Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - Amy Chua [35]
“No, please, Mommy, don’t make me,” Sophia said tearfully. “I really don’t feel like it.”
“I can’t,” Lulu sobbed. “Go away.”
“You have to,” I ordered. “Both of you. Popo would have wanted it.”
Sophia’s first draft was terrible, rambling and superficial. Lulu’s wasn’t so great either, but I held my elder daughter to a higher standard. Perhaps because I was so upset myself, I lashed out at her. “How could you, Sophia?” I said viciously. “This is awful. It has no insight. It has no depth. It’s like a Hallmark card—which Popo hated.You are so selfish. Popo loved you so much—and you—produce—this!”
Crying uncontrollably, Sophia shouted back at me, which startled me because like Jed—unlike Lulu and me—Sophia’s anger usually simmers, rarely boiling over. “You have no right to say what Popo would have wanted! You didn’t even like Popo—you have this fixation with Chinese values and respect for elders, but all you did was mock her. Every little thing she did—even making couscous—reflected some terrible moral deficiency for you. Why are you so—Manichaean? Why does everything have to be black or white?”
I didn’t mock her, I thought to myself indignantly. I was just protecting my daughters from a romanticized model of child-rearing doomed to failure. Besides, I was the one who invited Florence to everything, who made sure she saw her granddaughters all the time. I gave Florence her greatest source of happiness—beautiful, respectful, accomplished grandchildren she could be proud of. How could Sophia, who was so smart and even knew the word Manichaean, not see that and attack me instead?
Externally, I ignored Sophia’s outburst. Instead, I offered some editorial suggestions—things about her grandmother that she might mention. I asked her to talk about Crystal Lake and going to museums with Florence.
Sophia took none of my suggestions. Slamming the door after I left, she locked herself in her bedroom and rewrote the speech herself. She refused to show it to me, wouldn’t look at me, even after she had cooled down and changed into a black dress and black tights. And later, at the service when Sophia was at the podium speaking, looking dignified and calm, I didn’t miss the pointed lines:Popo never settled for anything—a dishonest conversation, a film not quite true to the book, a slightly false display of emotion. Popo wouldn’t allow people to put words in my mouth.
It was a wonderful speech. Lulu’s was too; she had spoken with great perceptiveness and poise for a ten-year-old. I could just imagine a beaming Florence saying, “I’m bursting.”
On the other hand, Florence was right. The kids were definitely mad at me. But as a Chinese mother, I put that out of my head.
17
Caravan to Chautauqua
The summer after Florence’s passing was a difficult one.To begin with, I ran over Sophia’s foot. She jumped out of my car to grab a tennis racket while I was still backing up, and her left ankle got caught in the front wheel. Sophia and I both fainted. She ended up having surgery under full anesthesia and two big screws put in. Then she had to wear a huge boot and use crutches for the rest of the summer, which put her in a bad mood but at least gave her a lot of time to practice the piano.
One good thing in our lives, though, was Coco, who got cuter by the day. She had the same strange effect on all four of us: Just looking at her lifted our spirits. This was true even though all my ambitions for her had been replaced by a single dynamic: She would look at me with her pleading chocolate almond eyes—and I would do whatever she wanted, which was usually to go running for four miles, rain, sleet, or shine. In return, Coco was compassionate. I knew she hated it when I yelled at the girls, but she never judged me and knew that I was trying to be a good mother.
It didn’t upset me that I had revised my dreams for Coco—I just wanted her to be happy. I had finally come to see that Coco was an animal, with intrinsically far less