Analysis Of Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, By Amy Chua

For the past few decades, a majority of American parents have taken the approach to raise their children in a loving and protective environment. The philosophy behind this parenting method is that by nurturing the child through encouragement, he or she will develop confidence and will strive to do the best they can in the given area. However, not all American parents believe in this approach. Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, supports the “tiger mom” style of parenting, where the child is denied certain activities and has a strict set of standards to meet. Chua advocates in her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother that the parenting method produces talented and self-confident children, as seen in countries such as China and Korea. When the Wall Street Journal published an excerpt titled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” from Chua’s book in 2011, the American public conveyed mixed opinions on how children should be raised. In the excerpt, Chua presents a few cogent arguments for why parents …show more content…
In order to motivate her resistant daughter, the author took the child’s doll house to the car and told her “[she’d] donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece” (Chua 264) if the child did not mastered the complex piano piece. When this was unsuccessful, Chua continued by threatening her daughter with “no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years” (Chua 264). The author intended for the story of her daughter learning the piece to be humorous; however, the actions of the mother towards Lulu comes across as cruel, appalling and inconsiderate. There are a multitude of ways the author could have handled the situation more appropriately, such as giving the child a break, providing her with some encouragement, or considering whether her daughter wants to learn to play the