THE NEUROTIC PARENT™

Leaked emails between the Neurotic Parent and the Tiger Mom

I must disclose that eleven years ago, I was contacted by Amy Chua, who at the time was already panicked about her young daughters' college admissions chances.  Although her kids were then only six and three, she was desperate to find a surefire way for them to gain acceptance to the top Ivy League schools.  My response to Professor Chua was honest, but a bit unconventional.  I never thought she would go for the radical suggestions I gave her, but as a true Tiger Mom, she followed my advice to the letter, and now it looks as though I might have influenced the course of international parenting history.  Here is the email exchange between us:

Amy Chua <yaletigermom@gmail.com> theneuroticparent@gmail.com Nov 24, 2000 at 3:56 PM Amy Chua

Dear Neurotic Parent,

Perhaps you can help me.  Although I am a superior Chinese mother, I just realized that I have made a terrible parenting mistake.  I forced my daughters to learn the piano and the violin and they are now virtuosos.  However, as you know, the Ivies will be flooded with applications from thousands of other Asian kids who have studied these instruments.  Can you help?

Best regards,
Tiger Mom

neurotic  to Amy

Hi Tiger Mom,

Yes, I'm afraid you have made a serious mistake.  But, no worries.  There is still hope!  Perhaps you should marry a member of an "underrepresented minority" - an Upper Chinook would be perfect.  Then the college admissions committees will probably overlook the fact that your kids have mastered ordinary instruments like the piano and the violin.

Fondly,
The Neurotic Parent

Amy Chua  to me

Oops!  I'm already married to a Jewish guy, (law professor and novelist).  I don't think the the colleges will count him as an "underrepresented" minority.  Any other suggestions?

Tiger Mom

neurotic  to Amy

Okay....How about this?  It's a long shot, but it just might work.  What if you became absurdly strict with your daughters, almost borderline abusive?  You could forbid playdates and sleepovers, and perhaps even burn their stuffed animals if they don't get straight A's.  That would give your girls plenty of material for great college essays, full of lots of conflict.  What do you think?

The Neurotic Parent

Amy Chua  to me

Wow - I may have two degrees from Harvard an endowed chair at Yale Law School, but YOU, Neurotic Parent, are a TRUE genius!  I'll start torturing my children right away.  I will can them "garbage," threaten to throw the three-year old out in the snow, and maybe even give their dollhouses to Goodwill.  That kind of anguished upbringing should produce the most powerful essays ever, guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings of any admissions committee.  I could even publish a memoir about my extreme cruelty....I bet I could get a six-figure advance if I market the book as a quasi parenting manual and link my absurd philosophy to my race.  Then the girls will be able to use the proceeds from the book to pay for college. 

I cannot thank you enough for the brilliant advice, Neurotic Parent.  It will a LOT easier to abuse my children than to have them start all over with less-common instruments like the trombone or the oboe.  You can bet I will be back in touch when they're applying to law school.

Your #1 Fan,
Tiger Mom

Limbo

Dear Neurotic Parents of the Class of '12,

Get prepared for a mass freakout.  Here are the early decision/action results for several Class of '11 applicants mentioned in an earlier post.  As you will note, many ended up with deferrals, a frustrating limbo which means they must wait until April to contract senioritis.  And, even worse, they must keep their fictious Facebook names for a few more months - names like like Annie Goolash, Lucas Schtick and Drew Grit. 

This is probably not a statistically-significant group.  It is just a random selection of nice kids (enrolled in both private and public schools, mostly from CA, two from NY, one from Ohio).  Several of the cases below were absolute shockers - deferrals for kids who have written operas and discovered new planets. 

BU - deferred

Bowdoin1 - accepted

Bowdoin2 - deferred

Brown - deferred

Colorado College - accepted

Duke - accepted

Georgetown - deferred

Kenyon - accepted

Michigan - accepted

Northwestern - rejected

NYU - accepted

Penn (legacy) - accepted

Skidmore - accepted

Stanford1 (legacy) - deferred

Stanford2 (legacy) - deferred

Syracuse (Newhouse) - accepted

Vanderbilt - rejected

Yale (legacy) - deferred

WashU1 - rejected

WashU2 - accepted

Out of twenty, that's ten accepted, three rejected, and seven sentenced to Limbo.  Not really the "bloodbath" that many have mentioned, but neither is it the great relief/edge up that lots of kids envision.  The moral for the Class of '12?  1) Rethink "Early"; 2) Go to ancestry.com and discover you have Inuit relatives; 3) Xanax.

 

 

Appy New Year

Just back from vacation in the Turks and Caicos with three families, our winter travel partners for the last seven years.  The "kids" are now 15-22.  The oldest have graduated college and are very much part of the real world - one works in an art gallery, and the other Teaches for America in inner-city Philadelphia.  Yes, maturity has set in big time, and one even told a story of how her friend presented her parents with their cut-up credit card as a gift on her graduation day.

The trip was a lot of fun, although not as tropical nor cultural as anticipated.  I wish I could say that we unplugged, but at least there was plenty of family bonding doing crosswords online and screening films. 

I also had the opportunity to observe an unexpected new trend:  Thanks to the I-Pad and the multi-generational success of Social Network, a fascinating new role reveral has emerged - The children have become obsessed with getting rich, while the parents just want to have fun. 

Yes, middle-aged guys are now the ones who are now addicted to video games.  In fact, two out of three in our group spent much of the vacation playing Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja.  And, while their dads stared at the screens, the kids spent their time brainstorming how to become billionaires on the internet.