The Breeder's Book Club

Learning how not to be a parent, one book at a time

Being a parent can be scary, difficult, and confusing. Luckily, there are thousands and thousands of awful books written by stupid people that will tell you exactly what you're doing wrong. But who has time to read them all?

We do. Every two weeks, our elite team of comedy moms and dads reads a different parenting book. Then, heroically, we mine nuggets of wisdom from the steaming piles of guidance. In podcast form.

We get judged so you don't have to. We are

The Breeder's Book Club

Episode 4 - Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

March 14, 2014  /  John

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Be forced to practice, practice, PRACTICE!!!

We read "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother", by Amy Chua.

Amazon.com blurb:

Chua (Day of Empire) imparts the secret behind the stereotypical Asian child's phenomenal success: the Chinese mother. Chua promotes what has traditionally worked very well in raising children: strict, Old World, uncompromising values--and the parents don't have to be Chinese. What they are, however, are different from what she sees as indulgent and permissive Western parents: stressing academic performance above all, never accepting a mediocre grade, insisting on drilling and practice, and instilling respect for authority. Chua's efforts "not to raise a soft, entitled child" will strike American readers as a little scary--removing her children from school for extra practice, public shaming and insults, equating Western parenting with failure--but the results, she claims somewhat glibly in this frank, unapologetic report card, "were hard to quarrel with."

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