Before we get there...

I am amazed with how much attention Amy Chua is receiving. As they say in business, there is no such thing as bad publicity! While most of the opinions about her parenting method is not favorable, she sure is going to sell a lot of book!

Anyway, before I can even get to the topic of implications for her kind of parenting, I need to say some more about my mother.

My mother, is a very interesting woman, to say the least. My relationship with her is definitely not Gilmore Girls. However, I do always know that she wants what she thinks is best for me, and she has sacrificed so much for me to be the person that I am. She loves me. For that, I am thankful.

My mother is the second oldest of six kids, and I think it is fair to say that she is the most stable of her siblings. It must be a recessive gene, but she is determined and very, very, responsible. From what I have gathered, her parents employed the laissez faire kind of parenting, and my mother always wished that she was pushed harder, challenged more, and been 'made better.' At fifteen, she went away to college to become a teacher, not necessarily because she wanted to be a teacher, but because she didn't have to pay tuition at the teacher's college. She became a teacher at 20, married my dad at 22, then went on to have 3 kids, while working full time, essentially raising us alone, because my dad worked so, so, so, very much.

She kept me up at night, to practice piano, to practice penmanship, to memorize vocabulary, and it really was no fun. Come to think of it, you know how most American kids fight sleep? No such thing for me. Anytime I could sleep, I gladly chose sleep over being awake. It was a punishment to stay up.

It was hard to relate her, partly, because it wasn't cultural to 'relate to a child.' One's responsibility was to take care of the said child, not to be a mushy gushy about one a child 'feels'. I came to this insight when I was in therapy during training. I had gone on and on, and on, and on, and on, about her. How she drove me crazy. My therapist looked at me, threw her hands in the air, and said, "What did you want her to do? She raised you the best she knew how! Look at you! What else do you want from this poor woman?!" That, stopped me dead in my tracks. True, what else do I want from her?

Perhaps I wanted her to be my friend. A friend wouldn't make me work so hard, a friend would let me have a boyfriend, a friend would basically, let me pick my own path. However, that wasn't her calling! A parent's calling is to direct, to guide, to encourage. Friendship comes later, when the child is grown.

Anyway, I think she did a good job being a parent, even though I wanted a friend. For me, playing the piano and wanting a friend instead of a parent got all intertwined, then, because I didn't have a friend in her, I grew to resent the piano playing. Not because I resented the piano, but because I resented her not being my friend.

By the way, things were pretty difficult between us when I was a teenager. For me, going away to college saved our relationship, marrying young helped too. (Another post for another time- maybe I should write a book about myself? There seems to be enough chapters.)

To sum up, we are friends now. She doesn't make me practice the piano anymore. Instead, I practice as much as I can, whenever I have twenty minutes to spare. On Thursdays, when I can talk without interruptions, I call her to just tell her about how my kids are driving me crazy.