What We Do (and Don’t) Control As Parents

I got into a heated discussion this week with a tiger mother. She was angry. Angry about Battle Hymn of the Tiger Daughter. Or rather, about the emotions the book brought out in her. I always tell people, “The book isn’t about you. It’s about me.”

But no one ever believes this. They think they see themselves reflected in my words. But the reflection they’re seeing is distorted by their own emotions and issues over which I have no idea and no control.

“My kids and I fight a lot. But it’s okay, because in the end, no matter what happens, we make up,” this mother told me.

“Okay,” I said. This is what Amy Chua says in her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,  and on her PR tours: Hey, there’s cuddling. There are good times, too.

This mother wasn’t satisfied.  “We’re stronger from the fighting.”

“Okay,” I said.

“But you think fighting is bad. You don’t fight with your kids.”

“No. I don’t.” I was thinking about a blog I’d read recently which had said, I always found a “kid whispering” style worked best for me, i.e treat them as you would like them to be.

I don’t want my kids to be screamers.  I don’t want them to be angry and controlling aggressive people. I never, ever want them to link anger with love.

“So you think I’m wrong to fight with them,” the mother said.

I gave up. She knew what I thought. She’d read Tiger Daughter:

“It’s a terrifying fact of parenting: we have no idea which moments stick and which go by. We can’t choose the moments that our kids will internalize. So how do we act?”

We act as we want them to be. We can’t assume they forgive and forget the screaming just because afterward there’s cuddling. In fact, it’s much more likely that the cuddling after the screaming will have them forever associating love with anger.

Linking these emotions can be so destructive. First, because it’s a sick perversion of love. Second, because we can’t love ourselves unless we are also against ourselves.

But it wasn’t this mother’s fault. I didn’t blame her. A mother who justifies emotional violence because it’s followed by increased love is probably re-enacting a disturbing, destructive pattern from her own childhood.

Anyway, looking into a mirror is hard. It’s much easier to be mad at other people.

That is, after all, what screaming at kids is all about.