Neoliberal Family Matters

Abstract

When Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), Yale Law School professor Amy Chua's memoir about raising two daughters, both top-ranked students and outstanding musicians, was published, excerpts of the book, provocatively captioned “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” debuted in an unusual venue—the Wall Street Journal. The memoir provided an account of the relentless regimen Chua imposed to produce spectacularly high-achievers, including several hours of piano practice, homework, and extra tutoring, blunt or brutal criticism of their shortcomings, and a moratorium on playdates, sleepovers, television, and other activities deemed frivolous. Interwoven with her comments on child-rearing is the story of her younger daughter Lulu's rebellion against this authoritarianism and Chua's dismayed but determined efforts, first to quell her daughter's defiance, and then when that maneuver fails, to claim Lulu's subsequent achievements as a vindication of her parenting methods. This polemical account of child-rearing set the blogosphere on fire, propelled the book into fifth position in the Amazon rankings, and turned the author into “the world's most admired, feared, loved and loathed mother” (Baker). Weeks later, Chua debated Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary, and President Obama's then-recently-departed head of the National Economic Council, on the merits of “Chinese” parenting versus “Western” parenting; the event, billed as one of the Davos World Economic Forum's hottest panels, drew politicians, journalists, academics, and business people. Stunned at the attention her book had received, Chua remarked, “I certainly never expected to talk about my parenting skills, or lack thereof, at the World Economic Forum” (qtd. in Hilsenrath).

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