Review: Tiger Babies Strike Back

Surprisingly, Tiger Babies Strike Back was rated lowly by some folks on Goodreads, and I think it’s unfair.

I suspect that some readers have imposed their expectations on this book. And this book is not a rebuttal to Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. There won’t be long treatises on why HER version of parenting would be better than Chua’s. 

Instead, this is a book that de-glamourises the Tiger Mom form of parenting. Think that you should be a drill sergeant mum in order to ensure that your kid becomes a success? Read this book before flicking out that whip. You may not like what you see here. Also, this book speaks best to Tiger Babies – people who were children of Tiger parents. They will be affirmed and validated by this book.

Tiger Babies Strike Back is best read as a memoir of a woman’s experience of being parented by a Tiger Mum and how that form of parenting has affected her. In many ways I am amazed at how the author’s experiences echoed mine – down to the ritual fat shaming by the relatives during the holidays! 

For one, Kim’s book has helped me deconstruct and understand so many things – Chinese family dynamics that had frustrated me for ages (and that I now realise is shared by many in the Chinese community) and best of all – the root of my Drive.

It’s the Drive that makes so many Chinese kids star students. By many standards I was a star student. I had a scholarship to study in university, was a straight-A student in college, became a freelance writer for the No.1 newspaper in Malaysia when I was 18. Yet, the Tiger parenting that enabled me to be a ‘success’ warped me in ways that surprise me till this day.

Being a Tiger baby is both good and bad. Good if you happen to thrive on competition. Bad if you happen not to. Good if you revel in the pedestal the family puts you onto if you happen to be No.1. Bad if you’re can’t meet the sky-high Expectations.

What resonated most with me is Kim’s discussion about stoicism, and how many Chinese people valued that characteristic and try to pummel a kid so that they have this “quality”. Again, good if you happen to be naturally stoic. VERY BAD if you are a passionate and sensitive person. 

Basically, traditional Chinese parenting only favours a certain type of personality. But even that personality may buckle under the stress. The author writes poignantly about the suicide of super-successful-by-anyone’s-standards Iris Chang, and how she suspects that the constant Drive to be No.1 played a part in her undoing.

Because, after a while, you get really, really, really exhausted trying to run that up never-ending mountain, and you just want to QUIT. Unfortunately, in a culture where it’s all about “face” and external success, quitting isn’t desirable.

Back to the memoir – she does ramble in the last 1/4 of the book, and I found myself skimming the pages. But she comes back with a blast with the epilogue, where she tells Tiger Babies how to “turn to the light” like she did. That epilogue alone is worth the price of the book.

Final verdict: 4 stars. An amazing book that has been unfairly judged by folks who wanted it to be something else.