter. “I’m sure the Neighborhood Music School is a wonderful place. But compared to the other kids here Sophia’s in a different league. Of course it all depends on what your goals are. Maybe you just want to keep things fun.”
This took me aback. No one had ever accused me of trying to keep things fun. And coincidentally, I’d just received a phone call from another friend raising the very same question about Lulu.
That night, I sent two crucial e-mails.The first was to a violinist and recent graduate of the Yale School of Music named Kiwon Nahm, whom I’d hired on occasion to help Lulu practice. The second was to Professor Wei-Yi Yang, the most recent addition to Yale’s illustrious piano faculty and by all accounts a piano prodigy and sensation.
Things moved faster than I expected. By a tremendous stroke of luck, Professor Yang knew of Sophia; he had heard her play a Mozart piano quartet at a fund-raiser and been favorably impressed. He and I agreed to meet for lunch in late August, when he returned from his summer concertizing.
Something equally exciting happened with Lulu. Kiwon—who had debuted at Lincoln Center as a soloist at the age of twelve—generously mentioned Lulu to a former teacher named Almita Vamos. Mrs. Vamos and her husband, Roland, are among the leading violin instructors in the world. They’ve been honored by the White House six times. Their former students include well-known soloists like Rachel Barton and many winners of prestigious international competitions. Based in Chicago, they teach only very gifted students, a large proportion of them Asian.

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