New Tiger in Town: Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld’s Blog

Move aside, Tiger Mom, because Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld is the new tiger in town and she’s telling the world about it with her new blog.

When Amy Chua first exploded into the media with her Wall Street Journal essay “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”, writers across the country questioned her: were her children going to become depressed and become another mental health statistic? Did she expect her views to be emblematic of all Chinese American parents? Was it all just a ploy to generate book sales?

Then, just a few weeks ago, the eldest Tiger Daughter Sophia burst into the news when she was accepted to both Harvard and Yale. Bloggers again focused on Amy Chua, analyzing whether the latest news was just proof that her parenting methods were correct. Even what should have been a happy moment for Sophia herself ended up focusing on her mother’s parenting.

Having seen her mother been so demonized in the media (the Tiger Mother becoming, to live in internet infamy, a meme), it wouldn’t be surprising if her daughters did their best to stay out of the media–especially since Sophia is known to be the “obedient” Chua-Rubenfeld daughter. Instead, Sophia created her own blog, New Tiger in Town, and created an online presence all her own.

Sophia has shattered any expectations I might have had of her after reading her mother’s book. Reading through her posts, she tackles issues about her upbringing head on. In one Q&A with her readers, she defended the book as satire, revealed a hilarious anecdote about her mother being lazy, and set forth her ideas about college all in a few words. Her posts are filled with a sly sense of humor that offer an interesting sense of her personality.

And so what do I think of Sophia? I think she’s a normal Asian American teenager, who is at least outwardly adapted to her mother’s infamy, and with a humanizing sense of humor that rounds out the harsher edges of her mother’s critics. Not being a psychologist, I can’t armchair diagnose her, but she seems to be doing just fine. As a fellow young female (and current college student), I can connect with her. Yes, she has done well academically. Yes, she is musically talented. But she is human.

Sadly, it may still be that on the outside she is doing well while on the inside she is mentally unstable. This, however, is the case for just about every human being. Her mother was harsh (for a while—I’ve read the book and her mother does not defend this parenting style all the way through), but so are many parents. Sophia has learned to deal with at least some of the challenges she is facing today, which I feel is worthy of my respect.