<p>That’s terribly sad. However, in all fairness, does that include exchange students? I imagine that as a young exchange student, facing four years away from your home country, hating it (for whatever reason, may have nothing to do with weird parents) and feeling you can’t go back home (which is what <em>a lot</em> of exchange students feel, not only those with high expectations), would lead to depression. A lot of exchange students are from Asia, for reasons of sheer population size. So I’d want to see how that compared to the population of students from Asia, and to Asians in each of their home countries studying there. I don’t think a simple statistic like that can tell us the whole story.</p>
<p>MZZ - good point about foreign students; unique pressures could develop there that have nothing to do with the way they are raised.</p>
<p>And I completely agree with you - if Amy Chua was poor and her parenting choices uncovered there would be intervention, but since she’s an Ivy caliber educator there is publication instead. It is my firm belief that this book would not have been published without her academic credentials; not just because no one would hear of it (much like her other books) but because her academic success implies that her method will enable her children to rise to the same level.</p>
<p>Which brings up an interesting question about the timing of her publication - is she so driven that she needs an excuse if her kids aren’t admitted to HYPSM so that she won’t have to face failure? If Sophie isn’t enrolled at an Ivy in the fall - that’s not her fault anymore, it’s our fault for not accepting her wisdom.</p>
<p>There are so many puzzling things about this story. Why is Amy Chua publishing this book now? Why is she publishing it at all?</p>
<p>I just googled narcissist and it seems to fit. A narcissist is not capable of putting other people’s needs before her own. They are self-absorbed and a view into their background will reveal a traumatic childhood. Even in the pictures of Amy Chua you can see how she loves being the center of attention. I just saw a picture of the whole family and Amy Chua is front and center, beaming and her husband is off to the side looking stiff and down beaten.</p>
<p>Amy Chua has acknowledged that her mother raised her in the same way she is raising her own kids. Her husband grew up with a mother who he describes as very much like Amy Chua. This is a tragic story about generational abuse. Amy Chua was abused as a kid and became an abuser. Her husband was also abused but instead of becoming an abuser he married one. If their daughters wait to marry and have kids maybe they will have gained enough wisdom to break the cycle. Otherwise the abuse will be passed on to another generation.</p>
<p>The sins of the parents are delivered onto the children.</p>
<p>I disagree. I think the book concept is provocative enough that she could have been Flagship State U law professor and had it published. And the book really doesn’t talk all that much about prepping her kids for elite schools. It’s more just about being the best in everything they do. It’s not play-at-Carnegie-Hall-because-that-impresses-HYPSM – it’s play-at-Carnegie-Hall-because-that-way-you’re-#1-and-you-beat-everyone-else.</p>
<p>I don’t think she needs to mention Ivy League admissions - it is implied through her work history. If she was from State Flagship I think the publishers would have taken a much harder look at what she actually wrote.</p>
<p>But why would you want to? They don’t go to SHYMP. Right?</p>
<p>You’re begging the question. Why the violin? Why Carnegie?</p>
<p>There are so, so many things a person can become excellent at and enjoy and make them a living. Ms. Chua chose those things that appear to be acceptable to the aristocracy of the West.</p>
<p>It’s not merely about #1, being the best. I mean, could you see her encouraging her kids to beat this guy:</p>
<p>You know, it could be that the story is exaggerated for effect, and things that happened once are described as if they happened all the time, and that threats that were recognized as idle are reported as if they were real, etc. It could be that the whole family is laughing (together) all the way to the bank. And the backpedalling in interviews may suggest that the author didn’t expect people to take it so seriously.</p>
<p>@PG – Part of being the best, in the Amy Chua definition, is about going to the “best” (read: highest ranked) colleges. That’s just clearly implied, probably so much so in the house of an Ivy League professor that it doesn’t even bear explicit discussion. If she doesn’t let her kids have play dates, she’s definitely not letting them go to State U or even Reed College for that matter.</p>
<p>If you haven’t read Amy Chua’s book, it may not say what you think it says. I haven’t read it either, but I heard an hour-long interview with her, which altered my perspective a bit.</p>
<p>I think it’s true to the extent that if Amy Chua’s daughters don’t make it to HPY, it won’t be considered being the best. I took MS out of HMSPY because I don’t think the family care about M or S in the context of their being the best.</p>
<p>What else one make out of this statement? She will be happy with her daughters at Brown or Duke.
</p>
<p>This tells me that if Amy’s daughters don’t make it to HPY then she failed as parent because she must not be doing her job.</p>
<p>I wonder how many of us here would pay good money to see Chua’s reaction when she finds out her daughters…especially Lulu decides to apply and then attend Oberlin College. </p>
<p>Knowing how Oberlin was perceived by many people like Chua and her posh neighbors(whether Asian or not) as a haven for latter-day weed-smoking hippies and a bastion of “radical left-wing commie-pinko hedonism”, I’m thinking it will send Chua straight into orbit. </p>
<p>*Verbatim quote from one narrow-minded stuffed-shirt corporate interviewer for a financial institution in the Boston area upon finding out I was an Oberlin grad. Within the first 2 minutes, I knew the interview was going nowhere, but south…</p>
<p>UMMMM the book doesn’t mention her kids and Ivy League schools. It is about being the best. To be a master pianist, or to be on top of studies such that you are at the next level, and above the “average.”</p>
<p>-------> “If you haven’t read Amy Chua’s book, it may not say what you think it says. I haven’t read it either, but I heard an hour-long interview with her, which altered my perspective a bit.”</p>
<p>Perhaps it would be wise for you guys to read the book. I PITY her daughters Sophia and Lulu because the ignorant general public will categorize, stereotype and make false assumptions about THEM and THEIR LIVES based on a few events in a book that people didn’t even read.</p>
<p>Poor children. Mama Chua should’ve been more careful about how she LET her publishers advertise the book, and what she wrote before allowing College Discussion tear apart their lives based on 200 short pages and analyze them like a textbook, believing the textbook summarizes their entire lives.</p>
<p>Ask anyone who is famous. Ask them if what they say gets twisted in the press. Ask them if what gets reported isn’t quite what they meant or quite what happened. How many famous people won’t even talk to the press because they have too much experience with making a remark and it gets taken out of context and they have to spend way too much energy trying to explain what they meant.</p>
<p>That is exactly why Amy Chua should never have written this book. You feel sorry for her daughters and you blame us. You should blame their mother because she wrote the book. For the rest of their lives the daughters will have to try to explain to people what really happened and still noone will quite understand.</p>
<p>These two daughters have an idiot mother who decided to write a memoir about their childhood. What has happened subsequently, the misinterpretation, the taking things out of context, was absolutely predictable.</p>
<p>I just finished reading the book, and even though I don’t agree with her parenting style, I did enjoy the book. Music, schmusic. My daughter prefers to honor our family name with her high World of Warcraft levels. And let me tell you, she works at it for hours every day!</p>
<p>I am Chinese, and I am a mother. Now, that makes me a Chinese mother, right? The local chapter of the Tiger Mother Club was looking for more Chinese members, and since I was new in town, and was eager to make new friends, I sent in my application.</p>
<p>And they turned me down! Apparently I was not qualified. I found that baffling since I am a Chinese mother.</p>
<p>Reading Chua’s book explained everything. It was all about the piano.</p>
<p>Despite years of lessons, my beloved daughter has no hopes of playing Chopin in Carnegie Hall. She can barely read music notes, and her repertoire is limited to The Carpenters. </p>
<p>Oh well, it is a good thing I like Karen and Richard.</p>