At this year's Jaipur Literature Festival, the largest in Asia, it was a tiger mother filling the seats and drawing the crowds.
And I think Western parents these days, they're so worried their kids are going to feel bad if you say something negative.
Well, I think if you do something wrong, you should feel bad.
Amy Chua's writing, taken by some as a how-to guide on parenting, taken by others as a satirical look at cultural differences between East and West.
This week on Talk Asia, we asked the Yale law professor
if she has any regrets a year after Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother ignited the mommy wars and turned her into a best-selling author.
Did you have any idea that the reaction would be so severe? I mean, what were you getting from people? What were they saying to you?
This is so crazy. Before my book was published, my two daughters said to me,
"You know, Mommy, nobody's gonna read this book, 'cause it's a memoir and you're not a famous person and no one's gonna care."
So, we just had no idea what was gonna come.
I would say, right after the Wall Street Journal excerpt came out, I started getting 500 e-mails a day.
Some of them were incredibly supportive. Others... there's one I remember; it said "fan mail."
I open it up and it said, "There's a special place for you in hell."
I got a lot of e-mails like that: "We're gonna get you in Chicago."?Then "Go back to China" profanities.
And you know what? I... after the firestorm broke out, I was thinking, "How could this happen to me?"
It's just my own story. It's about my pulling back and, you know, not saying it's for everybody.
And, in retrospect, I think that I accidentally tapped into two of America's deepest anxieties -- fear of parenting and fear of China.
I just, like, hit that intersection, and it exploded.
What mistakes are being made, though? What do you see as mistakes being made by Western parents?
I think that we worry a lot in the West about this question of self-esteem.
I think that real self-esteem, real confidence has to be earned,
you know, the old-fashioned way -- by overcoming a challenge or mastering something.
It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but it's that feeling -- look, I didn't give up.
I tried; I didn't give up, and I discovered that I actually could do something that I thought I couldn't.
I think that's the way you build real resilience and real inner strength. Not just people giving you trophies all the time no matter what, or...
I don't think it's so helpful when parents praise their children when their kids themselves know they haven't put in their best effort.
I don't know what that really achieves.
Do you think that the Asian way of doing things -- China and India -- of educating students, which is intense, intense studying, memorization,
as opposed to sort of innovation and kind of keeping your mind a bit more open, is a better system than what is going on in America or the West?
I definitely don't think the Asian system is a better system. In fact, I think both "Eastern" and "Western" parenting have strengths and weaknesses.
I really think there is too much pressure in countries like China and Korea, especially, where everybody...
you know, it's like your whole life comes down to one exam. And it's...I don't think it's tenable. I think something...
when I went to China and Korea, I said, you know, there need to be more choices and more definitions for what counts as success.
You know, if your child is an incredible fashion designer, that should count as success.
If your child is just a really happy writer, that should count as success. And they're still much more narrow in Asia.
There are, I think, a much smaller set of things that seem to satisfy parental expectations. And I think that should change, also.
I really think the idea is not which is better. You know, and that's one of the problems with the mommy wars, is the violence and the vitriol.
We shouldn't be talking about which way is better. You know, why don't we say, "What are some of the strengths of this system? What are the strengths of our system?"
Can we try to pull in the best of all worlds? And all our kids will be happier.