Tiger Babies Strike Back: How I Was Raised by a Tiger Mom but Could Not Be Turned to the Dark Side

by Kim Wong Keltner

Overview

An answer to Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, author Kim Wong Keltner’s Tiger Babies Strike Back takes the control-freak beast by the tail with a humorous and honest look at the issues facing women today—Chinese-American and otherwise.

Keltner, the author of the novels Buddha Baby and I Want Candy, mines her own past in an attempt to dispel the myth that all Chinese women are Tiger Mothers. Keltner strikes back at Chua’s argument through topics, including “East Meets West in the Board Room and the Bedroom,” and “I Was Raised by a Tiger Mom and All I Got Was this Lousy T-Shirt: A Rebuttal to Chua.”

Through personal anecdotes and tough-love advice, Keltner’s witty and forthright opinions evoke an Asian-American Sex and the City, while showing how our families shape our personal worlds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062229304
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/30/2013
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	751 KB

About the Author

The only thing that keeps Kim Wong Keltner from writing is when she’s trapped under an avalanche of her daughter’s stuffed animals. Keltner is the author of The Dim Sum of All Things, Buddha Baby, and I Want Candy. Tiger Babies Strike Back is her first work of nonfiction.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Part 1 Here's Where the Fun Begins

1 Tiger Babies Strike Back 3

2 Tiger Mom, I'm Just Not That into You 7

3 How the Unformed, Chinese American Blob Takes Shape 11

4 The Defiant Chinese Body 20

5 Tough Love, Tough Luck 26

6 Origin of the Tiger Mother Species 34

7 Rise of the 3.2 GPAs 44

Part 2 Peek Behind the Curtain

8 A Tale of Two Runts 51

9 Alpha Females in Separate Cages 62

10 Show Me to the Foxes 67

11 The Garden of Perfect Brightness Resides Within You 72

12 Love, Chinese American Style 76

13 Grandma Lucy on the Page 84

14 Misery Is Not a Contest 90

Part 3 Breaking Out of the Locked Chinese Box

15 My Mom Loves Fiona Ma More Than Me 97

16 Nothing Is for Free … Except Breast Milk 104

17 Tiger Mom's Heart Grew Two Sizes That Day 109

18 Mompetitors, Start Your Engines! 114

19 Iris Chang It 119

20 The Wheels Start to Come Loose 124

21 The Mice Go On 131

22 Aeon Flux Capacitor 139

Part 4 Emerging from the Shadows and into the Light

23 Trying to Calm the Inner Hysteria 147

24 Flap Your Wings 154

25 Who's Biting Your Style? 157

26 Welcome to What I Didn't Know 168

27 Dragon Lady Versus Pearl Concubine 173

28 Dispatches from the Front Lines of Third Grade 179

Part 5 Older and Wiser

29 Mommy, I Know What the F-Word Is! 189

30 Dismantling the Lonely Honeycomb of Your Inner Wasp's Nest 197

31 Don't Wash Pinky, Okay? 202

32 Before You Vanish Out of View 210

33 Scrambling Past the Dahlias 214

34 Place Your Hand in the Beast's Mouth 225

35 Do My Dreaming and My Scheming, Laugh at Yesterday 228

36 Bring On the Playdates 234

37 Friends Don't Let Friends Be Tiger Moms 239

38 The Reamer Can't Hide the Pride 246

39 Something Rejected Is the Key to Your Heart 250

Epilogue 253

What People are Saying About This

Beth Lisick

It’s awesome to find such deep truth that makes you laugh this hard.

Editorial Reviews

The message behind novelist Keltner’s first nonfiction book is clear: she wasn’t given enough love as a child and she’s determined not to repeat that same mistake with her daughter, Lucy. As a Chinese-American raised by a “Tiger Mother,” she has ample material to demonstrate her chilly upbringing, and offers plenty of wrenching anecdotes about, and pointed barbs towards, her mother. However, she answers the uproar over Amy Chua’s 2011 Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother with more of a whine, repeatedly hashing out her mommy issues with dramatic cries of anger mixed with half-hearted attempts at maternal sympathy now that she’s a mother herself. There is a tendency towards clichéd, cutesy language, and misplaced humor that undermines the entire project; Keltner frequently resorts to short zingers or pop-culture references immediately following a raw emotional description. For example, after recounting her mother’s response to being confronted about spanking her children, Keltner (The Dim Sum of All Things) employs an unfortunate use of one-liners like “Um, yeah,” “What now, genius?,” and “So sue me.” Keltner’s constant plea for an emotional awakening from her fellow tiger babies is perhaps too well-realized; ironically, in this well-intentioned but scattered work, the heart of the issue is blotted out by over-emotionalism. Agent: Agnes Birnbaum. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

The author writes with compassion, humor, love and anger about her mother’s combination of tough love and high expectations…A quirky reflection on the modern immigrant experience and hyphenated ethnicity in America.” — Kirkus Reviews

“An inspiring take on mothering — and daughtering. The book is smart, creative, and thought-provoking.” — Linda Small, author of Wimpy Parents: How Not to Raise a Brat

“A sort of Asian American Sex in the City...like meeting someone who voices thoughts or experiences that you presumed were wholly yours...cynically humorous and genuinely touching...Keltner’s wry sens of humor leaps off every page.” — generationrice

“Full of feisty humor. . . . Smart and sassy.” — USA Today

It’s awesome to find such deep truth that makes you laugh this hard. — Beth Lisick, author of Everybody Into the Pool

From the Publisher

Full of feisty humor. . . . Smart and sassy.

USA Today

An inspiring take on mothering — and daughtering. The book is smart, creative, and thought-provoking.

Linda Small

A sort of Asian American Sex in the City...like meeting someone who voices thoughts or experiences that you presumed were wholly yours...cynically humorous and genuinely touching...Keltner’s wry sens of humor leaps off every page.

generationrice

It’s awesome to find such deep truth that makes you laugh this hard.

Beth Lisick

Full of feisty humor. . . . Smart and sassy.

USA Today

Novelist Keltner (Buddha Baby, 2005, etc.) examines her struggle to define her own identity as a Chinese-American. Shaping her memoir as a rebuttal to Yale law professor Amy Chua's controversial and best-selling Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), Keltner writes about her experiences being raised by a vintage Tiger Mother and her rejection of that model. Only as she reached adulthood did she realize the extent of the prejudice faced by Chinese immigrants and begin to appreciate her family. The author describes how her own mother referred to her as lazy despite the fact that by age 38, she had graduated from the University of California with a double major and published three novels while putting her husband through graduate school and then raising a daughter. Her parents immigrated to America after World War II, and they were intent on working hard to make a success of their new lives, while still holding on to Chinese traditions. Keltner wanted nothing more than to identify with her American schoolmates. In college, she studied English literature and met her husband in a Chaucer class. Even though he was white and only a schoolteacher, Keltner's parents accepted him into the family and adored their granddaughter. Eventually, she and her husband moved from San Francisco to the less-stressful environment of Nevada City, away from the web of family obligations. The author writes with compassion, humor, love and anger about her mother's combination of tough love and high expectations. "[N]ot every Chinese parent rules the home with an iron fist of fury," she writes. Anything but a Tiger Mother herself, she lavishes love and attention on her daughter. A quirky reflection on the modern immigrant experience and hyphenated ethnicity in America.

Kirkus Reviews