The Battle Hymn of the Jewish Mother

By Deborah Grayson Riegel

How dare she. How dare a mother deny her children playdates, television and even bathroom breaks until they had mastered their musical instruments. What kind of mom-ster does this?

These were the battle cries covered in the New York Times, on the Today Show and NPR , and on most other major news outlets in response to the new book, "The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," written by Yale professor Amy Chua, who chronicles her insistence on bringing up her children in the traditional Chinese manner in which she herself was raised. Psychologists (both legitimate and self-appointed) predicted that Chua's daughters would grow up rebellious, resentful and/or emotionally stunted. Parents condemned her methods as cruel and unusual punishment for the simple crime of being her Chinese-American-Jewish children.

I, too, am shocked at her methods. I, too, pity those girls. And I, too, see myself in that fierce and ferociously controlling Tiger Mother. And whether you are a parent or not, I'll bet you have some inner Tiger Mother that impacts how well you work and play with others.

Read more here - The Jewish Week