Battle hymn of a tiger mother

There can't be many people who would agree with every word on child-rearing here. Nor will there be many who think nothing here makes sense. The book is compelling reading, good to think with, and fun to hurl away with great force. I know I did this. I also know I picked it up again. I wanted to know what happened next.

I can understand her frustration with liberal parenting, and with the dumbing down endemic in the Anglophone world. (I looked at the OCR GCSE English marking criteria today; these contain two uses of a plural verb with a singular noun.) Chua implies - rightly - that these declining standards are less likely to be disadvantageous to the children of the Goldman Sachs bankers than to the children of struggling immigrants.

And yet most readers of this book will also have found themselves gasping in horror at some point: I know I did. For me, Chua's educational methods are more bearable than her character-training efforts. I agree with her that nothing is fun until you do it properly, and there is evidence that constant praise and no challenges does not make for happiness. It is also plain that few children will do enough music practice - or enough grammar or times tables - unless pressured, though conversely we could consider the long-term cost of installing perfectionism and restless dissatisfaction in every child. WE as readers could consider such things; Chua doesn't.

But the extent to which - in Chua's eyes - birthday cards and funeral eulogies also become tasks to be done 'properly' by children is chilling. Conditional love is one thing, but nobody can be perfect in every respect. Is Chua quite perfect enough herself to set standards like this for the entire world? Is it quite enough to be a soloist, or a law professor, or a novelist? Is anybody quite perfect enough? Can anything ever give back to Chua or her children the sound sweet sleep provided by knowing that ordinary is sometimes enough, that the family is a haven in a heartless world? I wonder - no, I worry - about what will happen to Chua's daughters Sophia and Lulu if they don't get into an Ivy League school, if they don't maintain a perfect GPA when they get there. Chua may forgive them, but will they be able to forgive themselves? What if they don't make it as soloists, or athletes? Parents have to arm children against failure as well as prepping them for success; by Chua's standards, most people are failures.

I pin my hopes to the dogs; one of the most engaging strands of the book is dedicated to them. Chua knows they have been a comfort because they are untrained, but still beautiful. Perhaps Sophia and Lulu will learn this lesson too.

Chua is a fine writer and she makes you argue with her, fight her, and also sympathise with her and with her daughters as she clashes with both of them. I think 'thought-provoking' is definitely the mot juste for this book. Read it and weep, yes, but smile too, and hope.

One minus; it isn't very long, and most of the striking stories have been well aired in the press.