The Whelps of Tiger Moms and Irish Setter Dads
EducationAmy Chua, the Tiger Mom phenom, has finally received an apt check and mate from P.J. O’Rourke, in The Weekly Standard. Proclaiming himself an “Irish Setter Dad,” he finds the perfect use for the new Chua tome:
I gather Ms. Chua is a total bitch with her children, making them finish homework before it’s assigned, practice violin and piano 25 hours a day, maintain a grade point average higher than Obama budget numbers, and forbidding them from doing anything they might enjoy, such as exhale.
But being a male parent with a typical dad-like involvement in my children’s lives?—?I know all of their names?—?I thought Battle Hymn was great. That is, I thought it made me look great. Not that I read the dreadful book, but I did buy each of my children a copy and inscribed it, “So you think you’ve got it bad?”
The driving, manic Tiger Mom ethic — Always Excel in Academics and Music — is not only an anti-hedonic prescription for misery and resentment, as O’Rourke relates, it is also, he says, quite self-defeating:
Amy Chua, I’ve got bad news. “A” students work for “B” students. Or not even. A businessman friend of mine corrected me. “No, P.?J.,” he said, “?‘B’ students work for ‘C’ students. ‘A’ students teach.” Teaching in the Ivy League gives you a lot of time off, Amy?—?enough to write a crap book, worse than Yale prof Erich Segal’s Love Story.
This is hyperbole, of course, but there’s a germ of truth here.
Alas, O’Rourke takes his argument one step …
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