The Daily Show’s Olivia Munn Investigates Tiger Mom

By John | Thursday, April 28, 2011 | 3 Comments

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Whether you love or hate author and Yale law professor Amy Chua, better known as ‘Tiger Mom,” she’s definitely become a cultural icon, and has recently even made it on The 2011 TIME 100! (Pretty crazy huh?)

The other night, The Daily Show’s Olivia Munn does quite an entertaining “investigative” piece on being raised by a “Tiger Mom” by interviewing her actual mom and contrasting child rearing philosophy versus traditional “Western” child raising methods with author Christine Carter of Raising Happiness and Ellen Dosick Kaufman of Empowering Your Indigo Children.

Munn argues that you can’t go against Tiger parenting that has been time tested over 6,000 years and with success statistics like these:

Asian American’s Employment by Sector

32% White Collar Professionals
26% Engineers
42% Make Pie Charts for Whites

That last statistic made me laugh and cry at the same time because it hit close to home.

Olivia and her mom have a good dynamic and one wonders if their conversation is truly sincere, part setup in the give-and-take, or everything is done tongue-in-cheek–especially when Olivia frequently alludes to her mom’s past harsh parenting practices, including her beatings.

I wonder what Munn’s mom though about her daughter’s career choice. Munn turned out to be a television personality, actress and model. Would that be a Tiger Mom approved career?Her mom’s accent actually reminds me of my mother’s accent–not that they are alike–but my mom has lived in the United States for over 40 years and makes me imagine that losing a foreign accent in a non-native tongue can be a challenge!

I actually recently finished reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and I’ve been working on my review, which should be coming out sometime soon.

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Facebook Comments (Beta)

tanminhhuynh

I loved the video, but laughed because the mother’s actually speaking VIetnamese.
http://twitter.com/JMattHicks JMattHicks

I’ve heard a lot about Amy Chua, and though I haven’t read her book, I tend to side with her without even having to hear either side of the argument thoroughly. I’d take “Tiger Mom” any day over watching kids make decisions FOR their parents in the supermarket about what that family WILL be eating, tell their mothers to shut-up, or throw a fit the minute they don’t get their way. I wouldn’t be alive today if I did any of those things.

It’s simple: you are the parent, they are the child. They are not, and until they’re out of the house and truly GROWN they will never be anything close to, your equal. Why is that so complicated for so many people?

You know, I think the Tiger Mom may be very similar to the Panther Dad, aka, the black father. (No, that’s not a Black Panther reference or commentary on skin color…okay, maybe it is a comment on skin color.)

You don’t do your chores? You don’t eat until they’re done.

You don’t get satisfactory grades? You don’t have any privileges.

You “act a fool in that school house” (as Panther Dad would say)? You “get ya behind whipped.”

You do something dumb like stick M-1 firecrackers in your moms plant beds and blow them you? You don’t eat until you clean up the plant fragments, you lose your privileges, and THEN you “get ya behind whipped.”

It’s simple cause and effect. And well before I started middle school, I had every ounce of rebellion and smart-mouth whipped out of me and replaced with “the fear of God”, as they say. And I wouldn’t change that for anything.
shorty1489

I think it should be known that the last thing that Mrs. Munn says is not “Sit up straight or you’ll get the refrigerator again.” She actually says, “Stop messing (“making trouble”?) around and let Mommy talk.”

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