Two Tiger Mothers Lament

I have a lot in common with the author of the hot new best-selling book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Amy Chua and I are both the eldest of four daughters, we are children or grandchildren of hard working immigrants who believed education was the ticket to a better life, we were both born in the Year of the Tiger (thus we are Tiger Moms), and we both have daughters born in the Year of the Monkey who are musicians. That is where our similarities end, unfortunately. I only dream of writing a best selling book which would allow me to travel the world writing blogs from Thailand or Brussels.

The book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, is about how Chua raised her daughters in the Chinese tradition, and American soccer moms and many others who have read the book or about the book are on the offensive. Even the mild-mannered Merideth Viera of the Today show went on the attack while interviewing Tiger Mom last week. Chua has even received some death threats. Child rearing has suddenly become a political football, or soccer ball as the case may be. The book came out in early January and it immediately had the internet, the blogosphere, the New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and People Magazine all in a buzz. The author, Amy Chua, is a law professor at Yale married to a Jewish law professor, also at Yale.

The combination of Jewish and Chinese spouses is not that uncommon, Chua says, on a lot of college campuses.

I don't think you are alone if you have ever asked yourself what is the reason Chinese and other Asian students often do so well in school or play musical instruments so beautifully at such young ages. Is it the genes? Is it the parenting? Ms. Chua says the answer to this question is the parenting. She even goes so far as to say Chinese mothers are superior. Wow! That was the statement that got the mommie bloggers going.

How a person raises children is deeply personal but also profoundly cultural. There are many ways to raise a child. Hilary said it takes a village, the Chinese say it takes a parent who demands and gets only the best from their child. Americans would argue parenting takes a television, a computer, and video games. Seventy percent of non-Asian American moms believe that academic stress is not good for children. Yes, our babies may listen to Mozart in utero and gaze at colorful whirling mobiles that enhance brain development, but after that, parents feel they can step back a bit. Teachers will do the work of educating. Of course, many families home school their children today in America, but that is not a choice a majority of parents can make, for economic and other reasons. Besides, it's a hell of a lot of work!

In contrast, Chinese parents traditionally are totally involved from birth in the academic lives of their offspring. It is different from what Americans call helicopter moms, who try to protect their offspring from any unpleasant experience. Chinese parenting, according to Chua, is relentless and demanding. Children are not supposed to have lots of choices, and some things in life are unpleasant. Nothing but an A was good enough for Chua's children, and in the evenings, they were not allowed to watch television, play video games, or go on line. For the Chinese, how a child does in school is a direct reflection on how well their parents are raising them

Ms. Chua taught her eldest child, Sophia, the alphabet by 18 months and that was only the beginning. Sophia speaks fluent Mandarin, thanks to the nanny Chua hired who only spoke Mandarin, always got straight A's in school, and played piano at Carnegie Hall when she was 14. All went pretty well with Sophia subjected to Chinese parenting techniques, but then came Louise, aka LuLu, and all hell broke loose. This story makes for a good book!

I discussed the book this week on the phone with my daughter, social worker in training, and and she put it to me bluntly: "Mom, some of the stories the mother tells in her book to me sound abusive." Having had a physically and verbally abusive father myself, I was hit hard by her words. Parenting is a complex endeavor. Sometimes we parent exactly as our parents parented us, and at other times we swear never to parent our children the way our parents parented us. I vowed never to abuse my child. Once however, in frustration, I gave my daughter, aged four, a brief swat on the behind, and she looked at me incredulously and said, "Mother, what are you doing?" Chua also has moments in her career as a parent which she would like to forget, and obviously the ones she writes about in her book not only have caused a stir, but are making her rich.

Tiger Mother devotes time early in her book to a discussion of Chinese astrology. Law professor Chua makes it clear that she, of course, does not believe in astrology, but after saying that, goes on to discuss how Chinese astrology, had she paid attention to it, could have made her a better parent. Chua is a tiger mother because she was born in the Year of the Tiger. We tiger mothers are noble, fearless, powerful, magnetic, and authoritative. Chua's eldest daughter, Sophia, was born in the Year of the Monkey. This combination is fated for success. Monkey children are curious, intellectual, and able to accomplish difficult or challenging tasks. Sophia presented few problems for Tiger mom, though she did throw a few tantrums, and you can still see the toothmarks she made on the piano bench in frustration when forced to practice piano for hours on end. All was going well relatively well for Tiger mom and Monkey daughter; but then second child, Lulu, born in the year of the Boar, came along. Boar children, Chua writes, are stubborn, capable of rage, honest, and warm hearted. Not so good a match for a Tiger mom, according to Chua, who, as you recall, does not believe in astrology.

In People this past week, Chua admits she has a few parenting regrets, but in one story leading to regret (and there are several), Tiger mom tells how forcing LuLu to practice piano did not always go smoothly. LuLu, stubborn Boar child that she was, did not comply like Sophia, the Monkey child, who liked difficult and challenging tasks. Chua admits that she now realizes how different the personalities of her daughters were from the beginning: after all, one was a Monkey and one was a Boar. Lulu hated piano from the start. On one horrible day, Chua locked Lulu out on the back porch in the freezing cold, dressed only in a t-shirt, tights, skirt and shoes, because she would not practice as her mother instructed. Tiger Mother was forced to realize that Boar child would rather freeze to death than practice piano. The child was left outside for a goodly stretch of time, before Chua brought her in off the porch. She then put her daughter in a hot bath, where she served her cocoa with marshmallows and a chocolate brownie. Tiger Mother changed her tactics but did not give up on Lulu. Lulu was given a violin, which she also hated. Tiger Mom did relent after a few years had gone by, and she let Lulu pursue her passion, tennis. Chua says she should have realized earlier that children have different personalities that must be adjusted to by their parents. (She must have missed taking the course at Yale that teaches you that one.)

I think parents are curious about Chinese parenting because we think our American focus on creativity and imagination may foster happy childhoods, but we wonder whether our practices will make them happy adults? Those of us who have parented or taught children know they don't naturally behave themselves all the time, nor do they want to work hard at tasks they find difficult. Expectations and boundaries are part of the job of parenting and sometimes it is just easier to just give up and let the child win. The problem with children, too many parents fail to realize, is that if they keep winning, it does not make them happy, so their demands only become greater and they run the risk of becoming what we call "spoiled brats."

I guess it must have been the tiger mother in me which made me jump at the idea of giving my daughter violin lessons beginning at age three. I thought the discipline would be something she could apply to other areas of her life. I remember one summer my mother made me go into my bedroom everyday and read for a good amount of time. Suzuki music lessons and all that went along with them were a huge parental commitment. It was not easy: my ex-husband and I worked long hours outside the home. We could not afford a nanny who spoke only Mandarin Chinese (or even French) and undoubtedly supervised some of the long hours of piano and violin practice (though now, at least, I can afford a house-husband!). Alexis didn't always want to practice either, and when I got home from work and she said her practicing was done, I was tired and chose to believe her. She was eight when her father, who diligently took her to all the lessons, said she could choose to continue with violin or not. We were both tired. She chose to continue with violin, and also said she wanted to take piano lessons. She never played at Carnegie Hall. She did, however, play at my mother's funeral when she was 16, and it was something that those of us who were there will never forget.

Chua's younger daughter now plays tennis with the passion she did not find playing violin. It is hard to know what a child's passion will be, but perhaps it is worth teaching a child that to be good at anything takes hard work and lots of practice. Teachers try all the time to teach their students academic rigor, but it only works if parents are giving the same message at home. (Harry thinks that this is becoming something of a King Charles's head for me: non-Dickens lovers can google the phrase!) It may be worthwhile to insist that children attempt the difficult, have good manners, and strive for good grades. It may also be worthwhile for parents to be a little more positively involved in their children's lives. A little less television, a little more reading, a little more family time, a little less hanging out with friends. Perhaps a little more astrology???

Forward with Betty, but which Betty?

A dear friend of mine is in the process of divorce after nearly 40 years of marriage. The divorce rate for our generation, aka Baby Boomers, is 39%. Divorce rates are now on the decline and have been for several years. My friend of fifty-plus years and I both married in 1971 when we were 20 years old. That was not that unusual back in the 70's. Today the age of a first marriage is on the rise: 25 for women, 27 for men.

My mother made it clear to me and to my three younger sisters that she wanted us all to go to college and have careers. She told us not to marry young. Her message was clear: you had to be able to fend for yourself. Her underlying message may have been that had she had a career, she would not have chosen to remain in her bad marriage. My mom worked many hours a week as a cleaning woman, then came home to all the work of maintaining a household of 4 children, my grandmother, and my father. It appeared to me as a child that she never seemed to sit down. She hoped her daughters would realize their dreams, since her dream of becoming a nurse never came true.

The aristocratic women of Downton Abbey, Masterpiece Theatre's wonderful new series on Sunday nights, have a life of comfort and ease. They are economically powerless,however, unable to support themselves or inherit their family estate because of their gender. The father, who was bailed out financially by his American wife's fortune, is forced by English law to groom a distant male cousin to inherit Downton Abbey. The sisters are left to find rich husbands, and fast, before their "bloom is off the rose."

One of the young, single servant girls at Downton, near the bottom rung of the staff hierarchy ladder, dreams of bettering herself by becoming a secretary. The mother of the young man in line to become the heir of Downton shows spunk by involving herself in the town hospital. She was trained as a nurse during the Boer War, and the knowledge she gained from her dead husband, a doctor, saves the life of a tenant farmer hospitalized for a failing heart. The aristocratic dowager grandmother, played by Maggie Smith, finds this practical woman's behavior reprehensible, but she herself is engaged in fighting, with all the shrewd, cunning, manipulative behavior she can muster, a losing battle against the traditional roles which will result in her granddaughter's loss of the family estate. The world for women is slowly beginning to change.

Marriage and motherhood or prostitution were typically the only paths for women throughout history. If a woman remained single, she was a burden to her family: Jane Austen and Emily Dickenson both bore that status even though their families had money. Poorer single women had few career choices: governess, schoolmarm, nun, servant. With the advent of the typewriter early in the 20th century, secretary was added to the small list of professions a girl could aspire to. Nursing, the other predominately female profession, began with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. In WWII, and even WWI, many women worked in factories to support the war effort, but many went home after the war to become the Betty Crockers of the 1950's. Some women found that role fulfilling, others, like my mother, did not. There were, of course, women throughout history who found ways to escape their societies' strict roles.

American women of my Baby-Boomer generation were encouraged to have careers and families. We wanted to believe Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, who told us we could and should have it all. Those of us who tried it found it was darn hard to do so. The new liberation philosophy was liberating in every sense of the word but we were swimming in deep, uncharted waters. Many a working wife found that her mate had had no idea of what running a household with children entailed. Many men had a 40+ hour work week but their working wives and mothers found that when they got home from work, their second full time job began.

Every generation has to let go of something in order to move forward. Some of us boomers had to let go of the idea of "till death do us part," (and many were only too happy to do so). The Downton Abbey girls were living on borrowed time. Their rich and pampered way of life began to crumble after World War II. My mother, daughter of an immigrant mother who worked in a dirty foundry, wanted her four girls to have college educations and careers, and that happened. She was shocked and dismayed, however, when her two eldest daughters divorced. In her generation, you got married and stayed married, happy or not. (Harry says his mother vigorously verbalized exactly that when he announced his divorce.) My mother stayed home raising children the first years of her marriage; her Baby-Boom daughters married, had children, went to college, worked, all at the same time.

The tiny seeds of change that began to impact the women of Downton Abbey were fertilized and began to grow quickly during the Baby-Boom era. Some of us boomers were impacted more than others, and a high percentage of us experienced divorce. It is to be hoped that the trend to wait to marry until you are older is a good thing. Knowing you can survive on your own is definitely a good thing: life after all is unpredictable. Bringing some maturity and economic independence to marriage may be another good thing. Today's married generation seems to understand better that parenting and running a household are better accomplished by a team. You can thank us boomers for working out that one! It wasn't easy.

Crazes in Crazy Education

I walked into a classroom to teach to teach a third-grade "gifted" math class, and all the students were sitting on large balls. A teacher on her way out of the classroom as I entered told me that if any of the students bounced on their ball during class they would have to sit on the floor for the lesson or on a regular chair. I smiled and said, "of course," thinking just how does a nine-year-old child sit on a giant ball without bouncing? The teaching assistant in the class was in a rush for me to get on with the math lesson: we were, after all, dealing with high achievers, but I told her I first had to know what was up with these balls. I thought a brief discussion about the balls would perhaps allow me to teach the lesson without having to repeatedly ask the students to stop bouncing, which most of them were doing.

Students explained that research has shown that sitting on a ball helps you concentrate better due to the fact that more oxygen flows to your brain under such conditions. I remember reading, years back in grad school, studies which found boys preferred standing to sitting in a classroom, and some schools were experimenting with tall desks in which boys stood rather than sat at their desks. I had obviously not heard about this latest craze. I use the word "craze" because in education, a craze, along with a little science, can be dangerous.

As a culture, we are always looking for "the" answer that will solve our educational woes. We had the ''whole language" craze, the "back-to-basics" craze, the "no child's left behind" craze, the "everyone needs their own personal computer" craze, the "charter" school craze -- on and on and on. The crazes keep coming and schools keep failing many students in our country, especially those from poor families.

In another class I subbed in recently, the second graders were all in a state of great excitement, wanting to rush down to the library to check out their school's latest craze: a bag with a book and a mini device that they plugged into to listen to the story. The device hangs from their necks and they put the earplugs in their little ears, push a button and hear the story being read by a professional actor or actress. They couldn't get enough of it. This may be an example of an excellent craze, one with some staying power. Sitting on balls? Not so sure about that one, but who knows?

Yesterday in the New York Times I read about yet another educational craze. The story was about a successful middle-school principal from the Bronx who is now the principal of The New American Academy in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, one of the poorest school districts in NYC. New York City is a city like many in America, where children from families with money attend private schools and the have-nots attend the public schools.

The new school for the have-nots is modeled after an exclusive New Hampshire private boarding school, Philips Exeter Academy. High-school students at the New Hampshire school sit in small groups discussing and helping each other with self-directed lessons. Yes, they are trying this approach in Crown Heights -- but with kindergarteners, for god's sake! As you may have guessed, even those of you who are not teachers, the school has experienced some setbacks.

This fall, the school began with 60 kindergarteners in a huge classroom, a master teacher, who is paid $150,000 a year, and four novice teachers who are not paid $150,000. As of January 2011, the student population has been reduced by 10 students and the young teachers are pulling their hair out. Actually, one of the novice teachers had some of her hair pulled out by one of the kindergarteners and an ambulance was called. The teacher went to the hospital for treatment. The kindergartener was left untreated.

The principal at the new Crown Heights school was a favorite of the NYC Chancellor of Schools, Joel Klein. Klein's tenure recently ended when Bloomberg hired Cathie Black, who began as the new chancellor this month. Klein is now working in the private sector earning in one year what it took him six to earn as the chancellor. Harvard University has been involved in the development of this Crown Heights School, where student independence, scientific inquiry, and self-expression are more important that teacher directed lessons, memorization, structure and discipline.

As an old teacher, I know that some directed lessons, memorization, structure and discipline are good for kindergarteners. I know I did not go to Harvard, but the school of hard knocks taught me that. The former Bronx principal was quoted at the end of the article: "In education, what works one day, oftentimes does not work the next. We are trying to find out what works for the kids." Now there's a real craze!

Teaching is both an art and a science, that's why it is so difficult. The master teacher at the new school, with 23 years of experience, is described as magical. The students follow her directions and listen to her when she teaches them. The goal of cloning her in the young inexperienced teachers is not working. Teaching is difficult, it takes years to become really good at it. Not everyone who chooses teaching as a career is a good teacher. Bright students survive bad teaching, struggling students do not.

The St. Louis Park district, rated #2 for academic excellence in the state, would find the New Hamshire model a joke. When I took the kindergarten methods course at the U of M, Dr. Harlan Hansen was my professor. His wife taught kinder in St. Louis Park for decades. As a team over the years, the Hansens developed the quintessential classroom setting and curriculum for the five-year-old child. St. Louis Park kindergartens still use much of the program these two brilliant people developed.

The young novice teachers are having a hard time at the Crown Heights Academy. They told the reporter they are exhausted and feel defeated. The principal admits he was wrong to have hired so many new teachers, but they cost less. This principal, darling of the former chancellor, admits that it takes longer to develop a teacher than he thought. Oh really!

Speaking of educational crazes, Mayor Bloomberg hired Cathie Black as his new chancellor even though she has no educational experience. Professional educators have failed to find the answer to education for the poor and disadvantaged. She is described as the unsentimental, cut-throat media mogul of the Hearst Corporation. Teachers in NYC public schools are crying out that class size of 35 students is too large. (The year that happened in Mpls is the year I knew it was time to retire: luckily I could.) Cathie Black's children attended exclusive private boarding schools in Connecticut. What a surprise!

Last evening I watched President Obama speak in Tucson about the need to meet the expectations of our children. I don't think it is possible to do that when we have 35 students in a classroom. I don't think we do that when we put children who have very little in schools modeled after those for the children who have much. Education, especially for poor children, is beyond complex. You don't just put them on balls, or put them with novice teachers learning from self-directed lessons. Educating a child is a custom job, and an efficient corporate assembly line doesn't work.

Reality show embarrassment

If you don't believe people are endlessly interesting and bizarre, you are obviously not watching enough reality TV. During a dinner party last night at our house, the topic of reality television somehow popped up. It was clear we were all a bit uncomfortable about the topic at first, perhaps not wishing to divulge potentially embarrassing viewing habits. A younger member of our dinner party group jumped in to share unabashedly the reality shows she loves to watch. I felt it safe to come clean about my latest favorite reality-show addiction, Bethenny Getting Married.

I blame the beginnings of my reality-show addiction on my daughter-in-law. While on a visit to see Ivan and Joanna a few years back, I came into their television room one evening to find my high IQ, science-editor daughter-in-law watching Housewives of New York. Bethenny Frankel was one of the "stars" on the show, even though she was single and had no children. Reality is sometimes subjective. Joanna gave me a little background about the series as I comfortably settled in to watch it with her. I was hooked.

My love affair with any and all things New York began when I was sixteen and took a week-long high-school trip to the Big Apple with my English class. I often flash back to that trip, arranged by my favorite English teacher, Miss Sanquist. We saw several Broadway plays and went to the Statue of Liberty, where we climbed the original wooden steps to the crown. Miss Sanquist also took us to the Copa Cabana. She ordered us all Shirley Temple cocktails while we watched Diana Ross and the Supremes. I had no idea who the group was but thought they were pretty good. On one of the days when we had free time, I took the subway and walked the streets of Manhattan on my own for hours, stopping only to eat a bagel with cream cheese and to drink a cup of coffee. I had never seen skyscrapers, nor had I eaten a bagel, being the good Nordeast girl I was. (It may be a surprise to younger readers, but when I was sixteen, the Foshay Tower was the tallest building in Minneapolis.)

Housewives of New York was a real fantasy. I loved it. The neurotic, glamorous, wealthy New York City housewives took cabs, not the subway, wore expensive clothes, drank martinis with lunch and engaged in constant cat fights with each other. An example of a real problem these housewives had to deal with was deciding which exclusive, expensive private school would be best for their spoiled brat children. I quickly decided that if this show was good enough for my high-IQ daughter in law,then I was allowed to watch it.

Reality shows are bigger than ever, a staple of the vast television wasteland and the term tasteless is hardly adequate to describe the things that happen on these shows. Nothing is censored. Bethenny Frankel has her own reality show this past year: Bethenny Getting Married. In one of the episodes, we find Bethenny peeing into a silver champagne bucket just moments before her wedding ceremony. She is seven months pregnant and unable to get out of her skintight wedding dress fast enough to go to the bathroom properly before she takes her vows. With cameras rolling, her wedding planner and personal assistant help Bethenny hike up her gown and place the silver vestibule between her legs as she does her best to squat down to relieve herself.

You watch in horror, asking yourself whether this is really happening. This series had the highest ratings of any of the Bravo channel reality shows. Is it any wonder? And yes, I was right there with all the other millions of viewers watching every single tasteless episode. Harry, always curious, would ask just what this show was about. I told him to leave the room and just leave me alone, there was no way to explain this show.

Some reality shows are a bit darker, like the one about hoarders. One weekend afternoon I found myself transfixed watching as a team of "experts" tried to help a woman whose house was piled so high with stuff she could barely move around in her own home. I got up when the show ended and put together a large bag to take to the Goodwill. INSPIRATIONAL viewing to say the least!

The funniest and most shocking part of the dinner party confessions came when Harry suddenly told the dinner party ensemble he enjoys watching wrestling, just a little, from time to time, though he would prefer to call it an unreality show. I thought, oh please, don't go there! Is nothing sacred (as Joseph Welch once asked)? This is really embarrassing!!! (As if watching New York City Housewives and Bethenny Getting Married is not!) He says he enjoys watching Monday Night Raw because it is a modern day version of the centuries-old morality plays. Any excuse. It does help though, when he begins to criticize some idiot reality show I am watching, to mention Monday Night Raw. I have to admit though I do enjoy it when wrestler girlfriend Vicki gets mad every week and throws herself into the ring only to be picked up and swirled around by one of the bad guys who have been fighting unfairly with Her Man.

Of course Bravo invited Bethenny back for a second reality show season, given the success of Bethenny Getting Married. The title of her show has not been released yet: Bethenny got married after all, and reality shows are nothing without new hype. For those of you not following Frankel's meteoric rise, she came in second place in the terrible show Skating with the Stars last December. She couldn't really skate and the judges hated her, but her fans kept her coming back till the end, when she came in second to someone who could skate. (Bristol Palin, anyone?)

Bethenny has taken every opportunity to make boat-loads of money. (Mama Palin?) She has written a New York Times bestseller using her talents as a trained chef to promote healthy eating, produced a yoga video featuring the routines which explain her killer body, and she has skillfully marketed her SkinnyGirl Margaritas, now available in most liquor stores nationwide. Frankel begins a whirlwind tour of several cities this month, billed as An Evening With Bethenny Frankel. I have considered flying to take in her stop in Milwaukee ..... but that would really be embarrassing.