The motherhood book you should be talking about now
I am definitely experiencing “Tiger Mother” fatigue now and I know I am not the only one. I have to say I am astonished by the level of attention Amy Chua’s book has gained–a Time magazine cover story, really? (Yes, I am jealous of that one, I will admit.) I guess controversy is truly irresistible because everyone has an opinion. I read and reviewed the book and I was very disappointed by its effort to glorify what I consider totally unacceptable parenting decisions. As Chua tries to backpedal from her words and soften her message, she should remember that all we have to go on is the book she wrote, so who are we not to take her words at face value? We can’t see in to her heart, we can only go on what she wrote in her personal memoir. Several sources have commented that Chua reminds them of Charles Barkley when claimed he’d been misquoted by his own autobiography.
I have to agree with Elizabeth Kolbert of The New Yorker who wrote in her review:
“Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” exhibits much the same lack of interest in critical thinking [as Chua's self-described approach to law school]. It’s breezily written, at times entertaining, and devoid of anything approaching introspection. Imagine your most self-congratulatory friend holding forth for two hours about her kids’ triumphs, and you’ve more or less got the narrative. The only thing that keeps it together is Chua’s cheerful faith that whatever happened to her or her daughters is interesting just because it happened to happen to them.
So what do I think we should be talking about? There is another new, provocative new book about raising daughters that is getting a lot of deserved attention. Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter is challenging, thoughtful, and well-researched. She may upend the way you think about Disney Princesses and more. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would learn anything new about this topic because I thought I was already well-versed in girlhood and growing up. But after hearing Orenstein interviewed on The Diane Rehm Show last week, I was riveted by what she had to say and I read her book over the weekend. Whether you agree with her arguments about the pressures that girls face or not, I think you need to read the book and see what you get out of it.
It rang very true for me. Not just from raising my own daughter, but from my time teaching high school. I always thought the girls in particular were “walking a narrow path of safety,” (my own term for the challenges girls faced) where there was such a small and strict safe zone between not being sexy enough (a “bitch” or a “dyke”) and being too sexy (a “slut” or a “whore” to be blunt about it). You were supposed to be pretty, accomplished, attracted to boys and attractive to them, attentive to others, not stuck up, smart but not intimidating–etc! Who could be all that? It leads up to what was identified at Duke University as the striving for “effortless perfection,” which makes me tired just thinking about it. And yes, apparently only women are expected to maintain this particular facade being “smart, accomplished, fit, beautiful, and popular — and that all this would happen without visible effort.”
But let’s be honest, do we as Moms feel that way, too? I think I’ve realized how much I have wanted to give that impression of effortless perfection myself, even when maybe I wasn’t fooling anyone! I recently told my husband “I can do all this, I just can’t make it look easy,” and if I really think about it, I probably need more help “doing it all” in the first place. It’s a work in progress. Even as “Mojo Mom” herself.
As for Orenstein’s book, I thought I knew all about princesses and sparkles, but she wove it all together in a way that was a lot more persuasive and compelling than I thought possible. She goes from Belle and Cinderella to Miley Cyrus to the stultifying path of “pink” to girls exploring new identities online to teens coming to feel that their sexuality is based on appearance and performance, not truly experiencing how they feel. When she reported that researchers had to tell girls that “looking good is not a feeling” I really felt Orenstein was onto something important. I have to say it was overwhelming to read it all at once, and I will slowly pull myself off the ceiling the next few days to put it into a wider perspective. I know my daughter hasn’t been ruined by Cinderella or even sparkly t-shirts (I hope, or else we’re in trouble) but the wider, total context is important to consider. How many “choices” do girls have in their path of socialization, versus being funneled into a narrow definition of femininity and acceptable behavior? I am well aware that boys are constrained as well, in different ways focused on masculinity, but that is an issue to explore separately another day.
So, take a listen to Orenstein on The Diane Rehm Show, read her book Cinderella Ate My Daughter, and let me know what you think.
Schedule an interview: Dr. Amy Tiemann is a frequent guest expert on parenting websites, national radio tours, magazines from Redbook to Glamour, and TV including ABC News, the CBS Early Show, and NBC’s Today Show. To schedule an interview, please contact her publicist Jill Dykes, jill@jilldykespr.com or 919-749-8488
What’s next for Mojo Mom? Introducing DoingRightByOurKids.com
As I have written about previously, 2010 was a rough year for me, but I feel like I am getting my mojo back and I wanted to share a major step in answering the question “What’s next?” for me professionally.
You’ve seen me write about child safety issues on the MojoMom.com blog, and I have taught classes as a certified Kidpower instructor. I am very proud to announce that Kidpower Executive Director and Courageous Parents, Confident Kids contributor Irene van der Zande and I are launching a new independent research project called Doing Right by Our Kids — Protecting Child Safety at All Levels of Society.
We plan to develop this into a book, but we are starting out by launching our new website www.DoingRightbyOurKids.com which allows us start writing about these issues right now, and creating new resources for parents, educators, and other adults who work with children.
On the new website, we’ll analyze current issues related to child safety, and also share timeless safety strategies that you can start implementing now. I hope you’ll check out what Irene and I are writing about child safety and how work toward a world that is free of bullying, abuse, and other forms of violence. Our kids deserve no less! The good news it that there are clear ways to get started, and each step along the way represents real progress.
We’d love to get your comments and thoughts on these issues. I am looking for ways to capture your questions and in the short term, if you have a safety-related question you’d like to see answered in our book, you can email me at amy@mojomom.com. To be honest and realistic, I cannot promise any personal replies at this moment but you can help us shape book and make sure we address your real-life concerns. If all goes well, in the near future I will be able to share some answers regularly on the blog at DoingRightbyOurKids.com
A reminder of my upcoming training this week:
On Wednesday January 19th, I will be teaching “Safe Kids in an Uncertain World,” a workshop for parents and other caring adults, at the Montessori School of Raleigh. As the sponsor, MSR has graciously opened up this workshop to any parents who wish to attend, for no charge.
Here are the event details and RSVP information for this Wednesday’s seminar in Raleigh. Please be sure to note that this particular seminar is for Parent education, and other adults who work with kids. We talk about these issues on a different level when it’s just adults in the room, therefore we cannot accommodate children at this training.
Montessori School of Raleigh Presents
Safe Kids in an Uncertain World: A Kidpower Workshop for Parents and Teachers
Dr. Amy Tiemann, Kidpower child safety expert and award-winning author and educator, has designed this seminar to give families the skills needed to become Savvy Parents, who make abuse prevention part of their family’s education and Resourceful Kids, who are well-versed in safety skills and know when, how, and whom to ask for help.
Topics include:
· Preventing abuse, molestation, or abduction by strangers or acquaintances
· Teaching children HOW to talk to strangers
· Identifying two simple warning signs that a situation presents an increased risk for abuse
· Making Kidpower safety skills part of daily life, increasing a child’s confidence while reducing anxiety
When: Wednesday, January 19th [Note updated date]
7:00pm – 9:00pm
Where: Montessori School of RaleighThis event is free and open to the public. To register, please contact Stephanie at 919.848.1545 or sh@msr.org. Due to the nature of the discussion, we are not able to accommodate children at the seminar. Childcare will be available only for currently enrolled Montessori School of Raleigh families.
About Dr. Amy Tiemann
Dr. Amy Tiemann is an award-winning author and educator who plays a central role in today’s parenting conversation. She has helped women embrace motherhood as an opportunity for reinvention with her book Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising a Family (Gotham Books, 2009). Her writing has catapulted her MojoMom.com movement into what is now one of the most popular online parenting resources. Tiemann has written her Mojo Mom blog since 2003 and has continued to find new ways to reach out to readers online. Visitors have logged more than 125,000 downloads of her Mojo Mom Podcasts alone. A sought-after speaker and commentator, Tiemann is a frequent guest expert on parenting websites, national radio tours, magazines from Redbook to Glamour, and TV including ABC News, the CBS Early Show, and NBC’s Today Show.Tiemann combines her multiple points of view as a scientist, educator, author, and parent when she addresses child safety issues. She is a certified Kidpower instructor and is the Center Director for Kidpower North Carolina. Kidpower helps kids be successful in learning and practicing personal safety, confidence, self-protection and advocacy skills. The skills taught by Kidpower helps participants prevent or stop most bullying, molestation, assault and abduction.
Please pass this invitation along, and I hope you’ll join our great group of Raleigh-based parents! If you are not in my local area you can still visit the Kidpower’s international headquarters website for a ton of great information and resources on child safety, including Irene van der Zande’s new e-book, Bullying: What Adults Need to Know and Do to Keep Kids Safe.
Schedule an interview: Dr. Amy Tiemann is a frequent guest expert on parenting websites, national radio tours, magazines from Redbook to Glamour, and TV including ABC News, the CBS Early Show, and NBC’s Today Show. To schedule an interview, please contact her publicist Jill Dykes, jill (at) jilldykespr.com or (919) 749-8488
Tiger Mother – If this isn’t abusive perfectionism, what is?
Amy Chua’s new memoir about raising her two daughters The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother burst onto the scene this week in a big way, with the excerpt posted in the Wall Street Journal, under the headline “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.” Even if she didn’t write that provocative headline, Amy Chua’s strong words evoked a strong response, creating an instant media firestorm (and selling a lot of books):
A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa [Lulu], were never allowed to do:
• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.
I’m using the term “Chinese mother” loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I’m also using the term “Western parents” loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.
The manifesto struck many as completely serious and uncompromising, yet when Chua herself appeared on The Diane Rehm Show yesterday she tried to backpedal significantly, insisting that her writing is intended partly tongue-in-cheek. When a radio listener called in, clearly shaken by her own perfectionist upbringing, Chua assured her that she really did love her daughters for who they are and did not demand perfection. Chua did a mixed dance of standing by her words and back-tracking, with backing down seeming to win the day during that interview.
As “Mojo Mom” I try hard not to inflame “Mommy Wars” of any kind and I think I have a good track record on that principle over the years. I also I realize that there are many ways to be a good parent. But I assigned myself the task of actually reading Chua’s book and forcing myself to come down on one side or another: Do I think that it’s is acceptable to treat your children the way Chua raised her daughters?
My answer is, no, it’s not okay. If the behavior described in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is not abusive perfectionism, what is?
Chua exerts utter control over her daughters’ lives for years. Her older daughter Sophia is signed up for piano and then Lulu is assigned the violin. During their intensive music training, Chua stands over them, gives measure-by-measure coaching and pages of notes. She makes them play for hours every day–“it’s only six hours when you waste five of them,”–practicing even on vacations where it’s a major headache to find a piano for Sophia, and taking the family away from actually seeing the places they are visiting.
When daughter Sophia plays a piano solo at Carnegie Hall at age 14, Chua is disappointed that her daughter is not playing in the main hall. (!) Chua wonders if the family dogs can be overachievers as well and has a hard time accepting that they might not live up to their full canine potential.
Along the way Chua demands utter perfection, coerces, battles with and regularly demeans her daughters, telling them they are awful and would shame her if they faltered the slightest bit. “If they next time’s not perfect I’m going to TAKE ALL YOUR STUFFED ANIMALS AND BURN THEM,” she yells during one piano practice. And, near the end of the story, when Amy has supposedly mellowed and become more enlightened, she tells Sophia before playing at their home for a group of visiting judges, “Don’t blow this. Everything turns on your performance. These justices aren’t coming to New Haven to hear a high school talent show. If you’re not over-the-top perfect we’ll have insulted them.”
Chua compels Lulu to play at her Bat Mitzvah [Chua's husband is Jewish so the girls share both heritages] when she doesn’t want to—a rite of passage that I believe should have truly been Lulu’s choice to play at. Even Chua’s own strict mother says she’s being too hard on Lulu, saying “Every child is different. You have to adjust, Amy. Look what happened to your father,” who ended up estranged from his own parents. That is perhaps Chua’s biggest failure, that she did not take into account how her approach was affecting each individual child.
Two days after the Bat Mitzvah, the family flies to Moscow and Lulu has her climactic showdown with her mother, a dramatic, public screaming match. Chua finally allows her daughter to quit the intensive violin schedule she has mandated from the age of six.
The family’s story is still unfolding, as this book was written during 2009, and Lulu stopped playing violin so intensively only recently to take up tennis. While that is portrayed as a positive step forward in her freedom, Chua can’t contain herself from trying to take that over too. She resorts to “espionage and guerilla warfare. I secretly plant ideas in her tennis coach’s head, texting her with questions and practice strategies, then deleting the text messages so Lulu won’t see them.” That’s where they are at the end of the book so it remains to be seen where they go next as the girls continue progressing through their teenage years.
One of the most interesting insights in the book was almost a throwaway comment by Chua, saying that she had tried playing tennis herself and “as an adult, I tried a few tournaments but quickly found that I couldn’t stand the pressure of competition.” I find it interesting that she would not push herself in that competitive arena the way she pushed her daughters and that she would allow herself to try something for a little while and allow herself the luxury of the judgment that it was not a rewarding activity for her. At what point to we allow our children that judgment call, too?
Do I believe that most American parents, including myself, can be too lenient? Yes. I realize there is a vast middle ground between too lenient and the extreme strictness and control that Chua imposed on her daughters. I also acknowledge that I don’t understand the immigrant experience and how that would shape and imprint someone’s world view. But Chua’s strictness is not in service of utter survival the way her parents experienced as new immigrants—they were so poor that they could not afford heat in the winter after moving to Harvard. Chua is trying to guard against “generational decline,” by being determined “not to raise a soft, entitled child—not to let my family fall.” In the process she goes way too far, molding her daughters like clay, and taking over their lives, truly overstepping the girls’ boundaries in a way that is unacceptable in American society.
I do take away one nugget of core wisdom that I can support, that kids are stronger than we often give them credit for. In the end I hope that writing this book is part of a helpful, healing journey for Amy Chua’s family and that she and her husband remain open to learning along the way.
Update:
I posted a brief review Amazon review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I was not sure how to even think about one-to-five “stars” so I am glad to be able to do my full analysis here on the Mojo Mom Blog.
Here is a moving blog post: Dear Asian America: Forget Chua’s Book, This is Our “It Gets Better” Moment
Schedule an interview: Dr. Amy Tiemann is a frequent guest expert on parenting websites, national radio tours, magazines from Redbook to Glamour, and TV including ABC News, the CBS Early Show, and NBC’s Today Show. To schedule an interview, please contact her publicist Jill Dykes, jill (at) jilldykespr.com or (919) 749-8488
Mojo Mom teaches parent workshop on child safety–rescheduled Jan 19, Raleigh
Weather Alert! The ice storm in Raleigh has caused our hosts to delay this seminar. The workshop will take place next week, Wednesday January 19th.
Learning Kidpower skills can help parents worry less and lead their kids more confidently.
All parents have questions about child safety–How do I know when my child is ready to go to a playdate alone? How about a sleepover or summer camp? What does my child need to know, and what as a parent do I need to check out when it comes to choosing a babysitter, school, or camps? How do I teach my child about safety with people we know as well as “stranger safety”? How can we maximize our kids’ opportunities to explore the world freely, while staying safe?
Many of us parents have a “knowledge gap” when it comes to these issues–it’s just not a part of our general parent education the way it needs to be. If you just watch media coverage that focuses on tragedies rather than everyday successes, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. I have been teaching parenting education seminars for about seven years now and have found that when you give parents information they can trust and act on, their anxiety goes down and confidence goes up. Since 2006 I have been teaching as an official Kidpower instructor. Kidpower’s workshops for children present the best teaching tools I have found for working directly with kids. You’ll hear more about how my work is evolving in this direction very soon, but for now I want to highlight a Parent Education seminar I am teaching in Raleigh next week, Wednesday January 12th. The talk is free and open to the public, thanks to the sponsorship of the Montessori School of Raleigh, so I hope my local readers can join us!
Here are the event details and RSVP information for next Wednesday’s seminar in Raleigh. Please be sure to note that this particular seminar is for Parent education, and other adults who work with kids. We talk about these issues on a different level when it’s just adults in the room, therefore we cannot accommodate children at this training.
Montessori School of Raleigh Presents
Safe Kids in an Uncertain World: A Kidpower Workshop for Parents and Teachers
Topics include:
· Preventing abuse, molestation, or abduction by strangers or acquaintances
· Teaching children HOW to talk to strangers
· Identifying two simple warning signs that a situation presents an increased risk for abuse
· Making Kidpower safety skills part of daily life, increasing a child’s confidence while reducing anxiety
When: Wednesday, January 19th
7:00pm – 9:00pm
Where: Montessori School of RaleighThis event is free and open to the public. To register, please contact Stephanie at 919.848.1545 or sh@msr.org. Due to the nature of the discussion, we are not able to accommodate children at the seminar. Childcare will be available only for currently enrolled Montessori School of Raleigh families.
About Dr. Amy Tiemann
Dr. Amy Tiemann is an award-winning author and educator who plays a central role in today’s parenting conversation. She has helped women embrace motherhood as an opportunity for reinvention with her book Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising a Family (Gotham Books, 2009). Her writing has catapulted her MojoMom.com movement into what is now one of the most popular online parenting resources. Tiemann has written her Mojo Mom blog since 2003 and has continued to find new ways to reach out to readers online. Visitors have logged more than 125,000 downloads of her Mojo Mom Podcasts alone. A sought-after speaker and commentator, Tiemann is a frequent guest expert on parenting websites, national radio tours, magazines from Redbook to Glamour, and TV including ABC News, the CBS Early Show, and NBC’s Today Show.Tiemann combines her multiple points of view as a scientist, educator, author, and parent when she addresses child safety issues. She is a certified Kidpower instructor and is the Center Director for Kidpower North Carolina. Kidpower helps kids be successful in learning and practicing personal safety, confidence, self-protection and advocacy skills. The skills taught by Kidpower helps participants prevent or stop most bullying, molestation, assault and abduction.
Please pass this invitation along, and I hope you’ll join our great group of Raleigh-based parents! If you are not in my local area you can still visit the Kidpower’s international headquarters website for a ton of great information and resources on child safety, including Kidpower founder Irene van der Zande’s new e-book, Bullying: What Adults Need to Know and Do to Keep Kids Safe.
Oprah is a genius!
Oprah is a genius! You probably already knew that, but I have to give her big props for finding new ways to engage and surprise her viewers.
I’ve been watching Oprah since I was 18 (which means that her show has been on for more than half my life) but I was rather skeptical about her new venture, OWN. But, so far, so good. The first show I watched, Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes, was compelling, and has already earned a Season Pass on my DVR. The series straddles the line between documentary and reality TV, showing how Oprah’s whole team of producers and staff puts together the show each week. From a programming standpoint, it’s a brilliant way to showcase her flagship program on OWN while it is still running on ABC. The episode I saw was about creating Oprah’s Season 25 Premiere, with John Travolta, a constructed jumbo jet cockpit, the surprise trip to Australia for the whole audience, and more. It was a new view on an Oprah show, giving us some glimpses of the media mogul herself, but also turning the show into a high-stakes exercise for her Senior Producer and focusing on the two producers, Jenna and Brian, self-described “Abbot and Costello” work spouses who were assigned responsibility for the premiere. When they cook up an idea to have a group of Ultimate Viewers take a road trip to the premiere and drive onto the stage, right into the studio mid-show, when the road trippers think they are pulling into a parking garage, Oprah says it can’t be done. Jenna and Brian’s reputations are on the line in a big way when they insist it can be done and go ahead with the plan. It turns into a down-to-the-wire challenge. Part of me had to wonder if they allowed this crazy plan to go forward to create more tension for the show, but in any case, it was compelling TV. (I have to think there was enough going on with the job of creating the season premiere itself that they didn’t have to add any manufactured drama to it for the reality show. But who knows. At least if it blew up that would have been compelling too, but I really didn’t want to see Jenna and Brian fail.)
The behind the scenes look at the show is also very educational. I am interested in media production myself (with The Mojo Mom Podcast archives in evidence) and it is amazing to see what goes into producing one episode of Oprah. Oprah makes it clear that her staff must be totally dedicated to work and if that means there is no such thing as life-work balance, so be it. I will say she came across as an effective leader and you can see how she interacts with her team. I don’t know if I could keep up with them at work, but I’ll definitely keep watching to learn from these master producers.
[photo credit: the Oprah "capster" is a creation by Mojo Girl]
What are your hopes for the New Year?
2010 was a tremendously difficult year for me, and now that I have a fresh new calendar to work with, for the first time ever I am trying to set a serious New Year’s resolution to eat better. You can read my Resolution along with others including Natalie Morales and Amy McCready on the TODAYMoms blog.
I know that is not an original resolution, but it is a serious one. I have been so stressed out about family issues that I feel myself moving closer to my own health tipping point, so that I can no longer get away with cutting corners in the areas of self-care that I do have control over. That’s not easy, because with all the stress I have been experiencing comes stress eating….mmmm, Starbucks peppermint mocha lattes, you are my friend. (That is one of the habits I need to snap out of!)
So I am celebrating the New Year, really feeling like it is a chance to turn a corner, write on a new page, wake up again and see the world with fresh eyes.
What are you looking forward to for 2011? And has anyone else noticed the proliferation of articles about how bad last year was, instead of fun end-of-the-year wrapups? To choose one of many, here is Dave Barry’s “Why 2010 Made Us Sick.”
Top 10 Courage Boosters and
Mojo Mom Party Kit, free!
 |
 |
 |
| Find me on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter | RSS Feed |
