Your+own+opinion+--+TWO+PARAGRAPHS!


 * AGREE WITH:**
 * Amy Chua obviously loves her children and cares enough about their success that she dedicates many long (and painful!) hours forcing her to practice the piano. No sleepovers, no school plays – just homework and piano and violin. Chua is more drill instructor delivering tough love than mother willing to deliver hugs, kisses, and encouragement. She claims she is this way because kids don’t know what is best for them, and only after long hours of practice does anything become “fun.” Her children did excel in school and in music; Chua’s children are strong examples of “winners” who played music at Carnegie Hall while in high school, and who gained entrance to Harvard University. This was not by accident. Amy Chua invested huge amounts of energy and thought to her parenting, and this comes from her love of her two daughters and desire to see them go as far with what God gave them. **

**DISAGREE WITH:**
 * On the other hand, Chua goes too far in her “driven” ways and risks doing real harm to her daughters, especially when they were younger. Children are vulnerable to abuse and words can be wounding – is there ever an excuse for calling your daughter “fatty” or “garbage”? Maybe some young adults will benefit from such language, but I doubt it. Moreover, there is a place for sustained and hard study in childhood, such as Chua forces on her youngest daughter who has to forgo bathroom breaks before she finishes difficult passages on the piano. But there also needs be time for fun and laughs, such as in sleepovers and extracurriculars. Will Chua’s two daughters look back on their childhood and wish they had more fun? Is there a power and freshness some adults have from having had happy and joyful childhoods that they missed out on? And are Chua’s daughters fully independent adults who can make their own decisions and take the consequences? Or are they only semi-adults who grew up with an overbearing mother? Will they know how to run their own lives? Will they know how to recognize a bad choice, if they have never made bad choices? If they have never been allowed to fail, what will they do when they do fail (and mommy is not around)? **


 * DISAGREE WITH: **