She: Grrrr … I made Koss put away the dishes today, and then I nagged him to do his homework at least twice. I am tiger mother. Hear me roar!
Z: Tiger mother? Do you get a cape with that?
She: Nope. Not even a book deal.
Z: Then being tiger mother is weak. I say try for Bear Mom or Cat Girl.
She: Amy Chua wrote a book called, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother that has moms everywhere feeling a little pissed off.
Z: Because you haven’t eaten your cub yet?
She: She advocates for 50 hours of study time every day, and no play dates.
Z: That would certainly make it quieter around here. Other than the occasional sobbing noises that would whimper out from our child’s room.
She: Art and drama are the only classes she doesn’t require her kids to be No. 1 in, yet she threw her children’s handmade birthday card back in their faces and told them they weren’t good enough.
Z: That’s messed up. And kind of hot.
She: Get this: Her kids have never been allowed to have a sleepover.
Z: But, but … that’s the only time we get to go to the movies.
She: They’ve never been allowed to be in a school play. More impressively, they’ve never been allowed to complain about not being in a school play.
Z: How do you not “allow” your kid to complain? Cut his tongue out? That would make our house more than quiet. It would be like a monastery. What would he ever have to say if he couldn’t complain?
She: It’s even more extreme than that. Her kids have no TV or computer games. None.
Z: I thought she was Chinese, not Amish.
She: I’m pretty sure the kids don’t even get to drive the cart.
Z: I told Koss about this woman, and he looked like Bambi right before he gets run over by a truck. I think he was worried that we were actually going to start raising him like this.
She: I like that. We can use that as a threat when he’s misbehaving.
Z: He said, “But then I’d have no social life. I don’t think anyone would like that.”
She: It’s not about liking it. It’s about growing up to be a tiger in the name of world domination.
Z: As opposed to the lazy bum we’re raising?
She: Hear me roar, I am Sloth Ma.
Z: You may not be a tiger mother, but you’re still stricter than plenty of other families.
She: I don’t think you can be a comparative tiger mother in this animal kingdom.
She: Of course, we also know plenty of families who are stricter than us. Compared to them I’m a kitten mom.
Z: I like the sound of that.
She: The other part that’s interesting about Tiger Mom is that she’s a professor at Yale Law School.
Z: Then really, she’s a Bulldog mom.
She: She’s a working mom
Z: Beaver Mama?
She: It makes me wonder how she can possibly think she’s a good mom when she has a job and doesn’t have time to drive on field trips, bake cupcakes for Janitor Appreciation Day and sell wrapping paper? Who cares about the three hours of violin lessons and their trilingual fluency by age 8?
Z: Was one of the languages Amish?
She: If she can’t go to PTA meetings or work in her child’s classroom during the middle of the day, then Tiger Mom is clearly not doing her share to bring up her children to be successful. Clearly, she’s doing something wrong and must feel guilty about it. No matter what we do, we must all compare ourselves to other mothers and then feel guilty about it.
Z: I don’t have a guilty animal joke. I don’t think there are any guilty animals.
She: How can she possibly find the time to go traipsing all over the country promoting her book? Who’s cooking dinner and supervising the 50 hours of homework for those tiger cubs? They must be starving. She must feel awful about it.
Z: It’s time to take Koss to his playdate and get you a glass of wine.
She: Yes, dear.
— Share your own Tiger Mother rants with leslie@lesliedinaberg.com.