Tiger Mother, Marshmallow Mama or ....

A recently published book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, has given me pause to reflect on parenting philosophy since I read the NYT review and the Time article about Amy Chua's book. Her slogan behind her 'tiger mother' methodology is: "Nothing is fun until you are good at it."

Her methods are extreme but I must admit I held many of her goals and attitudes when our children were younger. I wanted them to excel so badly since I felt that was vitally important to their futures, tried to give them every advantage that our modestly funded Christian home school could afford and used plenty of anger manipulation upon them toward accomplishing these goals. However, at least three factors intervened.

First, I realized anger manipulation has all sorts of bad side effects. Then, over many years, I came to know God in a way that made knowing him and becoming like him much more important than excelling in the world system. Along the way, I realized that I was living through my children, wanting them to do all the hard, big things I'd never had courage to do.

I phased into a 'no opinion' marshmallow mama of sorts. I never had been a totally thorough tiger mother, and so conversion to marshmallow mama wasn't utterly complete either. But I did became less angry, driven, demanding and critical, more accepting, smiling and kind. My husband and I began to embrace our motto hammered out through the trials of life: "Anything worth doing is worth doing imperfectly." That includes parenting. Such an attitude drives tiger mother types crazy, but it has brought sanity to our lives.

Now, four of our children are out of our nest. I am still learning how to be a mother with our fifth. I am taking baby steps in learning how to do hard things. What is my label these days? Under construction. I still agree with Amy Chua that nothing is fun until you are good at it. I am slowly getting better at mothering and all of life with God's help.

My husband pointed out something very true about the effects of tiger mothering. Children raised stoically to be able to do hard things do excel in the world system. But that combination of stoic and success often makes it harder for them to see their need of God, to see their sinful, naked state apart from him. So my "failure" as a tiger mother, in that light, is comforting. It is good for me now to be learning how to do hard things under the tutelage of the Lord. That kind of success does not lead to pride and sets a good example for my children. How patient and faithful is God!