Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Amy Chua’s memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), depicts Chua’s experience raising two American daughters according to Chinese cultural standards. Chua is a Yale law professor specializing in globalization and ethnic conflict. She is also a second-generation Chinese American, and her husband is Jewish. Chua’s strict approach is influenced by the parenting methods used by her own parents, which clash with those of her husband. Chua’s memoir was a New York Times bestseller, popularizing the phrase “tiger mom.” The parenting methods she described sparked controversy, invoking both criticism and support from parents around the world. This guide references the 2011 Penguin edition with the new Afterword.

Plot Summary

The memoir is divided into three parts. It traces Chua’s parenting of her daughters, Sophia and Louisa ( “Lulu”), and how she and her husband Jed, who is Jewish, navigate their personal and cultural differences. The memoir follows Sophia and Lulu’s childhoods, balancing mostly chronological excerpts with vignettes from Chua and Jed’s childhoods, as well as academic contemplations about the sociological implications of racialized parenting. Chua describes cultivating the precociousness of her first child and navigating the rebelliousness of her second child, all while she and her husband experience considerable career changes.