And I’m so ashamed of it! Reading Amy Chua’s book – Battle Hymn of A Tiger Mom makes me think of all the things that I should have make Chloe do instead of giving her so much choice. After all, what do kids know right? – mothers should know best as we were raised to believe. And even though I suspect my mother’s screaming, bashing, threats and belittling wasn’t the same intentions as Amy Chua’s – mothers should know best and a 8 yrs old don’t know what is best for her.
My outlaws and brother-in-law thinks that I’m strict with Chloe – but wait till they read Amy Chua’s book then they would learn to appreciate me and know how lenient I am with Chloe. So lenient that I regret some of the things I didn’t do with Chloe or make her do it because of my own upbringing. You see my mom was a wee bit crazy when it comes to the screaming – quite embarrassing when you lived in such closed proximity with your neighbors and unlike Amy Chua – she didn’t helped me to study nor hire a tutor for me to help me with my poor subjects. And again I was left to fend for myself at an early age – and my mom loved to cane us publicly, so that other people would say that we are taught well – whether we are in the right or wrong – we are at the receiving end of the cane. And my good for nothing dad would make us take off our pants, bend over and he would cane us – till we were quite old. about 12 yrs old I think if I am not wrong. I hated every bit of the teaching – so much so that I got very soft with Chloe.
I didn’t want to become my parents but neither should I be over – protective either – so with Amy Chua’s book – I’m encourage that a little bit more of a Tiger Mom than I am now. I really have to believe that Chloe can do more than what she is doing now – so I’ve started drilling her with more homework and reading at home. I’ve also started on spelling with her even though her school haven’t yet asked that she learn how to spell. And I’m proud to say that it didn’t take much for her to remember how to spell certain words. She loved to read and I’m going to spend more time reading with her from now on – and we really need to work on her math – she doesn’t like big numbers I tell you that much. One thing for sure – my kid will be brought up a lot differently from the kids we know around us.