Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother summary

What do you do when you find out your child is not particularly good at something? Western parents will often simply acknowledge a child’s weakness, but Chinese parents will do everything in their power to transform it into a strength.

This is because Chinese parents think that there’s nothing better for children than to improve the things they aren’t good at...yet.

When we see strict parents scolding their children, we tend to think the children are unhappy. Yet Amy Chua was quite happy as a child, even though she was raised by extremely tough Chinese parents.

In fact, to Chinese parents, nothing is fun for children until they are proficient at it. And whenever you want to be good at something, it’s going to require considerable practice. While most children want to quit near the beginning of the process – since this is when things are toughest – Tiger Mothers force their children to persevere until they start to like it.

While Western parents would admit to being “strict” if they forced their child to sit down and practice piano for one hour each day, to Chinese parents this single hour would be a mere warm-up.

Strictness is no problem for Chinese parents, and they’re far more direct with their children than Western parents. A Tiger Mother has no issue telling her daughter “Hey fatty, lose some weight,” for example, whereas Western mothers feel compelled to be tactful by having a conversation about health instead.

Amy Chua predicts that the youngest generation of Chinese immigrants won’t be as successful as their predecessors. The history and pattern of behavior of the three generations of Chinese immigrants explains this.

The first Chinese immigrant generations endured the most challenging phase of their family story and are therefore the most strict and hard-working. Amy Chua’s parents belong to this generation, and they were no strangers to hard work. They started with next to no finances, but worked until they became successful in their profession. In their children’s eyes they were extremely strict and careful with money, yet everything they did and earned was invested into their children’s education and future.