How Jewish Mothers Kick Asian Tiger Mothers' Ass (and Their Kids' Butts too)

After reading Amy Chua's Wall Street Journal article (click blog post title for article), "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior," I coincidentally had my own run-in with Hermione Granger. True to form, Hermione Granger is always right. Life comes easy to her. She masters difficult skills quickly from math to piano to ballet. Her instructors and teachers often remind her how bright and talented she is, reminding her she could be come a "star" in anything she pursued. She has a lot of friends and kids genuinely like her.

Unlike how I spent my childhood, she does not wear headgear, an eye patch or have crazy hair.

Yet, Hermione Granger can't be wrong. During our parent teacher conference, I was told Hermione Granger often corrects her teacher when she has the wrong answer to a problem. "Are you sure you got that right Mr. M?"

This does not make a WASP father proud.

Now that she is studying for an upcoming national exam, she needs to take practice tests on the computer every night, which give her an instant grade and feedback about her progress. When I saw she got a score in the low 80s, I said she'd have to take it again.

"But I passed!'

Then, I pulled the Jewish/Chinese mother shtick, "Life isn't about passing. Do it again."

The tears and screaming persisted for about two hours. She wanted to do something else with her life. Hermione Granger wound up taking each of the practice tests about 4 times. I offered to help. She just screamed and slammed her fingers on the keyboard. I never raised my voice once, but I kept repeating the same thing over and over again, "Do it again until you get the score you are capable of getting." I just reminded her I knew she could do better and that she wouldn't leave the computer until she did.

Needless to say, she wound up getting 100% on the practice tests the first time she took them the next night.

While Jewish mothers would never think of calling their chosen children "garbage," they can nag and annoy their children to achieve a goal like no one else.

You can not break a Jewish mother. They will break you. (It's kind of like how I recently wrangled two Celtic tickets out of the car dealership.)

We are made of much more than challah and matzo ball soup. For the last few months, I was made out of cookies, but fortunately that seems to be changing.