Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

An aspect of the story that may stand out to readers but that Chua does not address directly is that Chua’s tiger parenting would not be successful without her family’s wealth. Chua hires a professional sound engineer to edit Sophia’s competition submission and spends thousands of dollars on her Carnegie Hall afterparty. She maintains that her tendency toward indulgent displays of pride is because she’s Chinese but never questions the appropriateness of her expenditures. Sophia did work her way to Carnegie Hall, but this was enabled by Chua spending thousands of dollars on private instructors and professional aid to make her playing sound as perfect as possible. At no point does Chua consider this an uneven playing field or consider the position of less-privileged competitors. Rather, she attributes Lulu’s rejection from Juilliard as proof that parents from Eastern European and Asian countries have the luxury of being stricter without as much pushback from independent-minded American children.

More of Jed’s backstory is revealed in these chapters. Initially, the reader encounters Jed as a lawyer who has never encountered anything but success; here, Chua reveals that acting was actually his goal, and that despite the considerable privilege of his network and background that enabled his admission to one of the most prestigious acting schools in the world, he managed to get himself kicked out. Chua frames this inciting incident as taking place because of an oversensitive director, not acknowledging the irony of this argument: The same power dynamics that she claims Jed’s former professors abused are used by Chua and Jed now that they are in positions of power at Yale. They use their connections to hire Kiwon, a recent Yale graduate, and access other resources that are only available to insiders.

In retrospective anecdotes, Chua the Narrator walks a curious line, at once critical of and oblivious to the missteps of Chua the character. Rather than learning from her mistakes, she often doubles down and uses them to confirm that she is right. For instance, after berating Sophia in front of the sound engineer, he tactfully suggests that she leave to get them coffee. Without the overbearing presence of her mother, Sophia performs well enough to secure a final take for the audition tape. However, Chua does not reflect on the ramifications of this moment: While she recognizes that the event is “traumatizing” (127) for Sophia, she resumes her hovering though it is clear that her daughters relax and perform better when she leaves them alone.