BOOK NOTES: Raising strong women

By Joan Ruddiman, Special Writer
   It is not uncommon for readers who have several books going at the same time to find that the juxtaposition of ideas reveals interesting truths.
   After all the hype, I had to read “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” by Amy Chua (Penguin Press, 2011). Long a fan of Michele Norris on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” I had already read her beautiful memoir, “The Grace of Silence” (Pantheon Books, 2011). Several reviews piqued curiosity about Condoleezza Rice’s “Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family” (Crown Archetype, 2011).
   It was intriguing to discover the commonalties of these quite different families that suggest ideas about raising strong women.
   Amy Chua, a professor of law at Yale, was raised by immigrants who “started off in the United States almost penniless,” but by working “nonstop” forged careers, invested in real estate and poured all their energy and earnings into “their children’s education and future.” Ms. Chau writes, “one of my greatest fears is family decline,” as prophesied by the Chinese saying “prosperity can never last for three generations.” She is determined that her children — the third generation — will not disgrace the family.
   Michele Norris was raised in a mixed neighborhood, which was integrated when her parents — middle- class postal workers — bought a house in an all-white Minnesota neighborhood. Her life, so typical of teens in the late 1970s, was carefree in contrast to that of her parents, who had grown up in a world defined by their color — her father in the bitter atmosphere of Birmingham, Alabama, and her mother with the less overt but equally insidious racism of the Midwest.
   Condoleezza Rice also was raised — in her younger years — in Birmingham, but was fiercely protected from ugliness. Right or wrong, her parents avoided involvement in civil rights actions, choosing a life cloistered in church, art and education.
   Three very different books, with very similar messages made me think about parenting and how we influence our kids — for good or not.
   Ms. Chua divides the world into “Chinese” and “Western” parents. She admits that the terms are not that cleanly divided. And they aren’t. Her analysis made me think of immigrant parents, working-class parents, single parents who know that hard work yields success. I thought about how my grandmother raised my mother, how my mother raised me, and how I raised my three — particularly the bits about no TV, video games, and the value placed on doing well in school, pursuing music and performing arts. And I would add for both girls and boys — Scouting.
   I was struck by the similarities to Ms. Rice’s parents, who tried to send her to first grade at the age of 3. “I was terrified of the other children and Mrs. Jones,” she recounts. She refused to stay. But years of private music, skating and accelerated schooling were to come.
   Michele Norris writes of her parents’ pride manifested in their distinctive style. Their house had the nicest yard, she and her sisters were always neat — even when sent to play outside. Her parents “dressed to the nines.” Their unspoken rule was always be better than the whites, not just to stay even in a white-dominated society, but to rise above.
   For Chinese immigrants, black academics, black postal workers, the message to their children was the same: Take on the challenges and push through the doors to be the prize winner, the cheerleader, the star athlete, the class valedictorian. You WILL go to college and you CAN be anything — a lawyer, a journalist, a secretary of state.
   Education does make a difference. The second generation Chuas rose in the ranks thanks to stellar educations. In Birmingham, education is what separated the hard-working Norris family from the hard-working Rice family. Michele Norris is of the generation that went to college. Condoleezza Rice’s parents — both mother and father — were college graduates. Her grandparents had advanced educations, the best offered in their time.
   Economics shows that more education means more money, and money can cushion reality. Ms. Rice writes that her mother’s parents, in their “determination to maintain their dignity despite the degrading circumstances of Birmingham,” did not allow their children to use a “colored” restroom: “Wait until you get home. “ And they “always made sure that they had a car so that no one had to ride in the back of the bus.”
   The Norris brothers were blue-collar workers, which put them in the middle of racial tensions in working-class Birmingham. Ms. Norris is shocked to learn while researching for the book that the police brutalized her father. Not even being in uniform — he served in World War II — protected him from racial harassment.
   Though their circumstances were different, all three families lived by the mantra “let nothing hold you back” and the Tiger Parents did all they could to clear the path. Amy Chua was expected to ace every class and win every award — and her parents made sure she was prepared. Condoleezza’s parents poured all they had into their precious child. She notes that she had the most expensive babysitters money could buy — private lessons, classes and tutors. Mickey Norris had every advantage her parents could afford and more. In hindsight, she realizes how much they framed their lives — even after divorcing — on keeping her life as normal as possible.
   Ms. Norris titled her memoir “The Grace of Silence,” which conveys her contention that her parents, with their silence, allowed her to grow in grace — unaware of the injustices, the brutality, the fears that scarred her parents’ lives. They made for her a world of opportunity, without color or gender caveats. She was beautiful, talented, and smart. She could be anything she wanted to be. They buried their past in silence. She was the new world.
   In her memoir of her family, Ms. Rice marvels at how John and Angelena Rice never stopped working to insure her success — and safety. They spent summers in New York and Denver pursuing master degrees, far away from the constraints of the segregated South. They finally left Birmingham for good after the church bombing that killed Condoleezza’s friends. Denver, like the Norris’s Minnesota, was an escape from racial violence.
   The firestorm over “Tiger Mother” has settled down, although has not been extinguished. (See the Atlantic Monthly’s roundtable of reviews this month.) Days after Ms. Chua’s Wall Street Journal article (“Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” Jan. 8, C1) unleashed a wave of reactions and heated responses, the book was out. I read it in a sitting. It was as funny — laugh-out-loud funny at times — as her daughter in an op-ed piece said it was. Throughout, Ms. Chua mocks herself, noting that she often makes bad decisions with good intentions. She admits that though she still may disagree with her daughters’ choices, she does marvel at their strength.
   And that is where I found the connection between three different families. These are stories about strong women — and all are testaments to the power of Tiger Parents’ love and total devotion.
Joan Ruddiman, Ed.D., is the K-12 Gifted and Talented resource specialist for the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District. She lives in Allentown.