by the Chinese Tiger mother debate. I'm not even going to link to it because it's just too much trouble.
I run with a real streak (the proper word for group) of tigers. Their names are: Claire, Erika, Michelle, Heather, Ken, Andrea, Melissa, Karen, Carrie, Jody, Tanya, Christina, Jeneva, Sara, Sarah, Lilith, Sally, Jen, Emma, Louise, Alicia, Eric, Vicki, Mary, Ellen, Jess, and countless others. If you don't see your name here, it's because you prefer to be anonymous, but I know who you are and I love running with you.
UPDATE: The streak that I run with, here, are those of us who struggle daily with the particular needs of our children who have or have had disabilities. I am bonded with all those who are mothers -- and fathers -- but national discussions, like that of the Chinese Tiger Mother thing, seem especially irrelevant in relation to parents struggling with their children who are disabled, sick, dying or dead.
exactly.
ReplyDeleteI'm so honoured to be included in your streak!
ReplyDeleteOMG have i fallen from grace into your dark anonymous black hole.
ReplyDeletexoxoxoxoxo,
rebecca
Ha! As if we had to worry about if our children can play a piano perfectly. What a terribly easy thing to have to worry about. It's all perspective, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI heard a small bit of an interview on NPR with that Tiger woman and her husband. I have no desire to find out what the whole deal is about.
ReplyDeleteMy verification word is "noncept" and if that's not a real word, it should be.
Seriously.
ReplyDeleteWho cares what this lady thinks? Who cares if Chinese moms really did think they were better moms than American moms? Who cares!! My kid is having seizure after seizure after seizure and regressing and doing shitty. Who CARES about the Tiger Mom thing? Blech.
Anything to sell a book? Publish or perish as the old adage stands -still- in Academia?
ReplyDeleteDoes she believe that the peasants' children who work in the factories in China are getting As in school?
After all they do have Chinese mothers, don't they?
I didn't know tigers ran in streaks---love that. Love lions and tigers. (growl)
ReplyDeleteI proudly run with you too!! :)
ReplyDeletei have to google this chinese tiger mother thing or whatever...what IS it?I sooo live under a rock.
Easy way to sell books, poke a frazzled guilty mom with a sharp stick and see what happens. Love you and your streak of Moms. Thanks for sharing with the world and keeping things in perspective with pitch perfect tone.
ReplyDeleteAgree with you. I haven't bothered googling it because it will not change the way I parent my children, SN or not, and I don't care if someone else thinks I am a wussy parent.
ReplyDeleteHa, you should have put up a photo of a boxing ring with this post lol.
Jen
I am tiger hear me roar...
ReplyDeleteTrue dat! EXACTLY what I've been thinking these days too!
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder what the tiger would do if she actually had a real problem to deal with, every day.
ReplyDeleteA-freaking-men! I find that I don't have the energy to care about the opinion of a woman I don't know and won't meet, who is trying to tell others, whose life circumstances she cannot know, how to parent. Oy-freaking-vey. Enough.
ReplyDeleteGeeesh... seriously?What is up with that.Not time for it and certainly no patience or tolerance for it.
ReplyDeleteSo privileged and honored to be hanging with you,and some of these other amazing parents, in this cyber world and because of our proximity to each other,in person one day.Gotta get that done.Soon.
I have no idea what you're talking about tiger-wise having no tv, etc. So I had to look tiger mom up. Ok. She sucks. Meow. I know that was catty.
ReplyDeleteThis give new meaning to the word streaking. I am proud to be streaking along side of you.
Amen.
ReplyDeleteProud to be *this* kind of tiger mother and run alongside you.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Love what Sandra said.
I have many friends who practice the Chinese Tiger Mother style of parenting. It used to make me crazy - for many of the reasons already stated in this comment section.
ReplyDeleteAnd then one day I had an epiphany: I saw how scared they were, my Tiger Mom friends - scared their kids would not be good enough, scared their kids would not have happy lives. They try to control everything because they are really scared.
And that resonated with me because sometimes I am really scared for my daughter. Yeah, I might say that my fears are way more justified or "serious" but when it comes down to it - fear is fear and getting tangled up in fear never feels good, never helps any of us.
This insight has been so freeing for me and it has helped me widen my circle of friends - honestly, some of my best, most supportive friends are Tiger Moms. Dalai Lama said it best - When you see yourself in others, who can you harm?
thank you for your update...i read your post this morning as i was preparing to fly out the door. forgive me, i am so unhip and completely out of the loop on Tiger Woman. i would have been better served to have been an anonymous viewer instead of getting your post so wrong!!!
ReplyDeleteso glad you are here.
What Noan said was surprising for me to read. I was thinking about this today and I thought, these women are afraid. This is really just mean and mean is usually due to fear Then I read Noan's response.
ReplyDeleteYes, and amen, and thank you. I have not even been able to take a breath thinking about what that Tiger Mom is (not) wrestling with, on a daily basis. It just makes me sick. And this was the perfect antidote.
ReplyDeleteNoan and Sandra: What you say is interesting, but you're far more charitable than I. That sort of controversy -- like the working mom versus stay at home mom -- has always irritated and bored me. A friend of mine wrote this about the Tiger Mom thing, and I have agree with him: "The Tiger mom phenomenon shows the pattern of an emergent bourgeois society aping the elite class and its artistic and educational traditions--without really understanding why. Character and knowledge are viewed as commodities--rather than the beginning of a life-long quest for wisdom and tranquility. As Master Kung himself said: "To go beyond is as bad as falling short."
ReplyDeleteHey Elizabeth, and thank you, my oldest has an extra copy of her 21 chromosome. Three days a week the two of us have an unspoken competition to see who can cause the most trouble. My youngest is a voice of reason and will have nothing to do with our tom foolery.
ReplyDeleteI heard an interview with the writer of that book. But even better, I read an editorial in the NYT about it by David Brooks (David Brooks!) called "Amy Chua is a Wimp." I think he laid all the hype to rest. Here is the link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/opinion/18brooks.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=davidbrooks&adxnnlx=1296135001-Y+Sr3MtKDz/kv/1Vn3UrlQ
Thanks, Elizabeth. For everything.
ReplyDeleteI love this post. In the midst of all the crap I've been dealing with, it strengthened my resolve to carry on. Much better to be part of a streak than wrestling alone against bigger entities.
ReplyDelete