Yesterday driving to work I listened to The Diane Rehm Show—as usual. The guest rankled me so badly with her air of superiority, know-it-all shrill voice, and twisted notion of motherhood I almost ran my car off the road trying to stuff my fist through the radio so I could punch the woman in the nose.
The guest was Amy Chua, author of an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal called “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” and the book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and possessor of a third-world despot’s malevolent psyche.
Geez, who raised this woman? Oh, right. a draconian mother just like herself. UGH.
If you’ve read my blogs, you will know I am NO fan of the “coddle your kids” theory of parenting—as it produces young people unprepared for the real world. IMHO Ms. Chua’s out-of-control authoritarian control (and torment/humiliate method to gain compliance) parenting style is even worse. It’s also not loving behavior. It’s emotionally abusive.
Ms. Chua is “Mommie Dearest” with mental coat hangers…a self-esteem wrecking ball in full swing. She makes Nadya Suleman look more balanced.
I do not believe your children are yours to MOLD (with threats, name-calling, shame, social deprivation, and punishment) into what YOU think they should be. Of course children need boundaries and discipline. Just as important, children need to be guided. Their individual spirits need to express themselves—all by themselves. Parents need to watch for that and provide help and encouragement.
Ms. Chua has two daughters. The first was “perfect.” The second rebelled. I am the second daughter in my family.
If I had this woman as a mother, I would have shoved her obsession with the violin down her throat. Had I received a 96% on an exam and my mother criticized me for the “imperfect” score, I would have wadded up the exam paper and thrown it at her head. Had my mother chastized me in public (oh wait, she did try that a couple times), I would scream at her to shut up. (Which ended that behavior. My embarrassment wasn’t relevant to the situation, but hers was.)
Ms. Chua was so loathsome to me that I actually thought by comparison Mark Zuckerberg was an OK guy! So loathsome that this morning while watching the smug lying piece-of-crap Tom Delay denounce the legal system that found him guilty, I found him more tolerable than Ms. Chua.
And the clincher, Ms. Chua was so loathsome that she made me appreciate my own mother. (And that issue is the elusive holy grail of my existence.) So thank you, Helen Buckley, for your hands-off mothering technique.
In addition, I didn’t hear Ms. Chua once mention her husband in the whole parenting equation. Where is he on her sadistic mothering? Perhaps hiding under the bed and praying she doesn’t come after him with chopsticks?
(NOTE: Calm down. This is not a stereotypical/racist statement. Ms. Chua said her mother hit her with chopsticks when she was growing up and she wormed around the question of corporal punishment with her own daughters. My guess is that any woman this deranged hit her kids.)
Lastly, Ms. Chua claims to have a great/loving relationship with her daughters. That only proves that Stockholm Syndrome is real. Ms. Chua’s daughters are 18 and 15. That means this story is not over by any means…
P.S. Where’s Dr. Phil??
