Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

As the girls’ musical schedules intensify, Chua chauffeurs them around New England and continues to have a hands-on approach in their training, studying their musical pieces even closer than they do. Chua does all this while working as a tenured professor, writing, and traveling to promote her own books, not to mention taking care of their two dogs. Chua dismisses any possible negative effect the stress of this high level of activity may have on her, keeping the focus on how efforts are for the girls’ benefit. In Chapter 29, however, she does admit to her emotional turmoil: “Sometimes when I know I’m wrong and dislike myself, something inside me hardens and pushes me to go even further” (191). She is aware that this tendency has a damaging effect on those around her, but she does nothing to change it.

An emotional shift occurs in the text when Chua’s sister Katrin is diagnosed with leukemia. The narrative structure reflects this, as Chapters 24-27 alternate between descriptions of Chua’s battles with Lulu and the increasing desperation the family feels at Katrin’s failed cancer treatments. The short, choppy nature of the chapters in this section creates a sense of urgency and discomfort, diverging from the longer descriptive chapters in Parts 1 and 2.

Just as she believes she can control her daughters’ futures through intensive action, Chua copes with Katrin’s leukemia by throwing herself into activity. Chua admits that she is not comfortable openly expressing difficult emotions like grief and fear; instead, she throws insults and acts like the fierce, protective tiger she believes herself to be. She wants to appear infallible and unconquerable but is painfully aware that this is not the case. In Chapter 25, her first reaction to Katrin’s diagnosis is denial: “She told me she had been diagnosed with a rare, almost certainly fatal leukemia. Impossible, I thought confusedly. Leukemia striking my lucky family for a second time? But it was true” (177). This passage shows both Chua’s desperate attempt at denial and her inevitable acceptance of the truth. Though Chua rarely goes into about her emotional responses, passages like this show that she has more emotional awareness than she expresses to those around her.

Though Chua is still at war with Lulu at this point in the book, some growth can be seen by her changed approach to training Coco and Pushkin. In Chapter 23, she writes: “My dogs can’t do anything and what a relief. I don’t make any demands of them, and I don’t try to shape them or their future” (166). This is quite a transformation from her earlier expectations that her dog should have a career.