EBThere’s a book that just hit the bestseller list this week that you might have heard of: Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. An excerpt of the book, entitled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” appeared on WallStreetJournal.com with the tagline “Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?” and ignited a ton of debate online. Personally, I was horrified at the thought of a childhood with no TV, as my own was fairly TV-heavy (and I still read more than any other kid I knew.)
One of the voices coming out against the style of parenting practiced by Chua is one of our authors, Lac Su. His book, I Love Yous Are For White People, offers a very different perspective on the type of parenting described in Chua’s book. He had no piano lessons or upscale education like Amy Chua’s kids; he had not just a Tiger Mother but the ultimate Tiger Father, whose harrowing parenting approach led Lac to a dangerous life in the Crips gang in LA but, eventually, through his own strength, to college and beyond.
You can read Lac’s essay about BHOTTM on AOL News here. His parents went even farther than Amy Chua in some ways, and it’s just as shocking.
Seriously: no sleepovers?
