The Sunday Times today ran a story today about American lawyer Amy Chua, the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents who hothoused her parenting and wrote a book about raising her children in the the Chinese way. She pushed them so much that an A-minus grade was punished. What the ST story doesn’t tell you is that she gave her parenting technique up when she released her relationship with her daughters was at risk.

Alexandra Frean of the Times of London spoke to Amy about parenting style, her subsequent Great Retreat and about her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which chronicles her attempts to raise her children the Chinese way in the US America the United States and to explain why she eventually had to abandon the project.

Frean writes that, “Eventually, however, Chua realised she was pushing her girls too hard and it Lulu had always fought hardest against her mother’s demands and when she turned 13 last year refused to co-operate any more, sparked a string of explosive rows with Lulu.
Realising that she risked “losing” her daughter, Chua finally backed off and agreed a year ago that she could no longer micro-manage her daughters’ lives.”
And interesting, “Although she has retreated from micro-managing their lives, Chua says she is now beginning to see the longer-term benefits of her earlier work: Sophia, 18, has just applied for college on the East Coast. While other parents were hiring tutors to write application essays and visiting 30 different institutions, Chua took a back seat.
“I felt that my work had been done a lot earlier,” she says. “I just said to Sophia, it’s your responsibility – pick your schools and write your own essay. I have taught you all I have to teach you.”

The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother will be is available here mid-February at R190.

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