It was when she was 13, not 4. At 13 she is certainly capable of understanding her environment, how she's being raised, and realize she's being raised differently than her friends.
>and realize she's being raised differently than her friends.
I think this is an underappreciated point. It's not that this style of parenting is inherently flawed (aside from the emotional abuse), the biggest factor is that she can see that she's not like her friends and the comparatively easy life that her friends have leads to resentment. I'm sure she would be much better off if she were immersed in the Chinese culture where this style of parenting is typical.
You might think that, but evidence suggests you'd be wrong if the experience of Korean students is anything to go by. As Wikipedia notes in its entry on South Korea's extraordinary suicide rate "In cases of youth suicide, the most common cause is pressure related to the College Scholastic Ability Test."
Indeed, social pressure seems to amplify the pain, rather than minimize it through normalization.
"The obsession with academic success has even given rise to a new expression among young people: "umchinah," or my mother's friend's son – the elusive competitor who excels at everything."
> "I'm not what you want – I'm not Chinese! I don't want to be Chinese. Why can't you get that through your head? I hate the violin. I hate my life. I hate you, and I hate this family!" Her relationship with Lulu in crisis, Chua, finally, thankfully, raises the white flag."
You may be right, but in this incident she's is referring to specific Chinese cultural norms, not the high expectations in her upbringing.
Heh, the point was that emotional abuse ala Amy Chua isn't a necessary component of being a "tiger mom", so considering it without the abuse angle is reasonable. It's obvious that emotional abuse leads to bad outcomes, its not obvious that tiger parenting necessarily does.
