““I gave the card back to Lulu. “I don’t want this,” I said. “I want a better one—one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. I have a special box, where I keep all my cards from you and Sophia, and this one can’t go in there… but not good enough either. When I was your age, I wrote poems for my mother on her birthday. I got up early and cleaned the house and made her breakfast,”” (Chua 187).

In “Paper Tigers”, Wesley Yang mentions the high expectations Asian Americans have to live up to and questions whether those expectations set up by their parents can help them to better prepare for the future. Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School graduated from Havard, claims that children are stronger than we think and parents are responsible to motivate them to go further, reaching their full potential. The quote from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother explains how Chua refuses to accept the birthday cards from her two daughters because they don’t fit into her standards. She wants more from them, knowing that they are capable, yet lack a little push. There are complaints but the result, two birthday cards that Chua still has, proves that demanding greater effort in parenting helps the children to achieve. Even though Chua was raised by strict parents but she decided to do the same to her daughters to prevent “family decline”.

Works Cited

Chua, Amy. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Penguin Books; Reprint edition, December 27, 2011.