"Tiger Mother" or "Insane"?

          After reading the article on Slate.com by Ann Hulbert, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, I have deducted that Chua is taking over the natural cycle of Social Darwinism and replacing it with a nurturing cycle of control. Chua believes that taking control away from nature will enable her children to become productive members of society. Unfortunately for her children, they're going to become the victims of nature when there mother is no longer telling them what they can and cannot do. Society will step in and assert it's power and control over her children. Her children have no social lives, just complete and utter devotion to their work. Chua is hiding her children from society and taking away the control of her children to choose for themselves when she says that "her girls "were never allowed … not to be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama" and also never allowed not to play the piano or violin." Chua has not allowed her children to experience much in the way of  being social.
           The reasons for this upbringing of her children are very apparent. Parents like Chua really have their own agendas. When Hulbert states "They are stellar students with far-beyond-amateur extracurricular accomplishments—shoo-ins when it comes to that holy grail of hyper-parenting: Ivy League admission." we see that controlling and facilitating her power over her children was for one purpose, an Ivy League admission. Chua may want the best for her children, but what about her children experiencing life for themselves. Chua stole from her children the ability to experience their childhood, to see friends, sleepovers, to go the park, to have a dog. In a seperate but similar story in the article, we see another instance of tough child rearing with Norbot Weiner, the founder of cybernetics. Hulbert gives evidence of the dangers involved with imposing parenting when she says "Norbert Wiener, who battled depression to become the future founder of the field of cybernetics, was devastated as a teenager when, browsing in a magazine, he learned that his father, Leo, had claimed his son's successes as his own, while blaming failures on the boy." Hulbert is correct in stating that "Proselytizing and prodigy-raising are a fraught mix". Parents like Chua should be more observant and careful before breaking the balance of growth and development in their children. In the war of nature and nurture; nature always wins.



Works Cited
Hulbert, Ann. "Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother: Her New Book Will Make Readers Gasp. - By Ann Hulbert." Slate Magazine. 11 Jan. 2011. Web. 29 Jan. 2011. <http://www.slate.com/id/2280712/pagenum/2>.