Unlike the rest of America, I swore I wouldn't write about "The Tiger Mom" and her guide to hitting the bestseller list -- I mean, her guide to parenting, as she says, the "Chinese" way. But, like most Americans, I'm not good at keeping my resolutions. So, here we are.
Where are we? Helicopter parents desperately clutching at strawmen to stay afloat in the crumbling Anglo-American empire. Check. Fear is the zeitgeist of this decade, and what could be more terrifying than the prospect of seeing our children drown in the tsunamis of superior competitors now aimed at our shores? Chua may have struck a nerve among parents whose ambition and narcissism resonate with the author's, but most parents' worries are not that their kids won't be number one, but that they won't be in the game at all.
When I was a teen, I was appalled at the gauntlet my cousins in Europe faced to achieve what I took for granted: a college education. From junior high on, their lives were a treadmill of school, tutoring, evening classes and weekend study sessions. After-school activities were limited to cracking the books; anything less, and they'd lose the race to garner a position at university by not scoring well as high school seniors on the brutal college entrance exams. Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, I remember lazy afternoons, lying on the grass with my friends and gazing up at the clouds, dreaming about our future, and, of course, the boy next door. Sure, I had a part-time job, to pick up a little spending money for the Springsteen album, but neither work nor study was my raison d'etre. High school was about networking --or, as we used to call it back then, "friends."
Our state university was well funded and tuition was low. We had the luxury of meandering through major after major, exploring many paths until we found the right match. College was more about the process of self-discovery than directed performance. "Make love, and stay out of the war." As a pre-med, buckling down to get those necessary As, I envied the freedom of my classmates in college to, above all, have fun. Even those less ambitious were guaranteed a job after graduation -- with health care, pension, vacations, and perks included for those who "showed up." Life was pretty good (okay, except for disco); the obsessive pursuit of achievement was for those trying to make up for the lack of hugs in childhood.
Despite the permissive environment, we, the experimental group, didn't fare much differently than the control groups in Europe and Asia in the end. Almost all of us ended up in the middle class, raising one to two children, working responsibly at our jobs, blah, blah, blah. Yes, the top of the class ended up professing in the Ivy League, and the bottom at the state teacher's college, but, barring a few thousand square feet of unnecessary house, our lives were little different, around our nation and the First World.
But "globalization" has changed the playing field for our children. College is unaffordable, jobs are scarce and the impressive math scores reaching our ears from Shanghai portend not a loss of intellectual glory, but of a roof over our heads. Amy Chua's child-rearing program is a societal boot camp for the tough, battle-ready "soldiers" we fear we will have to raise to ensure their survival. "Drop down and give me 20, you piece of garbage!" Parents as drill instructors, "no time for love, make war."
I'll let the political pundits argue how best we can rise from this recession and return to the relative luxury of the past half-century. Suffice it to say that, as parents, we mustn't yield to the temptation to buy into the professional militarism that demands our children become obedient robots, serving parental and, later, government masters. Childhood is a treasure, and freedom, self-discovery and friendship are not dirty words, but gifts -- gifts to be opened, savored and enjoyed, and some day given, with love, to the next generation.
We face personal crossroads every day. The paths we choose reflect the value of our lives. Good grades, awards and accolades glitter brightly, but are all ephemeral. At the end of our journey, when we look back, the currency of achievement will no longer buy us solace. The much greater accomplishment will be to over the years have built a foundation of family, friendship, altruism, kindness, compassion and love.