"Tiger Mother’s" daughter accepted into Harvard

[Rage for Order]

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but I did not see it posted here recently.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailycaller/20110404/pl_dailycaller/tigermothersdaughteracceptedintoharvard

Amy “Tiger Mother” Chua, the Yale professor who enraged much of the United States’ parenting population earlier this year when she wrote a Wall Street Journal piece about her strict child-rearing techniques, can safely say her rigidity accomplished something. According to Above The Law, Chua’s eldest daughter Sophia has been accepted to Harvard University. Young Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld received her acceptance letter earlier this week and “has already made up her mind that Harvard is where she’ll attend college.”

Amy Chua received ample criticism in January, when she penned “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” in the Wall Street Journal and listed some of the restrictions she’d given her daughters. The rules included but were not limited to: not being allowed to attend sleepovers, have play dates, participate in school plays, complain about not being able to do school plays, get anything less than an A, play any instrument other than the piano or violin, or opt out of playing the piano or violin.

Others have opposed Chua’s methods and dubbed her abusive for name-calling her daughters and possibly bullying the young girls into perfection. But Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld herself stood up for her mom soon after the national outrage against Tiger Mother ensued.

In a letter to the New York Post titled “Why I Love My Strict Chinese Mom”, new-Harvard bound cub Chua-Rubenfeld http://dailycaller.com/2011/01/18/daughter-comes-to-tiger-mothers-defense/">wrote, “Having you as a mother was no tea party. There were some play dates I wish I’d gone to and some piano camps I wish I’d skipped. But now that I’m 18 and about to leave the tiger den, I’m glad you and Daddy raised me the way you did.”


A little more at the link. So, did the ends justify the means?

:shrug:

On a side note, I read a few of the comments posted to yahoo; my favorite was "I'm guessing most parents will settle for "Don't get pregnant; don't shoot at anyone"

:rofl:

[walldude]

1. I love the reply from the daughter..

I'm kind of bummed that you destroyed my childhood but I'm happy now that I got accepted to a good school.

Tiger mom can kiss my ass. The truth is, a person that feels the need to tell the world how much better they are than everyone else.. is an asshole.

[bullwinkle428]

19. Tiger Mom: "Mission Accomplished!" Maybe she can borrow W's banner.

Could the daughter's statement be any more proof of how robotically she was raised?

[sensate2000]

2. Lots of people go to ivy league schools without tiger moms

And I'm not talking about legacies either.

[blondeatlast]

16. +1. nt

[TNDemo]

18. I was about to say the same thing.

I am the opposite of tiger mom and my son got into MIT and Berkeley. He did best when I just left him alone. He hated hovering and would rebel. He is in a serious relationship with an Asian girl and we have talked about if they have a child together. I was surprised by just how western his attitudes were. He adapts very well to other cultures, has worked and traveled around the world, but he does not like tiger mothering. His girlfriend complains about her tiger mom but I warned my son the way you are raised usually comes out in you when parenting your own.

[Romulox]

3. Her daughter was a legacy admission. Hardly much evidence in favor of her parenting style.

:shrug:

[rurallib]

7. Just like W?

[Rage for Order]

8. Was her daughter's debut at Carnegie Hall at the age of 14 a legacy concert?

Not to discount the fact that legacy admissions occur, because we all know they do. However, you don't perform in Carnegie Hall without working extremely hard.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/8255804/Why-we-all-need-a-Tiger-Mother.html

Sophia, Chua’s compliant elder daughter, made her Carnegie Hall piano debut at 14. Lulu, the rebellious one – we’re talking polite Chinese rebellion here, not the heroin-dependent British variety – led a prominent youth orchestra and still found time to score straight As.

[bluestateguy]

4. Chua's ideas are a little over the top, but I am sympathetic

I see far too many parents who do not value education in the home, do not enforce discipline upon their children and do not promote personal responsibility. These, BTW are the same parents who are the first to blame teachers and their unions for every problem in their kids' lives.

There are some rougher edges to Chua's ideas that go a little too far for me, but all in all I think she makes a lot of sense.

[WatsonT]

6. +1

Children need time to be children.

But they also need an education.

Our current fad of making children your friends and letting them do as they please (with, naturally, everyone else to blame if they fail) is putting them at a disadvantage and is one of the signs of a society in decline.

It would be unfair to place all the blame for our school problems on the parents, but many certainly aren't helping.

[WolverineDG]

14. Those parents & "Tiger Mom" are the extremes

or they used to be.

Way back in the old days when I was growing up, my parents & those of kids I went to school with, were able to teach us discipline & value education without bullying us into taking piano & violin lessons we didn't want to take or forbidding us to go out & play (unless we were grounded).


dg

[provis99]

15. Tiger Mom doesn't value education, either.

She values wealth and social status. Do you think she'd be happy if her daughter got a PhD, and then spent her time teaching English to people in the Third World?

[exboyfil]

21. I agree with you

It is a balance. I think broad areas of their life should be open to choice (slumber parties, church outings, hanging with friends, art clubs etc) but the books come first. I don't expect As (even though that is what they have gotten to this point), but I expect them to do the best they can. I am willing to sacrifice my lifestyle to allow my kids to pursue somewhat expensive hobbies.

I also work very hard to support their academics. I tutor and Homeschool some subjects to improve their education. I want them to have opportunities that I never dreamed of, but it is much harder now to pursue those dreams than when I was the child of a factory worker and a waitress. Colleges are much more expensive, and I think the talent pool of kids is much deeper than when I was competing for scholarships. My 31 composite was something special on the ACT in 1981 in Mississippi, but it is not even good enough for a $1,500 scholarship to a state school in Iowa.

My oldest asks me about getting a job. I told her that her job right now is to get good grades. I understand the value of work, and I worked hard growing up, but the almighty GPA is more important than the dollars that can be made by a teenager.

The biggest problem in education at my daughters' school are the students who don't care (probably because their parents don't care) that disrupt classes. My oldest daughter has already been cheated out of at least an adequate education in four different classes (World Studies in 7th, English in 7th and 8th, and Earth Science in 8th). She is currently being cheated in English in 9th, but she has had fairly good teachers that have done pretty good work with her in spite of the problems. I am Homeschooling my youngest in Social Studies and English in 7th and 8th - she is getting a much better education. I have accelerated both in Math and Science to dilute some of the impact of their peers as well.

In general I think highly of our teachers, but many of the students are real problems.

You have to watch out for your kids. No one else can have your focus.

[WildEyedLiberal]

5. Yes, because the daughter of two wealthy, educated Harvard alums stood NO CHANCE otherwise

:eyes:

Yep, I'm sure it was being forbidden from having friends and fun for 18 years that got her into Harvard. Yep.

[seabeyond]

9. i am glad the daughter loves her parents. nt

[FLPanhandle]

10. Who wants to bet the girl gets a little crazy in college?

If I remember my college days correctly, it seemed the kids coming from the more restrictive families turned into the biggest party animals.

[FourScore]

11. Not my style.

If it were a one-to-one trade-off (which it isn't) I'd rather may kid have a positive, fun childhood experience and go to an ordinary university. But it's not one-to-one, so my child can have fun AND go to Harvard.

[provis99]

12. George Bush got into Harvard.

Tiger Mom is full of shit if she thinks her parenting skills had anything to do with a kid getting into Harvard.

[WolverineDG]

13. A friend of mine got accepted to Harvard

and her mom always threw the best slumber parties.

You don't have to browbeat your kid & make their life hell to get them to do well.

dg

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Godhumor]

20. Heh, the last comment reminds me a lot of when I took 30+ DC students to Japan

At the last meeting before boarding the plane was, "I don't want anyone arrested or deported. If we can manage that, I think it'll be a good trip."

It was a very good trip, indeed.

[whatchamacallit]

22. Tiger Mom is a douche. (nt)

[okieinpain]

23. do they call women "harvard sluts" at harvard, like the do at yale.

should be interesting to she how she does outside of the tiger den.