Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - Amy Chua [74]
“Oh no!” Lulu cried out once. “Am I supposed to be Pushkin, the dumb one? And Sophia is Coco, who’s smart and learns everything?” I pointed out that Coco wasn’t smart and couldn’t learn anything either. I assured the girls that the dogs weren’t supposed to be metaphors for them.
“So what purpose are they serving?” Sophia asked, ever logical. “Why are they in the book?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But I know they’re important. There’s something inherently unstable about a Chinese mother raising dogs.”
Another time, Lulu complained, “I think you’re exaggerating the difference between Sophia and me to try to make the book interesting. You make me sound like a typical rebellious American teenager, when I’m not even close.” Sophia, meanwhile, had just said, “I think you tone down Lulu too much. You make her sound like an angel.”
Naturally, both girls felt the book shortchanged them. “You should definitely dedicate this book to Lulu,” Sophia once said magnanimously. “She’s obviously the heroine. I’m the boring one readers will cheer against. She’s the one with verve and panache.” And from Lulu: “Maybe you should call your book The Perfect Child and the Flesh-Eating Devil. Or Why Oldest Children Are Better. That’s what it’s about, right?”
As the summer went on, the girls never stopped nagging me, “So how’s the book going to end, Mommy? Is it going to be a happy ending?”
I’d always say something like, “It depends on you guys. But I’m guessing it’ll be a tragedy.”
Months passed, but I just couldn’t figure out how to end the book. Once, I came running up to the girls. “I’ve got it! I’m about to finish the book.”
The girls were excited. “So how will it end?” Sophia asked. “What’s your point going to be?”
“I’ve decided to favor a hybrid approach,” I said. “The best of both worlds. The Chinese way until the child is eighteen, to develop confidence and the value of excellence, then the Western way after that. Every individual has to find their own path,” I added gallantly.
“Wait—until eighteen?” asked Sophia. “That’s not a hybrid approach. That’s just Chinese parenting all through childhood.”
“I think you’re being too technical, Sophia.”
Nevertheless, I went back to the drawing board. I spun more wheels, cranked out some more duds. Finally, one day—actually yesterday—I asked the girls how they thought the book should end.
“Well,” said Sophia, “are you trying to tell the truth in this book or just a good story?”
“The truth,” I replied.
“That’s going to be hard, because the truth keeps changing,” said Sophia.
“No it doesn’t,” I said. “I have a perfect memory.”
“Then why do you keep revising the ending all the time?” asked Sophia.
“Because she doesn’t know what she wants to say,” Lulu offered.
“It’s not possible for you to tell the complete truth,” said Sophia. “You’ve left out so many facts. But that means no one can really understand. For example, everyone’s going to think that I was subjected to Chinese parenting, but I wasn’t. I went along with it, by my own choice.”
“Not when you were little,” Lulu said. “Mommy never gave us a choice when we were little. Unless it was, ‘Do you want to practice six hours or five?’”
“Choice . . . I wonder if that’s what it all comes down to,” I mused. “Westerners believe in choice; the Chinese don’t. I used to make fun of Popo for giving Daddy a choice about violin lessons. Of course he chose not to. But now, Lulu, I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t forced you to audition for Juilliard or practice so many hours a day. Who knows? Maybe you’d still like violin. Or