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46 pages 1 hour read

Amy Chua

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2011

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Part 1, Chapters 7-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary: “Tiger Luck”

Chua traces her ascent from Harvard University Law School to Wall Street. Though she is successful in her profession, she does not enjoy working in the corporate world. Her husband, Jed, thrives in the US Attorney’s office, and after his article about privacy laws is well received, he is invited to teach at Yale University Law School. As Chua shifts careers, she starts writing about law and ethnicity in the developing world. Her work brings her to the attention of the Yale Law School faculty, but when she is invited for an interview, she becomes flustered and the interview goes poorly. Eventually, she receives an invitation to teach at Duke University’s Law School and decides to move with the girls to North Carolina. Jed commutes from New Haven to North Carolina to visit them every weekend.

Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “Lulu’s Instrument”

The distance puts a strain on the family, and Chua decides to leave Duke for a position at New York University (NYU) since it is closer to Yale. Chua tries to get Lulu into an exclusive preschool in New York, but to show her disapproval, Lulu deliberately misbehaves during the interview. Despite this, Lulu goes on to love her school while Sophia struggles to socialize in her new environment. Chua finally receives an offer from Yale Law, and the family reunites in New Haven. Lulu starts piano lessons, but in an attempt to mitigate potential sibling rivalries, Chua switches her to the violin.

Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary: “The Violin”

Chua defends parental favoritism, which she notes is common in Chinese culture. She justifies her constant comparisons of her daughters by claiming that she praises Sophia to motivate Lulu. While Lulu struggled with the piano, she bonds with her new Suzuki violin instructor and thrives on her new instrument. Chua implements a rigorous training schedule for her daughters, and she and Lulu frequently butt heads. Chua feels that her hard work has paid off when the girls are invited to perform together at a gala event.

Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary: “Teeth Marks and Bubbles”

Chua contemplates some of the differences between how Chinese and Western parents relate to their children: Chinese parents are allowed to be blunter with their children while Americans discourage calling children disparaging names. Western parents are concerned about self-esteem and assume their child is fragile; Chinese parents are concerned with success and assume that their child is strong enough to handle chastising. Chinese parents maintain that their children are permanently indebted to them while Western parents do not. Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children while Western parents encourage their children to explore their own interests.

Jed’s parents were much more indulgent than Chua’s, but he trusts her and agrees to implement Chua’s Chinese parenting model. Though Chua and Jed do their best to help the girls feel part of both sides of their culture, the girls struggle to navigate their biracial identity after a trip to China makes them feel less Chinese. Chua does not let her daughters’ identity struggles interfere with their academic and musical performance: When Sophia is 10, she is invited to have her first major solo performance. Sophia’s successful performance makes Chua feel vindicated, as she remembers that Sophia used to gnaw on the piano as a form of rebellion.

Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary: “‘The Little White Donkey’”

Chua recalls an incident in which Lulu refuses to perform a piano piece correctly, and Chua retaliates by trying to find different ways to motivate—i.e., punish—her. Jed tries to persuade Chua to be more lenient, but she continues to push Lulu. A few weeks later, Lulu perfectly performs the piece, and Chua uses this as an example of how effective harsh Chinese parenting can be.

Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary: “The Cadenza”

The cultural differences between Sophia and Lulu and their white friends become more noticeable as the girls get older. The girls are not allowed to have pets, and they are forced to practice their instruments for several more hours a day than their friends are. A critical moment in Chua’s parenting comes when she searches for a way to help Lulu perfect a cadenza piece for an upcoming recital. To motivate her to practice better, Chua says the family will get a dog—the girls’ can choose the breed—if Lulu performs her very best. Lulu rises to the challenge, and soon the family has a new pet.

Part 1, Chapters 7-12 Analysis

This section focuses on the difficulties the girls face as they navigate their two cultures and raises the issue of The Role of Discipline in Parenting. Rather than acknowledging the benefits of the girls’ diverse upbringing, Chua suggests that they are actually disadvantaged by having two conflicting sets of cultural expectations. This section demonstrates Chua’s tendency to lapse into binary thinking early in her parenting journey, rather than considering that experience exists on a spectrum. One example of this is how she pits the girls against each other through parental favoritism. By praising Sophia, she hopes to motivate Lulu, whom she sees as Sophia’s opposite in every way. However, Chua’s efforts only strengthen Lulu’s rebelliousness, and even though Lulu eventually conforms to Chua’s expectations, the tension between them continues to grow.

While Chua focuses on the competition between Sophia and Lulu, she minimizes, and times omits, the discussion of how her and Jed’s relationship contributes to the family dynamics at this point in their daughters’ lives. This section describes the many career shifts Chua undergoes as she navigates her transition from Wall Street to academia, but it does not go into detail about how the parents’ physical separation and Jed’s general absence affect the girls. He visits them in North Carolina every weekend, and Chua’s decision to take a position at NYU implies that the distance was problematic for a number of reasons. However, she is characteristically tightlipped about whether or not the situation produced any emotional distress for her, Jed, or their daughters.

Chua also glosses over potential difficulties in the relationship between her and her husband. A marriage between two colleagues in the same field can be problematized by allegations of nepotism and partner-enabled networking. Academia has the practice of spousal hires, in which a university will hire the spouse of one of its faculty members, given that they have proper qualifications, but this practice has become rarer as faculty positions have becomes scarcer in all fields. Since Chua failed in her first interview at Yale, when she is finally awarded a position, she feels pressure to prove that she belongs. She does not mention how or if this dynamic affects her relationship with Jed, who is already a well-established figure in his field. While the text of course focuses on Chua’s role as a mother rather than as a wife, it is interesting to note how little of her marriage is actually discussed. There are few moments of tenderness or intimacy between Chua and Jed, and little emphasis on the romantic side of their relationship. Chua has established that she views everyone around her as competition or as someone that she can improve; perhaps, her husband falls into both categories.

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