Jewish Mom Ayelet Waldman Answers Chinese Tiger Mom Amy Chua
Sat, January 15, 2011 
250,000 people Facebook liked the Amy Chua article, which is an amazing statistic. The author’s new book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is #5 on Amazon this minute.
Amy Chua speaking at the 2009 Idea Festival. Photo by Tom Ebien.We have no word if Sarah Palin’s Mama Grizzlie posse is loading up the ammo to bring Yale law professor Chua, author of Day of Empire (2007) and World on Fire (2002) to a mothering peace summit. Strictly peaceful, of course; Palin’s for peace.
After reading the subtitle for World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, I would not turn my back going to the ladies room, if the Grizzlie Mamas are present.
Am I the only person who thinks that Amy Chua should replace Kathleen Parker, as a brainiac foil to Eliot Spitzer? Truthfully, I don’t think Americans can handle that much brainpower at the same table, night after night.
Our disdain for academic excellence, violin-playing and other high and mighty subjects is a key reason why America is sinking fast into a swamp of stupidity.
Ayelet Waldman Responds to Amy Chua
America struggles with uppity s*** like high intelligence and self-discipline, which may be part of the reason why Jewish mother Ayelet Waldman weighed in this morning, writing In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom.
Before we begin reading, this rebuttal from Ayelet Waldman could get a bit confusing.
We all know that Jewish mothers frequently can’t turn on the oven and do best with a cleaning service close at hand. However, when the subject is high academic standards for children, Jewish moms rival Chinese moms, leaving us not knowing who’s on top.
I’m hard pressed to believe that Ayelet will send water balloons in Amy Chua’s direction, and I am correct.
Waldman tells her own mom stories with a focus on her mildly dyslexic daughter Rosie. The author sounds like a soul sister, not a critic, to Chua. There are differences in parenting styles, important lines of differentiation in Waldman’s mind.
By the time she was diagnosed, in second grade, she was lagging far behind her classmates. For years I forced her to spell words in the bathtub with foam letters, to do worksheets, to memorize phonemes and take practice tests. My hectoring succeeded only in making her miserable.
Rosie stopped loving school, had stomach aches and cried every day. Finally Rosie entered an intensive reading program that required her to spend four hours a day with an instructor, being drilled on how to read.
Rosie was a tearful mess, so much so that Waldman couldn’t stand “the sight of her misery, her despair, the pain, psychic and physical, she seemed far too young to bear.”
Every morning she rose stoically from her bed, collected her stuffies and snacks and the other talismans that she needed to make it through the hours, and trudged off, her little shoulders bent under a weight I longed to lift. Rosie has an incantation she murmurs when she’s scared, when she’s stuck at the top of a high jungle gym or about to present a current events report to her class. “Overcome your fears,” she whispers to herself. I don’t know where she learned it. Maybe from one of those television shows I shouldn’t let her watch.
Ayelet Waldman successfully draws one line of differentiation between herself and Amy Chua, one she notes initially, commenting that Asian-American girls aged 15 to 24 have above average rates of suicide.
Waldman’s daughter Rosie won her battle by climbing the mountain alone, “motivated not by fear or shame of dishonoring her parents but by her passionate desire to read.”
From all we know, Asian kids are deeply afraid of dishonoring their parents. We could use some of that fear in America, but Ayelet Waldman indirectly asks about the correct balance.
Waldman ends her essay writing: ” Amy Chua and I both understand that our job as mothers is to be the type of tigress that each of our different cubs needs. “
Author Ayelet Waldman with husband/author Michael ChabonWhat About Marital Sex?
This is Anne of Carversville, and, of course, I will talk about sex. I ask this question about the sex lives of Ayelet Waldman and Amy Chua because Waldman knows the pain of being a scorned mother.
In 2005, Ayelet Waldman wrote Truly, Madly, Guiltily, as essay in which she admitted that she loved her husband writer Michael Chabon more than she loved her children.
It is his face that inspires in me paroxysms of infatuated devotion. If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.
The Mama Grizzlies didn’t define good parenting in 2005. I don’t believe that Rush Limbaugh suggested that Waldman be sent to a tough love camp for bad mothers.
Nevertheless, the response against Waldman for suggesting that her relationship with her husband was primary created a mountain of negative controversy. Absolutely, Ayelet Waldman was the 2005 bad mother of the year for promoting good sex and hot love with her husband, if it meant she spent a little less time on homework.
OK, Wall Street Journal; you’re on a weekend reader roll. Smart editing. Presumably the NYTimes is shell shocked over how many women readers you’ve claimed the last week. When we finish with parenting, can we please have a Ayelet Waldman|Amy Chua faceoff on the place of sex in their marriages.
How Amy Chua has time to sleep, let alone have sex with her Yale law professor husband Jed Rubenfeld is a mind-boggling idea.
If Amy Chua has sex twice a week with Jed, we should just drop our guns, sit down, shut up and listen. Anne
Chinese tiger mom Amy Chua’s husband Jed RubenfeldAmy Chua’s husband Jed Rubenfeld talks Sigmund Freud and his book The Death Instinct at Flipart Blog.
More reading:
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Taps Into America’s Growing China Complex
Jewish Mom Ayelet Waldman Answers Chinese Tiger Mom Any Chua
Reader Comments (3)
You say How Amy Chua has time to sleep, let alone have sex with her Yale law professor husband Jed Rubenfeld is a mind-boggling idea. ? I think the word you're searching for is something all working mothers are good at: multitasking ;-)
Not totally CDM. In a major survey of American women, I regret to say that married women would rather read a book or watch a movie than have sex with their husbands.
http://www.anneofcarversville.com/health/married-women-prefer-sleep-movies-books-to-sex.html
I wish it wasn't true. The iVillage survey is very consistent with studies about American women's interest in marital sex. Re all that multitasking, American women say they are just too tired and stressed out for sex.
Personally, I believe there's more going on, but that's the official explanation. Anne
*chuckle* Having been married now for over thirty years I'd not argue your statistics on that one! I would however say the understanding of women's sexuality is sufficiently advanced the official version by now should be incorporating the cyclic nature of a woman's libido, a few days very, very, very interested (when she's fertile far more demanding than what the boys live with continuously) and a few days opposite quite interested again when she's not fertile, just mother nature being fair and all, but that leaves more than half the time she's not (instinctively or biologically) interested at all, and that would be the times that have provided female buy in to the (patriarchal indeed!) mind set that marital sex is a duty rather than a delight. Stupid Victorian boys, choosing on demand quantity instead of quality! The modern man has more right to be angry with them on that point than the girls do!
I strongly suspect if both the boys and the girls actually understood that one key point of biological difference it would be a lot easier for them to build their relationships into most enjoyable compromises based on the idea marital sex should be approached as a skill set of subtle nuances dedicated to enhancing rather than defeating what mother nature provided. But... go figure. Hard to get any political mileage out of working with mother nature, and no profit at all for the shrinks and preachers in promoting healthy sexuality rather than the contrived and conflicted version that enlarges rather than reduces stress and fatigue, that same contrived version of sexuality that drives the "super-mom" syndrome just like it drives the "macho man" syndrome seen opposite.