“Tiger Mother” Amy Chua has been a high-traffic news item since the January release of her satirical book on rigid child-rearing, but daughter Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld seems to be catching up.
The high school pianist, who is a major character in Chua’s heavily critiqued memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, started a blog earlier this month titled “New Tiger in Town” to chronicle her daily life and “set the record straight” on Internet rumors about her family. Since the Tiger Mother book launch, Chua has been called monstrous, abusive, and a horrendous parent for demanding perfect grades from her children and forcing them to play instruments of her choice. Chua’s girls have taken heat for their mom’s actions, and many have challenged the strict rules with which the “brainwashed” cubs were raised.
“When the whole world’s calling you a mindless robot, you kind of get the urge to start talking! Even though ‘Sophia’ in the book is much more impressive than Sophia in real life,” Chua-Rubenfeld wrote in a blog post.
Though Chua didn’t allow her two daughters to get anything lower than “A”s in academic courses or have play dates when they were young, Tiger Mother experiences moments of laziness.
“[S]he has a ridiculous amount of energy, but eventually she burns out and collapses in bed,” Chua-Rubenfeld wrote of her mom. “She’ll be like, ‘Sophia, get me my water bottle!’ when it’s on her bedside table.”
The Ivy league-bound blogger isn’t immune to sarcasm either, as she wrote that she would spend university life “[sleeping] all day, [raving] all night. Learn by osmosis.”
Chua-Rubenfeld’s life isn’t all structure all the time, as she’s still uncertain which college major she’ll pursue.
“Absolutely no idea,” Chua-Rubenfeld wrote. “I’m glad I have plenty of time to decide. As of now, I am shying away from Pre-Med, Pre-Law, or Pre-any-other-predetermined-career-path.”
This isn’t Chua-Rubenfeld’s first attempt to explain herself and massage her mother’s image. In the aftermath of Chua’s Wall Street Journal book excerpt backlash, Tiger daughter Chua-Rubenfeld sent a letter to the New York Post titled, “Why I love My Strict Chinese Mom”.
“No outsider can know what our family is really like,” Chua-Rubenfeld wrote. “They don’t hear us cracking up over each other’s jokes… I admit it: Having you as a mother was no tea party. There were some play dates I wish I’d gone to and some piano camps I wish I’d skipped. But now that I’m 18 and about to leave the tiger den, I’m glad you and Daddy raised me the way you did.”
Though Chua-Rubenfeld hasn’t announced her college choice yet, she published a private tweet on Friday, “loved yale. so so much.” Tiger Mother Chua told The Daily Caller last week that her daughter was about to visit Harvard and Yale’s campuses.
In the same interview with TheDC, Chua said she’d meant for her book to be funny, self-deprecating, and satirical. Chua-Rubenfeld shares her mother’s sense of humor, having tweeted on Saturday, “train to boston delayed again. last straw. tiger cub vs amtrak…let the deathmatch begin”.
