Just as we suspected

You may have heard of a recent Wall Street Journal article by Amy Chua that is garnering considerable attention.  It's called "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior" and is an excerpt from Chua's just-released book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.  The article explains why the "Chinese" parenting style produces more successful children than the "Western" parenting style, it reads as much like an Onion article as the idea of an Obama Chia pet.  But no, dear readers.  Once again the people who come up with this stuff are totally, absolutely, sincerely serious.

Chua, a Yale Law School professor, uses her own experiences as a case study to make sweeping generalizations about a groups she terms "Chinese" parents, which can include immigrants of many races and ethnic backgrounds, but is predicated on strict, shame-heavy, warden-style child-rearing tactics.  She begins with a list of things "Chinese" parents never permit their children, including "attending a sleepover," "watch TV or play computer games," "choose their own extracurricular activities," and "get any grade less than an A."  Based on her eyewitness accounts, she determines that there are three main differences between the parenting styles - 1) Western parents care too much about their children's psyches, while "Chinese parents assume strength, not fragility," and can therefore shame their children because they know them to be strong enough to take it; 2) Western parents see themselves as indebted to their children, while Chinese parents see their children as indebted to them; 3) Western parents believe their children can determine what is best for themselves, while "Chinese parents believe they know what is best for their children and can therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences."

And then she tells a story about how she bullied (not "insulted," she says, but "motivated") her seven year old to master a very difficult piano song overnight, not even letting her get up to pee.  (But it's okay because they had a nice cuddlefest afterwards, plus the kid totally rocked out at the recital!)

Let me begin by saying that I think there are a few other details left out of the article that would have likely made better sense of the success of the "Chinese" mothering model.  For one, Chinese immigrants in the mid to late 20th century (Chua's parents are of Filipino descent, but migrated from China the year before Chua's birth), are one of the highest socio-economic status immigrant groups; not surprisingly, one of the highest correlations with academic success is the class status of one's parents.  And, while we're at it, let's just make this clear - the only kinds of parents Chau is talking about, "Chinese" or "Western," are middle and upper-class.  (I doubt low-income mothering rests within the purvue of any news source whose name begins with the words "Wall Street.")  And where the heck are fathers in this article?  Although Chua's Jewish husband, Jed, makes some "Western" parenting appearances, it seems that "parenting" really means "mothering," as child-rearing is, as we all know, a mother's responsibility.  Women, who are often treated as if their primary purpose is to make and rear children, are judged severely for the outcomes of their children - it seems that this burden rests just as heavily on Chua's shoulders.

Chua's critique of Western parenting does highlight some harmful flaws.  In a side-ways manner, she gestures to the way passive aggressive parenting tactics coupled with an overindulgence of children's desires breeds entitlement and laziness.  And while the focus of the controversy has been on the stuff she put her kids through - is it even legal? - I want to address something equally as complex: the racialization of mothering.  Because although Chua nods her head to "squeamishness about cultural stereotypes," it doesn't seem to stop her from painting herself as one.  She terms herself a "Tiger mother," for Pete's sake!  The line between a celebration of cultural identity and capitalizing on orientalism to sell books is especially blurred as Chua sets herself up to be called the "tiger mom" by the press.

In the Wall Street Journal excerpt from her book, Chua's initial assurance that she is using "Chinese" and "Western" to represent broad categories quickly erodes as "Chinese" becomes Chua herself (and all other Chinese and Chinese-American mothers, or, for most Americans, any middle-aged woman who looks Asian) and "Western" becomes all the other white moms on the block.  This polarizing dichotomy only furthers the 'us versus them' divide, as if there is no grey area.  And there IS no grey area for Chua, as all Chinese-ethnic moms who employ Western parenting methods are deemed not 'really' Chinese mothers.  (Check out an awesome post on Slate.com where Nina Shen Rastogi makes this critique, and also notes the complexity of identifying with Chua's writing.)  Regardless of Chua's intentions, for Western readers, Chua is ultimately always reduceable to her ethnicity.

Interestingly, Chua has responded to the controversy over her Wall Street Journal article, as it seems she wasn't the one to title it, or approve of the final editing.  She emphasized in a CNN interview (as well as elsewhere) that her book is not meant to be a parenting guide, and in fact it is a memoir about how she changed her ways over the course of her daughters' upbringing when her youngest daughter fiercely rebelled against her tactics.  So it turns out most of the article is meant to be self-deprecating, a joke on herself for going to such extreme measures.  It is an Onion article after all.

But that's not how the Wall Street Journal article sounds, or how its readers are taking it.  And there is the rub, dear readers!  A public who already believes that "Chinese" mothers are everything Chua paints herself out to be are not able to pick up on sardonic nuance.  We don't just think that Chua fits a stereotype, we think that the stereotype is truth, and Chua is merely presenting additional evidence of what we've already condemned her to.

This article reads more to me like a tragedy of intersectional proportions, where race and gender stereotypes feed the preconceived notions of Wall Street Journal readers.  It flames the 'yellow peril' of China's imminent dethroning of our red, white, and blue awesomeness, when they will presumably spend their time laughing in our faces and relishing their children's comparatively higher SAT scores.  It reinforces the xenophobia that lead us to see Chinese as representative of all Asians, and all Asians as not-Americans, and to treat "tiger mom" as a euphemism for "dragon lady."  Chua is not seen as a conflicted mother striving to raise her children in a nativist nation that will never fully claim them as its own.  She is not seen as attempting to bridge a multiplicity of cultures amid a prevailing culture that demands she walk that bridge.  She is not seen, like all of us, as learning and growing and changing and making mistakes.  She is just that mean Chinese lady who terrorized her Carnegie Hall-performing children.  And she's selling a lot of books off of it, too.

Chua's role is dubious one, as Chua apparently had no say in what was eventually published in the article.  But as Angry Asian Man eloquently notes, "the Wall Street Journal excerpt is still a piece of shit, and the damage has been done."

And in the end, we are the tiger that cannot change its stripes.