Everything else is just icing on the cake. It’s about striking a balance, and knowing that unconditional love and warmth is ultimately the most important thing. It feels like some people glossed over the warmth you emphasized in the tiger mom book.

But I’m ultimately very, very proud of the young women they’ve become - and a lot of it has nothing to do with me. They claim they want to raise their kids the same way. I’m very close to them, I love it that they always want to come home. I’m incredibly proud of my daughters, who are now 25 and 28. I would probably do more or less the same thing. Of course, like any parent, there are many little things that I would change. You took some heat for “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.’’ As you look back, would you change how you parent, then or now? This interview has been edited for clarity and length. It is time for a more difficult unity that acknowledges the reality of group differences and fights the deep inequities that divide us.”Ĭhua spoke to Deseret Magazine from her office in New Haven, Connecticut. “Enough false slogans of unity, which are just another form of divisiveness. Her most recent book, “Political Tribes,” offers an unlikely solution to America’s partisan polarization.

Chua’s grit and determination is a thread through most of her work, which first burst into the national consciousness with her international bestseller, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” That book, in which Chua refuses to let her daughter go to the bathroom until she masters a difficult piano composition, attracted both ire and fame for Chua, but she says her fiercest critics missed the central message: The most important thing for children is unconditional love.

Battle hymn of the tiger mother