Amy Chua on the Climate on Campuses, Political Tribalism, and Being a "Tiger Mom" | Ep. 46
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 45 minutes
Words per Minute
201.11366
Summary
Yale Law School professor Amy Chua joins me to talk about what it's like to be a conservative on the Yale campus, and her thoughts on how things have changed since the election of Donald Trump. She also talks about her new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
Transcript
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Like that woman over there with the designer jeans.
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Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
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She's the John M. Duff Professor of Law at Yale Law School.
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And she's got two young daughters while they're in their 20s now
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who are, one's a double Harvard person, one's a Harvard-Yale person.
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So she's done pretty well in raising really smart kids.
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She also happens to have written a couple of years ago
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talking about the difference between her approach
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And she says that that can include people who are not Chinese
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So you're going to like that piece of the conversation.
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She also happens to have predicted Donald Trump's win.
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She understands one thing that most people don't,
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So this is somebody who's at an elite university.
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She's going to talk about the partisanship there,
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what it's like to be a conservative on Yale campus.
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She's got some thoughts on how things have changed
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I loved it because you were getting so much shit
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And and unless we get more Amy Chua's in the world,
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we're going to lose these bizarre cultural battles
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It's more like rational people have surrendered out of fear.
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But we need more more numbers and more just toughness,
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It's it's exactly the opposite of my own parenting style,
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And it not only obviously we were in the middle
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including the challenging of electoral results.
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I think, what is happening to the United States right now,
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And I want to talk to you about how we got here
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of identity politics and demographic transformation
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because teaching at the most liberal college campus,
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And I just knew that there was so much underground
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you know, the country was dominated economically
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and politically and culturally by a white majority.
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And that's actually what the white Protestants did
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The Census Bureau says it will happen around 2044.
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Non-Hispanic whites are no longer the majority.
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So, you know, with Donald Trump in the White House,
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this splintering on both the right and the left.
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We feel more dug into our respective groups than ever.
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Why is tribalism such a thing for us as humans?
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you know, it was always better to have a family
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There's nothing inherently wrong with tribalism.
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Because then policy and facts just don't matter.
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and you want to take down the other side no matter what.
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And you could see that, you know, all my friends,
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I mean, Yale again is the most progressive place.
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You know, it's not just like Republicans or see,
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It's a recipe for civil war if we don't fix it,
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And the reason I predicted that Trump would win
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is because, I mean, while clearly his personality
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and i disclosed that in the wall street journal article
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but then crazy life happened um in 2018 i taught my first class in august 28th
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thinking oh another new semester and that night i was seized with a terrible pain
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and i was rushed to the emergency room the next thing i know i was at icu all of my organs start
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collapsing my lung collapsed i had eight tubes put in me i was unconscious for a week
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and in the hospital for three weeks that it was a freak medical thing there was a they found when
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they finally opened me up a two centimeter hole in my colon that was releasing all these toxins
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i was going to accept thick shock but right then this is september 2018
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suddenly there are these scandalous things about
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amy chua told people to look like models in interviews
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it was so ridiculous because first of all he's a federalist society judge they're the most conservative
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judges there's a uniform when you interview you have to wear a dark suit and low heels and
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it was like the opposite it was just it's like if i were going to give crazy advice like that that's
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not the way it would be it's just so ridiculous it is ridiculous but then i was in the hospital
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under oxy coxa i mean toxin and there were all these rumors like amy chua's faking her illness
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oh so she doesn't have to but we came out of it and i'm proud that you know that there were all
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these calls that you know renounce him i felt like cultural revolution china you have to denounce them
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and renounce this and i just said no you know and then the people at school said okay you may not be
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able to teach properly there might be protests you may not get even though i was always one of the
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most popular teachers maybe there will be three people that will take your class if you don't issue
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an apology and i said you know what i'm a great apologizer but i will not apologize for something
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i didn't do i didn't say i actually would have been proud to have said something like dress look
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good you know but in this particular case i did it was just so ridiculous like looking like models
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um yeah so i so i said well then if i only have two students that's too bad i'll start
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you know and i might in my head i'm thinking of my mom and dad i was like i will win i will do it
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the immigrant way through hard work i will try to win the students back one at a time and it's been
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a long haul you know there was but i will say it wasn't just three students you know again i taught
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a big you know i have a class of 100 people coming up and i've loved being back so i think if you stand
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up for what you believe and don't cave it's not easy i don't want to sugarcoat it but it comes out
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the right way at least you at least you can be proud of who you are yeah yep you're you're 100 right
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you know it's it's hard i'm sure extra hard because you're of course at an organization i
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mean it's you know academia is like media it's almost 100 liberal and so and it's not just enough
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to you know if you are a liberal if you're a democrat you you have to be you know woke you have
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to be saying the right things you have to not be saying the wrong things and that you know the lack
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of ideological diversity in these colleges and frankly at these lower schools now is that the former
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is a is a is a real well let me rephrase that it's a real problem it's a problem at the lower
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schools and it's a serious problem in academia now or the the stats are like uh at yale there was a
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survey in 2017 saying 75 of the yale professors say they're liberal less than 10 say they're conservative
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i don't know what the others are but it's probably even lower than that honestly and um i don't even
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know like if you were conservative why would you want to go teach at a university like that where
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you're surrounded with people who not only don't think like you but they don't like you
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yeah it's it's it's definitely difficult i mean again i am proud i first of all i'm lucky that i
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teach a class called contracts and also international business transactions so we're it's it's like so
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bland and but um i because i'm a minority woman i always have a huge progressive block of immigrants
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kids and minorities and i love that they're really progressive but what i'm proud of is i'm one of the
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only classes where i also have a really large group of federal society students so this just
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past semester i had i think 14 federal society conservative students and then like you know 45
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super liberal people of color and uh it worked like if you just lay down the ground rules there
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were some tense moments i won't be i you know i'll have to be honest but again if i just i'm like
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you lay down the rules i stand up for who think i think needs standing up for facilitate the
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conversation you know i made it work and um i mean that's the academic project that's why people
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people came to law school to want to debate the other side and to hear the position and to learn how
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to articulate your position and if you just stamp out any dissension or you refuse to listen to the
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other side it just defeats the purpose is it do you feel like it's has it gotten any better on that
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you know because it's certainly the last i heard the college campuses were all about the safe
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spaces and you couldn't have honest conversations about you know these issues like god forbid you
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try to talk about race used to be just like abortion or religion um gay rights you know now it's crossed
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over into like gender and race are these third rails and nobody can talk about and i just wonder because
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of course academia and frankly again media those are the places exactly the places you should be
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talking about those things and exploring different ideas and testing your own assumptions
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yeah i'm not going to say it's gotten better yet but i i hope that we're going to turn a corner soon
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because partly this is a crazy thing to say it's getting so untenable i mean you just see people who
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were throwing out flamethrowers themselves getting sucked into it then they become the targets and at some
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point there's just nobody left um you know when i see all the people that have been canceled and it's
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just a larger and larger pool at some point you know i think the the term of having been
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canceled is just takes on a different meaning i mean coleman hughes has talked about this um
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uh so no i it was definitely still in the middle of this um you know of course president trump whatever
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just he was a uh inflammatory figure so maybe at least one thing is that the temperature will be
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reduced a little bit even though a lot of the same dynamics are still underlying um you know i'm just
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hoping that maybe we'll and i also think people are exhausted megan i really think again i
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believe in the silent majority you know i go to these dinner parties i i talk to large student
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groups i'm like wait where are you guys how come the only voices i hear loudly shrieking are so
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unreasonable and i've got this group of 100 people you all seem lovely you know i think i do think
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they're going to speak up more and more and i and i have i take comfort in believing it's we had a
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guest recently who was saying the truth will win out truth i think it was andrew sullivan was saying
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truth wins out in the end over lies and and and we just have to wait for that because we're being
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spun a lot of dishonest information on these subjects right now and i think over time more
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and more people will speak out you know you've got scientists leaving the profession of science so they
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can be be able to speak freely if that's what has to happen then that's what has to happen um but i think
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we're gonna get there all right let's talk about tiger mothering this is so fun so i i i'm very
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non-judgmental and i know you are too you're not saying you must be like me um when it comes to how
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people mother their children but i'm fascinated and i think you gave us all a gift in writing that book
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battle him of the tiger mother just because it's a window into somebody else's approach and somebody
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who a has a very successful academic history herself double harvard undergrad in law and now is
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teaching at yale law and then as we know now we didn't when you wrote the book you have two
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daughters who you work to the bone but they both went to harvard undergrad one went to harvard law
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one went to yale law so boom the proof is in the pudding in terms of academic achievement um let me
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just start with an encounter i had with you which is literally one of my favorite stories so i met you
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a couple years ago and we were talking a little bit about the book and i and i was like i get it you
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know you you know you were tough and and really sort of rode them and they got these perfect grades and
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you know of course the criticism of the book is but but what about their happiness and you said
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i know i know whenever i hear someone ask that question i think to myself yes another one down
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like i'm in love with her i love it your competitiveness your open owning of academic
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competition you don't really care you're gonna do it so do you think do you think that now having
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the girls you know become so successful academically do you have any regrets about it well i do i mean
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not big regrets i i would say that the thing i'm most proud of is actually not their academic
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credentials but the fact that we were really close that we and i i see i know how you are with your kids
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like if i if i if my kids didn't want to come home and bring their friends and if i didn't feel they
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talk to me i i would have counted myself as a failure so that was the most important thing and
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i love my own parents too um and the funny thing about the tiger mom book is yeah i mean i am super
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tough and i'm still tough but the book the whole book was a little bit misunderstood because it was
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actually written because my younger daughter rebelled my younger daughter in such a big way that the last
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third of the book was not funny and i i think the first two thirds is funny not everybody gets it but
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the last third is like oh my god i mean you know talk about it was just dark as many parents with
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adolescents know where i just it was just horrible i felt like she hated me where i was gonna lose her
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and terrible things and so i actually wrote it in a moment of crisis so so my own view is actually more
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nuanced than the media suggests i do still believe that self-esteem real self-esteem real confidence has to
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be earned um so i would love it if i could have just said to my kids you're amazing you're amazing
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you're the smartest you're the most brilliant and they would then be happy this goes to your happiness
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point that that would have been so much easier but i i actually think happiness is so elusive like how
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do we help our kids to be happy when they grow up and i sure don't have the answer but i also do know
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that being having not the skills or the confidence to get what you want in life it's not a recipe for
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happiness um being given everything and having an aimless feeling like you have no goals is not a
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recipe for happiness in life so so it's complicated but but parenting is um i've been humbled many many
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times um but yeah i mean i'm sort of like i'm still a tiger mom my daughters will confirm that
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but now that they're so much older um you know in a much more nuanced way like one of the things i
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learned is that you have to i used to think oh that's a waste of time that's a waste of time
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one of my biggest lessons learned after my kids became 15 16 and went to college is that sometimes
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you need to waste time like sometimes you need to waste a lot of time so like who are you and what
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have you done with amy that's this is not you talking this is not no there's a there's an ulterior motive
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like my younger daughter would just get not get out of bed and i would be like oh my god we have
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these papers too and this like what am i going to do and then fiendishly i would finally said let's go
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take a walk and my daughter is the slowest walker no one moves for slowly um i am such a fast-paced
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person but you know so we're like crawling around at snail's pace but after this so-called waste of time
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she felt better and finally at her own tempo would actually pull out a piece of paper you know
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so um i mean there's there's just also you just there's another thing i learned is your kids and
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your there's only so much you can do they are who they are you know um my kids are still exactly the
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same people they were when as they were when they were one you know a year old same personalities
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well let's talk about what some of the things that you know you did as a mom to raise these incredibly
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successful daughters so you lay it out in the book and i'll just read the list and then you can sort of
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explain what the goals were um you you start off by saying look how did chinese parents raise such
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stereotypically successful kids well here are some things my kids were never allowed to do attend a
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sleepover have a play date be in a school play complain about not being in a school play watch tv or
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play computer games choose their own extracurricular activities get any grade less than an a not be the
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number one student in every subject except for gym or drama play any instrument other than piano or
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violin not play the piano or violin those are the things they were not allowed to do so i love it so
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fun what what was the goal like what's the goal in in setting down that those rules so first of all as
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you could see it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek um i like my kids did get some sleep lovers and play
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dates but i stand by that list i will say that that same list was applied to me not in a joking way by
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my own parents and when i mentioned chinese parents um in the book i defined it as actually including
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like nigerian parents and jamaican american parents and korea so it's actually a little bit of an
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immigrant kid phenomenon so the goal some of that is of actually benightedness like um so my mother
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wouldn't let me do sleepovers when i was little because she came from a foreign country and i still
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remember her looking at me when i asked to have a sleepover she was like but amy i don't understand
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we have a bed here for you why do you want to go to someone else's house to sleep you know because
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she was an outsider she didn't know these people she was worried about kidnappers you know um so some
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of it is just literally kind of ignorance and i actually am a when i go give talks in china i give
01:20:36.080
the opposite advice like you don't want to raise robots you need people to know how to socialize
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but i think there's a balance like exactly how many play dates does a person need for them to
01:20:48.860
be social you know um and it also american schools are very different from say schools in korea and
01:20:54.740
i think the ones in asia are so terrible you just you know you just work all day that you know i'm
01:21:00.620
always like they need some time to off on weekends but the the kind of really touchy-feely school i sent
01:21:06.740
my kids to actually felt like a giant play day you know they didn't even do like math equations it
01:21:13.200
was just like blocks and puzzles and things like that so so but i the goal ultimately is back to
01:21:19.520
self-esteem like i think the way that a lot of immigrant parents think is i there's a line in my
01:21:25.360
book i'm like you know we there are different ways that we all love our kids and we all want them
01:21:29.600
to be happy and strong but there are different ways of doing it and the way a lot of immigrants
01:21:34.100
think about it is i need to prepare them for the future you know they're only going to be children
01:21:38.800
a certain amount of time i need to arm them with the skills and the confidence and the grits that
01:21:44.460
they need so that when they fail they have it in themselves to pick themselves up again and try again
01:21:50.040
and again because that's going to be life you wrote chinese parents assume strength not fragility
01:21:55.920
i like the way you put that i mean sometimes i feel like i'm too lax with my kids you know because
01:22:01.760
they're so sweet you don't want to hurt their feelings and i have to remind myself you know
01:22:06.400
it's okay to say don't do that you're better than that do better yeah it's it's i still believe in
01:22:13.680
that that we should assume strength not weakness in our children but i will be the first to say that
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parenting is not a science but an art like i'm always trying to calibrate you know and when i mentioned
01:22:25.580
this dark face i fell into with my younger daughter you know i would say one of the lessons i learned is
01:22:31.860
you have to listen as a parent so you have to you know your our children are so smart like it so they
01:22:38.200
know how to play us right so you're right like sometimes like like they they would always know
01:22:42.800
just the right words like they would you know certain kind of mental illness and we're like oh my god
01:22:47.100
you can have anything you want you know or i'm sad oh my god you know um uh and but but having said
01:22:54.900
that um it is tricky like i i've i've made tons of mistakes where i just i had to have my oldest
01:23:01.840
daughter or or vice versa somebody said you know daughter x is not feeling good at all and you're
01:23:08.240
not listening and you know so then i change um so i i think the baseline should be that we assume that
01:23:14.540
our children are not just these fragile people that will fall apart if you give them any criticism
01:23:18.540
because once they go out into the real world there's just gonna be a lot of criticism and
01:23:22.620
right there's a lot of things they're not going to get that they want um but i i yeah i think it's
01:23:30.400
it's a i've been humbled many times where um you know my daughters will say you know you made me feel
01:23:38.020
bad for these years and i felt we've had long talks about it i i'm like i don't remember you feeling
01:23:43.760
that bad and they're like oh that's because you weren't listening so you know you're i i feel
01:23:48.160
so let's strike the balance but i just for the record what i hear you i hear you being kind of
01:23:52.980
defensive on the book and i think it's sad because you shouldn't have to be defensive on the book i
01:23:58.040
think it's awesome that you you raise them the way you thought was best for them they turned out
01:24:02.680
great you have very solid relationships with them both but i almost feel like you must have been
01:24:07.380
shamed a lot by other moms and the media for your parenting style and you shouldn't you
01:24:13.540
shouldn't have been yeah well i do stand by it um uh so thank you for that um you know i i actually
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uh do yeah it's it really was not written as a how-to guide but i but so it's it's this weird
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thing like i wrote it believe it or not i thought it was going to be an interesting work of literature
01:24:34.580
it was like a memoir um so but yeah but thank you i i am proud of the girls that i raised i you know i
01:24:42.460
don't say it's for everybody i like the way you began this i mean i'm a teacher i have seen so
01:24:47.080
many brilliant students they come from every possible different parenting background i mean
01:24:51.340
you can take from it what you you can take from it what you will right like i i do think my general
01:24:57.080
approach other than being tough like i don't i i don't coddle them too much you know it's like i i'd
01:25:01.680
like you i don't say every two lines and a scratch of paper or like the next picasso it's like yeah it
01:25:06.400
looks fine um so i don't do that but i think i'm i'm too relaxed like i went to syracuse undergrad i
01:25:13.980
went to albany law school these are not i mean with all due respect to them these are not top tier
01:25:18.780
academic institutions and in the end it all worked out fine for me and i probably made more money and had
01:25:24.460
more success than a lot of people who wound up going right which is the moral of that story
01:25:28.480
well so so like i do have that perspective on it like yeah right if your kid doesn't get into those
01:25:33.660
schools it can all work out as long as they figure out what they're really good at and then and then
01:25:37.240
apply themselves so like all successful people i do work very very very hard um that's the one key
01:25:42.260
thing all successful people have it so and but you what you i see you doing is training your children
01:25:48.580
to work very very hard you're training them from a very young age i don't see anything wrong with
01:25:53.920
that but anyway when i look at my own parenting i think i should probably be training them harder
01:25:59.160
you know like i i don't know if it'll kick in for them the way it did for me and i don't see anything
01:26:04.120
wrong with like i like the fact that you said a's only a's but then in the back of my head i'm like
01:26:09.180
what if they bring home a b i don't think i have it in me to get the hundred practice tests as you said
01:26:14.440
make them do it like i don't know if you can half-ass the chinese parenting no you can't i mean i think
01:26:19.640
if the focus on grades gets people you know upset but like just like with papers you know what i i am
01:26:25.260
proud of this like with my students i i we have to resist the temptation to for writing our students
01:26:30.180
our kids papers for them because again it's so easy right oh it's due you know um and oh they're
01:26:37.040
crying and you want them to get a good grade and so part of being i think it i think everything
01:26:42.720
valuable is difficult and it's actually difficult just to not do it for them and make them do it another
01:26:48.020
thing i say is like i was like okay you've got to start early because you know i i've seen my
01:26:52.820
husband at the opposite model which is he's so smart he would do everything at the last minute and
01:26:56.900
then you know pull out a decent grade and feel like so heroic but that if you're competing against
01:27:02.300
somebody who started two weeks ago not as smart like me you know slowly uh you know the tortoise
01:27:08.640
will beat the hare and i'm always i say first draft you know you have to assume after you finished it
01:27:13.340
that it's you know you that you're 65 of the way there that you you're going to need to begin and
01:27:18.880
so i do have very high standards um that i think people could learn from how did you so you talk
01:27:25.300
there's a very funny part of the book where you write about um grades and you say if if that one
01:27:29.320
we're just gonna read from uh this is an excerpt from the journal if a kid comes home with an a and
01:27:33.560
with an a minus on a test a western parent will most likely praise him a chinese mother will gasp in
01:27:38.920
horror and ask what went wrong if it comes home with a b western parents might still praise the
01:27:43.680
child some might express some disapproval but be careful not to cause any insecurity or inadequacy
01:27:49.220
i'm paraphrasing now if a chinese child gets a b which would never happen you say there would first
01:27:55.880
be a screaming hair tearing explosion the devastated chinese mother would then get dozens maybe hundreds
01:28:00.900
of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up
01:28:05.220
to an a chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe their child can get them
01:28:09.440
um when i read that i remember thinking how on earth did she find the time to do that you were
01:28:16.780
still working professional you were i think you were at yala when your girls were young how how when did
01:28:22.920
you do hundreds of practice tests if they ever did come home with a b but or or something less
01:28:26.780
yeah you know that part it's it's it's exaggerated and comical but that part is true uh it's it's comical
01:28:33.720
and by the way it was kind of pretty ugly with let me talk about there was a lot of unpleasant
01:28:39.640
yelling and screaming so you have to factor that into whether it's worth it or not um i don't know
01:28:44.460
what my husband would say but the but i you know so that's another reason that i kind of am proud like
01:28:50.100
it this it's not easy to be a tiger mom this way like it's it's so much easier to say oh my god i love
01:28:55.520
my children so much i'm going out for a glass of wine with my friends you know um and i i i think this
01:29:01.120
is general a more general point about women trying to strike this balance honestly i just felt what i
01:29:06.940
gave up was leeway in my life you know like i i just woke up earlier and earlier i could be very
01:29:11.600
regimented um you know i'd see my husband at the same job as me and he'd go out for coffee with
01:29:17.380
colleagues you know come home two hours late or you know i i just i couldn't do any of that so so for me
01:29:23.780
like a lot of women i just had to get more and more organized i mean i remember that i was like i was
01:29:27.880
always looking at my clock and honestly when i look back at that writing now i am exhausted like
01:29:32.920
i'm much older now i i just would not have the energy now to do that right i i admire the energy
01:29:38.620
and the commitment to it i feel like i'm i don't have it in me i'm old i feel like i just turned 50
01:29:43.020
but i'm i'm an old 50 i'm tired no i am i'm so tired i keep asking my primary care physician i'm
01:29:47.980
like i it's actually a funny story i went to him one time and i said i think i have lyme's disease and
01:29:51.900
he goes lime no s and i said i thought he was speaking spanish i said lime c he goes i'm not
01:29:57.180
speaking spanish lime is singular i'm like oh okay i said well i think i have lyme disease he
01:30:03.180
goes why i said because i'm exhausted all the time he goes well you work full-time and you have three
01:30:07.320
young children you're gonna be tired i'm like i don't think that's it he's like that's what it is
01:30:11.340
you you know whatever you're old and you you have three young children so i don't i'm exhausted just
01:30:16.940
thinking about you know like your story with the little white donkey and lulu i don't know i wouldn't
01:30:22.060
have it in me to stay on her and anyway do you want to tell that story because it's awesome it's
01:30:26.500
awesome that's funny yeah oh this is just my daughter lulu who is so funny but she is we just
01:30:33.520
fought like cats and dogs because her personality is very much like mine and she was just she was a
01:30:37.740
kid born saying no you know she said she wasn't going to college just all kinds of things uh oh i
01:30:42.640
remember when she was in like second grade uh we got a call from the teacher and the teacher said
01:30:46.460
um oh your daughter she says she's having visions you know it's she can't do any of the work because
01:30:51.800
she has visions and they wanted to do neurological tests and maybe add and all you know which it can
01:30:57.540
be very serious but i just know my daughter i was like she doesn't have visions and i said lulu
01:31:01.820
those are called daydreams and stop it you know and on that one i was right um but that little white
01:31:10.440
dog just it is a funny story but basically there was a song called little white donkey it's really cute
01:31:14.800
where the left hand on the right hand on the piano do different things and lulu just couldn't do it
01:31:19.480
and my husband and i had a big fight because there was a lot of screaming and yelling and he finally
01:31:23.580
pulls me aside and he's like amy have you ever considered that maybe she just physically can't do
01:31:29.120
it that she's just too young and doesn't have the coordination you know she was like six and i was
01:31:33.680
like oh okay you just don't believe in her you just want to be loved which is actually true you want
01:31:38.600
to take those to baseball games and you know water slides and but i don't care because i believe in
01:31:43.960
so i rolled up my sleeves and we went back and it was ugly you know we spent hours of fighting and
01:31:49.120
ripping up and the paper but at a certain point this weird thing happened her two hands came together
01:31:54.520
and suddenly she could play this difficult piece and it was a moment that she and i still both talk
01:32:00.900
about because she looked at me and she could not believe it she she did not think she could do it and
01:32:07.540
when her hands came together she would not leave the piano she was so proud of herself she just sat
01:32:13.000
there just wanted to do it over and over again and i've gotten so much crap from this people have
01:32:17.180
been like oh my god it's child abuse she would not let her daughter use the bathroom you know and this
01:32:22.980
was not guantanamo bay right like you know little little would be like can i go to the bathroom like
01:32:27.340
every five minutes um but she was using it but that's a great story for us because she she tells the
01:32:33.840
story now that when she much later 10 years later in high school taking a chemistry test she would get
01:32:39.780
blanks like she'd say oh my god i'm gonna fail i have a blank i'm drawing a blank and then she told
01:32:45.620
me that i would then remember wait i've had this feeling before this feeling of i absolutely know i
01:32:51.260
can't do it i can't do it but just by sticking with it and just by not giving up i discovered that i
01:32:56.680
actually could do it um and that is actually what i think is the real secret to true inner strength
01:33:03.940
real self-esteem that you have taught yourself at least once you know that way you know if i just
01:33:10.620
hang in there i actually can get a good outcome i love that see i i don't worry about uh what would
01:33:16.780
happen to my daughter if i did that i worry about whether i i have the energy to do it you know and
01:33:20.740
the wherewithal to do it myself because i i remember reading about it and you were like
01:33:24.280
she ripped up the the score you know the piano score and i taped it back together i put it put it
01:33:30.420
in plastic so she couldn't rip it up and then and jed jed was like well you know the girls are
01:33:37.620
different because you were you're saying your older sister sophia could play it when she was
01:33:40.780
and and you're like oh no not that everyone's special in their own special way oh no i will be
01:33:48.660
the hated one i will be the one you don't have to do a thing i'll be the hated one she's gonna play
01:33:53.360
it and she did she did i do think too often we let our kids off the hook too early and leave them
01:34:00.780
with the opposite feeling of you know what i was right i couldn't yes that's a perfect way of putting
01:34:06.160
it let's talk about school in general now like the broader because i feel like the country is going in
01:34:12.140
in a very different way we're getting a little softer when it comes to sats and testing and and
01:34:18.580
schools in general because we're starting to believe that little junior shouldn't be forced
01:34:23.300
to take tests and you know maybe it's going to hurt their self-esteem or their happiness level
01:34:28.460
what do you think yeah i have such complicated views about this and it might surprise you i mean i
01:34:33.780
actually think that our entire education system is broken um i'm a little older than you and i it's
01:34:39.920
just it wasn't like this you know i i worked hard but it it's impossible to to like i don't even
01:34:47.720
think people should be aiming for the ivy league all the time anymore i know that's shocking to say
01:34:51.900
because you know my younger self i was obsessed with it i'll be the first to say that's all i could
01:34:55.440
think about but the way it is right now and other people have written about this it's it's almost like
01:35:00.700
you can't make a single mistake you know you have a bad year in junior high school or high school
01:35:05.460
you know because everybody has a bad year and suddenly you can't get into top schools
01:35:09.060
you have everybody has a tutor kids worrying about college at the age of 12 it's just i think it's crazy
01:35:15.300
and if you're it goes back to tribalism if you are in the middle of the country it used to be just 50
01:35:20.380
years ago that you could go to a state school do pretty well i mean work hard and you could make it
01:35:27.280
to the coast and you could rise i mean right now yeah you know you even if you're wealthy from wealthy
01:35:33.780
parents you could barely get to these top schools so i i think something is just deeply wrong with
01:35:38.540
i think our kids are so stressed at a much earlier age um that you know i had super crazy strict
01:35:46.300
parents and i just had all this free time i had all this free time when i was little um so i think
01:35:51.800
that um there's i think this is something i agree with you about like not getting too lax i think we
01:35:57.780
should have standards of i'm so into sat vocabulary words i can't tell you like for a lot of immigrants
01:36:03.700
and poor people that is actually something that you can actually do by working hard you don't have
01:36:10.120
to you know uh i mean obviously wealthy people at advantage they can get these courses but i i think
01:36:15.300
that words are important for power i used to say with lulu when i was fighting with her about the sats
01:36:20.140
words memorize the exact definition because words are power you need them even to fight me you need
01:36:27.420
them i would i would yell with her um but i i think we need a revamping i mean something's really wrong
01:36:32.920
okay so what about that yeah because you do we we see some people pushing for a lowering of
01:36:38.720
standards but in the meantime we're in the midst of you know an epidemic with young children or
01:36:45.380
teenagers who are on drugs and overwhelmed with stress and anxiety at the pressures of trying to get
01:36:53.140
ahead in a world where all their classmates are doing the same so what do we do about it so i'm not an
01:37:00.460
you know expert in education but my general view maybe goes back to my own experience with this
01:37:05.700
kind of tiger parenting is i i don't believe in lowering standards at all um i think that's going
01:37:11.820
to come back to haunt uh everybody i mean we need people who can do math and who can read you know even
01:37:18.100
with the new digital technology that's not going to change but we do need to do all these studies show
01:37:25.160
that you have to start really early with children um and i'm not talking about kids like yours and mine
01:37:30.120
now but but just if you really want people to have a level playing field um and so i don't know i thought
01:37:36.600
a lot about like maybe there's going to be another stage in my life where i kind of focus on this you
01:37:41.060
know because i did it it's such a concentrated form with my own children um i would love to you know
01:37:49.380
contribute back you know to the country in a way because i i i believe that if you just tell kids
01:37:56.080
can let kids know that you believe in them and just do a couple of things right i i don't know
01:38:01.440
you know i i'm a big education fan but i'm not answering this question very well because i i'm just
01:38:05.520
not an education expert and i'm i'm because you're like there i did stress out my kids and it all worked
01:38:10.740
out well in the end it doesn't it doesn't end badly for everyone and it's gotten even worse since
01:38:15.400
they were i mean they're you know they're again they're in their 20s and i think things have gotten
01:38:19.620
progressively worse from 50 years ago to when i was in college oh yeah can i tell you yeah so we we went
01:38:26.540
to one of these um uh like parent events here in new york where you just sit in the audience and they
01:38:30.940
get people from all the private schools kids from all the private schools and and you don't know
01:38:34.880
which school they went to but they they're all in high school and they all have an experience
01:38:38.800
and one of the guys who was there he was so so smart so open he goes to the parents his random
01:38:46.180
parents in an auditorium full of people he said do you want to know why your kids are so effed up
01:38:50.720
because they're all told they have to achieve perfect days they all have to play at least three sports
01:38:57.560
they all have to be in at least 10 clubs and they're looking for an out they're they're they're
01:39:04.220
on drugs because they're looking for an escape and of course all the parents in the audience are
01:39:08.500
they're like holy shit oh no right i know it scares me because i i do want to drive them and
01:39:15.520
i do want them to think to believe that they can handle a lot but i don't want that i agree and i
01:39:22.280
see that in my students it's like a a burden on them almost like a joylessness which i i think it's
01:39:29.360
new you know it's new it's like they come in instead of just being so excited to learn i mean i don't
01:39:34.820
want to over romanticize it but it's like they from the beginning they're worried about the next
01:39:38.800
step you know all the things that they need to do and they're stressed stressed stressed and
01:39:42.920
i don't know i just think i know it sounds very non-tigerish but i just think life is too short so
01:39:47.740
i i agree with you i think that's a real problem and i i think it's something new it's a new problem
01:39:52.060
uh you know worse than it was say even you know five or ten years ago
01:39:55.800
next book is going to be peaceful meow of the kitten mom
01:39:59.580
okay now let's talk about college admissions for a minute before i let you go because
01:40:06.540
it's i had to get your take on the college admission scandal and you know somebody who's
01:40:11.340
at elite universities has has daughters at elite universities um you went to them and you teach at
01:40:16.540
one what did you think of that i'm sure you weren't surprised like most of us most of us were
01:40:21.040
you know mouths agape but were you were you surprised i wasn't surprised uh i so basically
01:40:27.620
the the whole college admission scandal represents the exact opposite of tiger parenting um so tiger
01:40:35.280
parenting i had somebody uh very astute once say it's reading the book they're saying this is so
01:40:40.320
strange because as a mom as a western mom i'm always i want my kids to have an easier life so i'm
01:40:45.080
always like removing obstacles from them so that their life can be smoother but i see that as a tiger
01:40:50.560
mom you're putting obstacles in their way you know it's like obstacles for them to train you know um
01:40:56.400
and so this college admissions thing is the extreme of non-tiger parenting where uh i think it's the worst
01:41:02.980
thing on on earth i mean number one you're doing it for the kids number two they're not earning it so
01:41:08.560
there is zero self-esteem or inner confidence being gained from that in addition to just completely
01:41:14.080
cheating out other people um so to me i think that probably represents people who were afraid that
01:41:21.280
they couldn't compete on the merits um you know either with children who are naturally motivated or
01:41:27.840
i don't know you know immigrant kids or something um so but i i'm not that it relates back to the
01:41:34.880
previous conversation i think there's something broke about our system that makes people so desperate
01:41:39.380
that they feel they they're they need to do that out of out of love for their children right i know
01:41:45.420
and and it's like it's crazy that's that's sort of the grift we didn't necessarily know about that
01:41:50.920
gen pop which in which i include myself when it comes to this kind of thing uh we didn't know it was
01:41:55.380
happening it's the the open grift has been more of a story where it's like a your connections over time
01:42:01.540
right you're sort of your dad went to yale your grandfather went to yale and therefore you go to yale
01:42:05.760
that's one thing but people you know they spend people are making millions and millions of dollars
01:42:10.920
of donations to these universities just to pave the path for their kids and whenever i see that i'm
01:42:15.400
like how does the kid in you know florida who's working so hard to be valedictorian of his high
01:42:21.700
school which by the way you were too um of course uh how does he stand any chance how does he stand any
01:42:29.620
chance the way the systems work today and how important you know your ability to donate is
01:42:34.520
yeah it's terrible i agree i mean i you know inequality is a huge problem um and i think
01:42:41.000
for me it's inequality of opportunity that is the thing that i focus on uh and you're exactly right
01:42:47.380
i mean this kind of thing is the antithesis right it's it's the it's the definition of an unlevel
01:42:52.740
playing field where people with parents with more money and connections um and and to be honest i see
01:42:59.240
it all the time i mean and you know it's i understand the temptation like like you i know a lot of
01:43:04.280
people and you know we love our children we want to help them and i think it goes back to um kind of
01:43:10.480
needing self-restraint to telling yourself that as a parent the best thing you could do for them is not
01:43:16.120
just to make everything easier necessarily it sort of goes back to the beginning of our conversation
01:43:22.340
which is you know you said this broken education system stops people from moving into the elites you
01:43:29.260
know group of the elites not that's necessarily their goal but the point is the elites kind of
01:43:34.680
stop them from entering and the system perpetuates itself including the resentment and the tribalism
01:43:41.000
that comes from these divisions which are just so dug in exactly and in both directions you see that
01:43:47.000
for a lot of the people who are not the cosmopolitan elites there's this anti-expert thing these pointy
01:43:53.520
had people and that can be very dangerous also you know uh so so yeah it's a big problem running in
01:43:59.260
all directions well if you want to understand how we got so divided on things like covid even uh you
01:44:05.880
should check out amy's book you should read them all really because you'll learn a lot as you can tell
01:44:09.460
i am looking forward to seeing what comes next now i want to see what the tiger grandma
01:44:13.780
is like when the girls get a little older and they get married but it's been so fun catching up lots of love
01:44:20.500
today's episode was brought to you in part by scoremaster see how many points scoremaster can
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01:45:11.340
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